Speaker 1: Welcome to Out of Money. I'm Joel, and today I'm
Speaker 1: talking about parenting like a Millionaire with Christy and Bryce
Speaker 1: from Millennial Revolution. Okay, I don't know it's harder parenting
Speaker 1: or the cost of parenthood. Becoming a dad has been
Speaker 1: one of the greatest adventures of my life. It's taught
Speaker 1: me a lot about myself, It's forced me to grow
Speaker 1: up in some ways I probably needed to, and it's
Speaker 1: given me three additional best buds who bring joy, purpose
Speaker 1: and chaos into my everyday life. But parenthood today it
Speaker 1: feels complicated. Kids, at least in many circles, seem less
Speaker 1: celebrated than they once were, and then financially while raising
Speaker 1: a family can feel more daunting than ever. Between housing,
Speaker 1: childcare activities, the endless activities, and all the other expenses
Speaker 1: that somehow multiply overnight, a lot of parents are asking
Speaker 1: how do we make this work? And that's why I
Speaker 1: wanted to bring Christy and Bryce a Millennial Revolution on
Speaker 1: the show. They've just written a really practical new book,
Speaker 1: parent Like a Millionaire without being one, about raising kids
Speaker 1: thoughtfully and confidently without needing a seven figure bank account.
Speaker 1: Christy and Bryce, thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for having us roll.
Speaker 1: Hi, Glad you're here. Glad you're here. Okay, So first
Speaker 1: question I ask everybody who comes on the show is
Speaker 1: what they like to splurge on wist their craft beer equivalent.
Speaker 1: The boring answers obviously travel. I know you guys travel,
Speaker 1: but you don't spend much money traveling. So what is
Speaker 1: it that you do spend wildly on, maybe while you're
Speaker 1: also being thoughtful in saving investing for your future.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think before kids, it used to be eating out
Speaker 2: as well. I mean there were like we did value
Speaker 2: going out to like next restaurants every now and then,
Speaker 2: like you know, splurging on things that we value and
Speaker 2: not just like the cheapest possible thing. Now, after we've
Speaker 2: had our kid, it seems to have change. I think
Speaker 2: it's more towards what for him, it's splurting on him
Speaker 2: rather than aren't on ourselves. I guess for him, I
Speaker 2: think it's probably still related to travel, but a different sense,
Speaker 2: like travel to be more convenient and more comfortable. So
Speaker 2: for example, we used to just like get off a
Speaker 2: flight and then go on a bus and then go
Speaker 2: to like a cheap hotel, but now with him, it's
Speaker 2: pretty impossible, and you have to worry about nap times.
Speaker 2: You don't want him to be too cranky. So now
Speaker 2: we do splurge on you know, if we need to
Speaker 2: get an expensive hotel that is specifically in the airport
Speaker 2: without us having to travel anywhere, and we could have
Speaker 2: gotten a way cheaper hotel, but for the sake of
Speaker 2: our son and having him be able to go to
Speaker 2: sleep right after like a red eye flight, that's something
Speaker 2: that we would splurge on. So comfort will travel with
Speaker 2: our son, which is something that we would have never
Speaker 2: considered before.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Before we would just yeah, yeah, before we just be like, suck.
Speaker 5: It up and just just just just just figure out
Speaker 5: how to two hund bucks by doing that. Now, Okay,
Speaker 5: there's a difference being travel and enjoyable travel, and that's
Speaker 5: that even if you have to pay more money for
Speaker 5: that is like, it's better if it's enjoyable because you
Speaker 5: want to do it more and he'll have a good time.
Speaker 1: When it's your own discomfort, it's one thing, and when
Speaker 1: it's the discomfort of your kid, it's another. And then
Speaker 1: guess what their discomfort impacts your comfort level? Yes, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: probably what they for money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be your problem regardless, sooner or later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly. You still got to put up with it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we seem like a meaningful decline in birth rates across
Speaker 1: the developed world in your estimation, What role does money
Speaker 1: play in the fact that people are having fewer babies
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely huge. I think one of the articles that
Speaker 2: scares people is the statistics that came out of the
Speaker 2: USDA number which when you adjust it for inflation, it
Speaker 2: costs three hundred thousand dollars per kid to raise them
Speaker 2: to the age of eighteen on average, on.
Speaker 1: Average, and this and how accurate is that headline?
Speaker 2: So what I discovered is the headline scares everyone. But
Speaker 2: what people don't realize is that it's actually when you
Speaker 2: break down the specifics and you look at it, that
Speaker 2: that number is an average and it changes depending on
Speaker 2: how much how high your salary is. So that's for
Speaker 2: the average salary, but if you have a lower salary
Speaker 2: or if you have a higher salary, it's higher than
Speaker 2: that number or lower than that number, which is interesting
Speaker 2: if you think about it, because if you get a raise,
Speaker 2: but then all of a sudden, your cost of raising
Speaker 2: a kid goes up. Does that mean the kid suddenly
Speaker 2: became more expensive because you've got to raise or is
Speaker 2: this just another lifestyle inflation that happens as a result
Speaker 2: of you know, you have more money now, so you're thinking, okay,
Speaker 2: well I might as well spend it on extra I
Speaker 2: don't know, like activities or upgrading going to private school
Speaker 2: or something that is not absolutely necessary. But you think, hey,
Speaker 2: this is you know, I got to keep up with
Speaker 2: the Joneses family style. So there's some additional factor that
Speaker 2: causes that spending to go up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's the when we break down what if we
Speaker 5: break down in our book, is that there is a
Speaker 5: relatively low fixed cost of like Okay, you have to
Speaker 5: feed your gid, you have to clothe your kid, you
Speaker 5: have to get him like you have to give them
Speaker 5: health care and all this kind of stuff. But then
Speaker 5: there's a there's quite a wide range of variable costs
Speaker 5: that can that are layered on top of that. And
Speaker 5: those kinds of costs are choice are choices that the
Speaker 5: parents make, and you don't have to judge the pairents
Speaker 5: of what choices they can make or not make. But
Speaker 5: the point is you do have the option of that,
Speaker 5: and that alleviates I think a lot of people's fears
Speaker 5: of like, oh my god, this kid is going to
Speaker 5: cost much.
Speaker 4: Kids can cost a lot, but they don't have to.
Speaker 1: Well, in the big part of it has to be
Speaker 1: what we deem necessary in the modern American era in
Speaker 1: Canadian area y'all are in Canada. It's what we think
Speaker 1: is a necessity versus what actually is. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: like reading a lot of Western fiction right now and
Speaker 1: growing up on the farm in the American diaspora right
Speaker 1: in Kansas or or something like that, or Montana. It
Speaker 1: just didn't involve a lot of perks. It didn't involve
Speaker 1: buying a lot of stuff, and families had a ton
Speaker 1: of kids often to help out, like on the farm.
Speaker 1: So is part of it just like what we have
Speaker 1: in some ways, I'm really clad that I'm not growing
Speaker 1: up on a farm in Iowa or raising my kids
Speaker 1: or that's not the lifestyle we want to lead. And
Speaker 1: we have a lot more optionality and choice in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six, which is cool, But has that also led
Speaker 1: to an inability to think that we can have kids
Speaker 1: without spending a fortune?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the big baby industrial complex that we like
Speaker 2: to call like baby industrial complex that we like to
Speaker 2: call Big Baby in the book. And what happens is
Speaker 2: as soon as you get pregnant, because you have to
Speaker 2: search about prenatal classes, you have to search for diapers.
Speaker 2: As soon as that happens, it's almost like they're spying
Speaker 2: on what we call it, like spying on my uterus immediately.
Speaker 2: Why is it that I'm getting all these ads for
Speaker 2: stroller expensive strollers, like one thousand dollars strollers, and like
Speaker 2: baby carriers and all these name brand items, and you know,
Speaker 2: you have to give them the best formula. It has
Speaker 2: to have like no sugar, and don't give them similar
Speaker 2: because that's full of sugar and it's gonna be bad
Speaker 2: for them. It's just constantly being bombarded. Parents get constantly
Speaker 2: bombarded with all these things that they need to buy
Speaker 2: because spending more money on your kid equals love. That's
Speaker 2: actually one of the best marketing ploys because it helps
Speaker 2: it makes you feel guilty that you're not spending enough
Speaker 2: money on them. So Big Baby is definitely a big factor,
Speaker 2: and it's much harder to fight against it because there's
Speaker 2: so social media. There's so many influencers trying to sell
Speaker 2: you things. There's a lot of experts saying like this
Speaker 2: is safe and that's not safe, and some of it
Speaker 2: is absolutely true, but some of it is a little
Speaker 2: bit too exaggerated. So it's kind of hard to think
Speaker 2: for yourself when you're bombarded from all these different directions
Speaker 2: about which products are best for your kids, especially in
Speaker 2: the first few years of life when you have the
Speaker 2: most baby gear, and it doesn't really have to be
Speaker 2: this way. One of the things I realized that we
Speaker 2: like to call how to rent baby gear for Free,
Speaker 2: is that you don't have to buy all these things new.
Speaker 2: You can buy it secondhand and then sell it secondhand.
Speaker 2: And that's one of the ways to ride the depreciation curve,
Speaker 2: because baby gear is one of the things that depreciate
Speaker 2: faster than anything, faster than electronics, faster than cars. And
Speaker 2: a lot of the reason is because babies outgrow gear
Speaker 2: very quickly, and a lot of the times you buy
Speaker 2: this fancy crib and you're like, oh, I'm going to
Speaker 2: use this a really long time, or bascinet, and then
Speaker 2: my son the one that I bought it was it's
Speaker 2: like a Halo three sixty, which is one of these
Speaker 2: basinets that helps when you have a c section, so
Speaker 2: that you don't have to reach down. You can like
Speaker 2: push down part of the basinet and reach your baby easily.
Speaker 2: He outgrew that in two months. And the new price
Speaker 2: for this bacinet is three hundred dollars. I got it
Speaker 2: off Facebook marketplace for thirty five dollars, and then I
Speaker 2: was able to sell it for sixty five dollars because
Speaker 2: there were so many people asking for that and it
Speaker 2: was way underprice.
Speaker 4: You flip that baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're working a
Speaker 4: profit off of that.
Speaker 5: What we actually, what we realize is that if like
Speaker 5: it's like there isn't there is an instinct to try
Speaker 5: to get stuff as cheaply as possible if you are.
Speaker 3: Really looking out for your budget.
Speaker 5: But when it comes to baby gear, it's the opposite
Speaker 5: instinct that works, which is you want to find high end,
Speaker 5: name brand baby gear that will hold its value and
Speaker 5: you want to buy that, and you want to find
Speaker 5: ones that are like, you know, used for like less
Speaker 5: than a year kind of thing, and you obviously want
Speaker 5: to make.
Speaker 3: Sure that it's safe.
Speaker 5: There's you know, we recommend that you always look for
Speaker 5: if there's recall notices for certain for certain times, like
Speaker 5: cribs for example, that that's really important that you just
Speaker 5: make sure that there's no like real that they haven't
Speaker 5: found any problems with it. But if you can do that,
Speaker 5: then because the secondary market is so because the secondary
Speaker 5: market for those items is so broad and liquid, you
Speaker 5: can buy and sell into the same market and just
Speaker 5: basically just rent it for just the tiny slice of
Speaker 5: time that you're using that gear and then just release
Speaker 5: it back into the wild so that somebody else can
Speaker 5: enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, you just have to get over that belief that
Speaker 1: buying the new the new items, spending more money equates
Speaker 1: to you being a better parent, love and your kid.
Speaker 3: More, exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: And that's and that's just a and that is I
Speaker 5: had to, I had to, you know, my head off
Speaker 5: to all those genius marketers who came up with that.
Speaker 5: It's like, there's the two marketing messages that that that
Speaker 5: we constantly have.
Speaker 3: To fight against.
Speaker 5: Is one is real estate is never a bad deal
Speaker 5: because it not making more because you're a loser if
Speaker 5: you rent. And the second is spending more money means
Speaker 5: you love your kid more. Those are genius, like whoever
Speaker 5: came up with those things, just like, nah, right, it's
Speaker 5: not true, but it's but it's but it's very difficult
Speaker 5: to push back on them. But if you are successfully
Speaker 5: able to do that, then a lot of these assumptions
Speaker 5: that we all kind of have, like you know, baby
Speaker 5: gear is supposed to be expensive, it turns out that
Speaker 5: they don't have to be true at all.
Speaker 1: I feel like you guys are also pushing back against
Speaker 1: a kind of a cultural narrative that having kids is
Speaker 1: just for rich people, which it never used to be,
Speaker 1: Like for as long as I've remembered, like that's never
Speaker 1: been a thing, but it seems like just in the
Speaker 1: last five five or so years that's kind of become.
Speaker 1: There's there's a new focus on this. I mentioned it
Speaker 1: actually last week in an interview because my guest had
Speaker 1: seven has seven kids, and I was asking if he
Speaker 1: had seen that as like a trope or and he
Speaker 1: was like, no, I actually, I actually I haven't even
Speaker 1: seen that. But I feel like I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of young people being like, man, if you can have
Speaker 1: four plus kids, you're rich, Like well done, that's the
Speaker 1: new status symbol instead of driving the fancy car, Is
Speaker 1: that overblown. I'm curious to hear your take. Is that
Speaker 1: just like a nihilistic take from young people who aren't
Speaker 1: sure that they want to have kids, or do you
Speaker 1: feel like having a kid? No, it is kind of
Speaker 1: like a success symbol at this point because you got
Speaker 1: to have the money to be able to pay for
Speaker 1: that baby.
Speaker 2: Yes or no, I will say there's definitely systemic issues.
Speaker 2: For example, daycare is very, very expensive, and you have
Speaker 2: to be very strategic about it. I mean, we can't
Speaker 2: talk about having kids without talking about daycare. But the
Speaker 2: thing is, what people don't realize is that daycare is
Speaker 2: not a forever cost. But when you're a parent for
Speaker 2: the first time, it scares you when you get that
Speaker 2: big bill and you were thinking, oh my god, I'm like,
Speaker 2: this is like the cost of a mortgage if I
Speaker 2: have multiple kids, and how am I going to be
Speaker 2: able to afford this? And you're thinking about this forever?
Speaker 2: But really, daycare is for five years until they go
Speaker 2: to public school. They go to kindergarten, and it's also
Speaker 2: graduated in that as your kid gets older at different
Speaker 2: stages in their life, it becomes less expensive. So, for example,
Speaker 2: from zero to eighteen months because the caregiver ratio. You
Speaker 2: have to have a higher number of caregivers per kid
Speaker 2: because they're much younger and they have higher needs. It's
Speaker 2: more expensive in the beginning, and it kind of levels
Speaker 2: off later on because then you don't need as many
Speaker 2: caregivers per child. So when you get to the age
Speaker 2: of two and a half, for our kid, it's like
Speaker 2: the ratio drops from four kids per one caregiver to
Speaker 2: six or eight kids per one caregivers. That makes it
Speaker 2: more less expensive for centers to run, and then it
Speaker 2: reduces your cost. So there's like a scale for the
Speaker 2: cost that is not obvious when you first look into
Speaker 2: daycare costs. There's also hybrid options for childcare. That's something
Speaker 2: that people can look into. So for example, one of
Speaker 2: the things that we used is a co working space
Speaker 2: that is combined with daycare. And this was not really
Speaker 2: that popular at all until the pandemic. So pandemic created
Speaker 2: a lot of intuitive, like new ways for childcare and
Speaker 2: to take care of kids that didn't exist before. So
Speaker 2: this one is good for people who have more of
Speaker 2: a like flexible work schedule in which they don't have
Speaker 2: to pay for an entire year. They can just pay
Speaker 2: for childcare whenever they need it. So for example, if
Speaker 2: you're a creator, like an influencer or something like that,
Speaker 2: who has chunks of time, I need a month in
Speaker 2: which I need childcare, and then I can take a
Speaker 2: month off and then like a few days here a week.
Speaker 2: So lets you customize and choose how much you want
Speaker 2: to pay per hour rather than the entire year. And
Speaker 2: then in addition to that, geographic arbitrage has also opened
Speaker 2: up ways to basically do world schooling with kids. One
Speaker 2: of the things we did was we traveled in Spain
Speaker 2: for three months and we found daycare for our sun
Speaker 2: and the cost was significantly lower, which kind of blew
Speaker 2: my mind because the average cost in the States per
Speaker 2: day for childcare is about eighty US dollars per day.
Speaker 2: We looked in Spain it was thirty six US dollars
Speaker 2: per day. I actually thought that was a typo at first,
Speaker 2: because I said, you mean thirty six per hour, and
Speaker 2: then they said, no, the entire day and includes food.
Speaker 2: And then they have they have chefs on site, they
Speaker 2: have a doctor, they have a nurse, they have a
Speaker 2: childs psychiatrist. And I was just like, what, why are
Speaker 2: we paying so much? Money in North America, and this
Speaker 2: is Spain. Like it's not Mexico, it's not Thailand, right,
Speaker 2: it's Spain.
Speaker 3: Right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just a it's a British run international
Speaker 2: daycare in Valencia. So there's different ways to combine, like
Speaker 2: hybrid solutions for childcare that didn't exist before. And even
Speaker 2: if you don't have the flexibility in your job and
Speaker 2: you're just really scared about this childcare cost, for people
Speaker 2: who are thinking about having kids, know that it is
Speaker 2: not a forever cost and it is a scale depending
Speaker 2: on how old your child is. As they need less
Speaker 2: care because they become more independent, the ratios get better
Speaker 2: and it becomes less expensive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So to go back to original question, you know
Speaker 5: this this is uh, it absolutely is like a trope
Speaker 5: that like I haven't heard so much that children are
Speaker 5: like a success symbol or anything like that, but I
Speaker 5: definitely do hear a lot of like I can better
Speaker 5: take care of myself. They're like, there's no way I
Speaker 5: can afford to have kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, like it's like the income instability that that we
Speaker 5: are facing now is much much worse than than it
Speaker 5: used to be when we were you know, when we
Speaker 5: were graduating and looking for jobs. Now AI is kind
Speaker 5: of like now there's so much like there's so much
Speaker 5: flux in all these different industries, and there's so much
Speaker 5: like change that's happening in which people are people and
Speaker 5: in entire industries are shedding jobs like crazy that people
Speaker 5: are rightfully asking, I can't, like, how can I afford
Speaker 5: to have kids if we if we can't, if we
Speaker 5: can't depend on our jobs, which is you know, kind
Speaker 5: of why we wrote this book because we wanted to show, hey,
Speaker 5: there are knobs that you can turn, daycare being one
Speaker 5: of the one of the most important ones.
Speaker 1: One of the other knobs you highlight in the book
Speaker 1: is the when it comes to the space we live
Speaker 1: in and people assume having got to start looking for
Speaker 1: that upgraded apartment, you know, and you guys have stayed
Speaker 1: in a one bedroom apartment, right, is there just is
Speaker 1: there too much pressure to upgrade living conditions, up increase
Speaker 1: your home size, which adds a lot of cost to
Speaker 1: the monthly budget. I mean, that's usually the number one
Speaker 1: line on them in people's in people's budget. And if
Speaker 1: you can keep that smaller for longer, that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Or people just feeling the pressure to upgrade even though
Speaker 1: they don't need to, Like having a baby doesn't necessitate.
Speaker 5: That, oh yeah when people have when as soon as
Speaker 5: people get pregnant, they start like shopping for a home, right,
Speaker 5: that kind of thing, and then they're going to go, well,
Speaker 5: I can't even rent anymore because you know, like that's
Speaker 5: so we were so we were living in a one
Speaker 5: bedroom apartment for the first two years of his life.
Speaker 4: We now upgraded to a three bedroom apartment.
Speaker 5: But we're still renting, right, I mean, like it's like
Speaker 5: there is a huge pressure to like buy once you
Speaker 5: become a once you become a parent, because there's this
Speaker 5: you know, siren song of like stability and you need,
Speaker 5: you know, the kids need a stable home and that
Speaker 5: kind of stuff, and renting as seen as an inherently
Speaker 5: unstable But what we what we've discovered is that if
Speaker 5: you're a strategic about the type of places that you rent,
Speaker 5: that can be just as stable or sometimes even more
Speaker 5: stable than a home that you buy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it makes sense to run the math,
Speaker 2: like it might make sense if you have enough kids
Speaker 2: that like buying is the correct solution, but it's it's
Speaker 2: better to actually do the math rather than just immediately
Speaker 2: assume I have a family, therefore I must have I
Speaker 2: must buy a house therefore to give them stability. Otherwise
Speaker 2: I'm a bad parent. So it's again that emotional pull
Speaker 2: of like you know comes from a right place, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't necessarily mean that's the best for your family.
Speaker 2: You need to stop in a way. And also people
Speaker 2: don't realize that in the very first two years of life,
Speaker 2: your kid does not need that much space at all,
Speaker 2: Like they're just a blog. They don't really take up
Speaker 2: that much space. And a lot of the times the
Speaker 2: recommendation is to co room, like not co sleep, but
Speaker 2: cod room for the first year because it's safer to
Speaker 2: avoid sudden infant death syndrome, so that you can actually
Speaker 2: watch for them at nighttime and take care of them.
Speaker 2: For me, I was breastfeeding, so it made it a
Speaker 2: lot easier that we were in the same room. If
Speaker 2: I had multiple rooms in the beginning, it wouldn't have
Speaker 2: many difference because I would have just been in his
Speaker 2: room breastfeeding him and at nighttime like sleeping next to
Speaker 2: him without being in the same bed. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of nuance to that. When people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you need to upgrade. Yes, you might need to later on,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't have to happen all at once. The
Speaker 2: first two years of life, they don't really take up
Speaker 2: that much space and they're not running around, so you
Speaker 2: don't really need like an extra room for their toys
Speaker 2: or playroom. It's a conscious choice. You can do that,
Speaker 2: but you don't actually have to. And I will say
Speaker 2: that the pressure to buy a home when you're a
Speaker 2: couple is nothing compared the pressure to buy a home
Speaker 2: when you're a family. That's next level pressure because there's
Speaker 2: always questions about like what about the school district, and
Speaker 2: like what about your friends, and what about the community.
Speaker 2: And the partment that we lived in, we had no
Speaker 2: problem building community, Like we went to the same playground
Speaker 2: as someone the other families where our kids met with
Speaker 2: their kids to hang out. There was a lot of
Speaker 2: public services around that we could go swimming with him
Speaker 2: and then other people's kids. The fact that we were
Speaker 2: renting instead of buying in that neighborhood made no difference whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And the place that we live in right now, it
Speaker 2: actually kind of feels even better as a rental because
Speaker 2: we have this common yard for all their kids to
Speaker 2: come play with. And on the weekends, he has all
Speaker 2: these built in friendships just from like other people in
Speaker 2: the building. When they hear him playing, they come out
Speaker 2: and they join him. And we bought like a bunch
Speaker 2: of shared toys that we could keep on our balcony
Speaker 2: and we bring it out and it's like six or
Speaker 2: seven kids that he likes to play with, and all
Speaker 2: these adults that we've made friends with just because we're
Speaker 2: sharing a backyard and our friends are getting our kids
Speaker 2: are getting along really well and hanging out together. So
Speaker 2: you don't absolutely necessarily have to buy a place. You can,
Speaker 2: but there are options, and it makes more sense to
Speaker 2: strategically think about it rather than just automatically default to
Speaker 2: the societal belief that once you have a family, you
Speaker 2: must buy a home.
Speaker 1: You mentioned briefly childcare as one of those costs that's
Speaker 1: been going up, and it's one hundred percent true, Like
Speaker 1: when you look at an inflation chart, like, hey, my
Speaker 1: smartphone and TV have gotten cheaper, but childcare and healthcare
Speaker 1: have gotten more expensive, and those are really expensive line
Speaker 1: items anyway, So in some ways, like there are increased
Speaker 1: costs that face people in twenty twenty six that maybe
Speaker 1: weren't nearly as difficult to cope with fifteen twenty thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. And I don't see any signs of that abating,
Speaker 1: like childcare costs going back to and becoming like Spain,
Speaker 1: at least here in North America, at least nothing that
Speaker 1: I've seen. Less maybe, like you know, Elon Musk's robots
Speaker 1: are created, you know, changing diapers or something like that.
Speaker 1: We'll see how that pans out. But one of the
Speaker 1: things you highlight in the book too, is that that
Speaker 1: idea of geographic arbitrage, even inside of the United States,
Speaker 1: how costs are not the same and in fact you
Speaker 1: can save a lot of money. Childcare is much cheaper
Speaker 1: in South Dakota, for instance, than it is in California.
Speaker 1: And how do you think then about because it's your
Speaker 1: loath to get people to move oftentimes, right, especially if
Speaker 1: they've got family close by, family can mean free childcare.
Speaker 1: But how should people think about the idea of actually
Speaker 1: it might be cheaper to raise a family if we
Speaker 1: move to another part of the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think they do have to evaluate. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like you said, it's not just pick up and move,
Speaker 2: even if they have a job that lesson be remote
Speaker 2: they do have to assess with or it makes sense
Speaker 2: to be close to family and all that. But I
Speaker 2: once again, child care costs are not forever, so it
Speaker 2: really does make sense to think about it, like from
Speaker 2: a long term perspective, like does this make sense for
Speaker 2: your family after childcare is over? If I'm just making
Speaker 2: that decision now because childcare is really expensive, and then
Speaker 2: I may not be making like going to the cheapest
Speaker 2: place for childcare, but then over the long term, I
Speaker 2: might be missing out on something. It's like an equation
Speaker 2: that is not just financially based. That's a very big
Speaker 2: part of it, but there's also like other factors to consider,
Speaker 2: So I would look I would suggest that people look
Speaker 2: at it from like a big picture point of view,
Speaker 2: look at the financial piece, and then look at what's
Speaker 2: best for your family, and look at whether you have
Speaker 2: a village there or not, because like you said, that
Speaker 2: can reduce childcare costs significantly. And then also factor in,
Speaker 2: like I said, the fact that when they get older,
Speaker 2: they're going to need less childcare as time goes on.
Speaker 2: It's not just like the same fixed cost the entire time.
Speaker 2: And yeah, like see if there is any other place
Speaker 2: that has multiple factors that you would be happy with,
Speaker 2: or just where if you have to buy the bullet
Speaker 2: and you have to stay where you are because it's
Speaker 2: too much effort to move your entire family. Know that
Speaker 2: childcare cost is not forever, and eventually you'll be able
Speaker 2: to make up that cost from your entire lifetime like
Speaker 2: lifetol in the entire lifetime career earnings.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like it's a similar discussion when especially
Speaker 1: let's say someone's having one of my buddies has four
Speaker 1: kids six and under, and that is the kind of
Speaker 1: time we're having a parent who stays home. Depending on
Speaker 1: a ton of different things, right, but like and every
Speaker 1: family is different, but that can be the most financially
Speaker 1: beneficial decision, right to forego one income, but to also
Speaker 1: save on a whole host of childcare expenses, bring your
Speaker 1: tax right down. Like, there's a whole bunch of things
Speaker 1: you're doing by having one parent stay at home. It's
Speaker 1: obviously not just a financial decision. But what kind of
Speaker 1: discussions do you think makes sense to have when couples
Speaker 1: are talking about, Hey, we're having kids, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: we're gonna have two or three over the course of
Speaker 1: a handful of years, should one should one parents stay
Speaker 1: home and be with the kids.
Speaker 5: It's important to kind of look at what the impact
Speaker 5: of that would be on like your lifetime earnings kind
Speaker 5: of thing, and not just over that and not just
Speaker 5: owing that over that difficult period of time in which
Speaker 5: you are having to deal with like multiple uh, multiple
Speaker 5: kids in daycare or and stuff like that. And that's
Speaker 5: because and that's because even if it is like especially
Speaker 5: if you have a career gap of like more than
Speaker 5: like a couple of years, it is difficult to kind
Speaker 5: of come out of the workforce and then come back
Speaker 5: into it. So you are giving up so you are
Speaker 5: giving up that earning potential going forward like basically for
Speaker 5: the next twenty years. So you do have to run
Speaker 5: so you do have to just whip up a spreadsheet
Speaker 5: and then kind of run the math on how that
Speaker 5: would be and how that would work. When you're talking
Speaker 5: about four kids with in the how are when you're
Speaker 5: talking about like more kids that are in that in
Speaker 5: that daycare range, the math does become more and more
Speaker 5: more and more dire for for daycare costs. Although that
Speaker 5: being said, when you have that many kids, you can scale.
Speaker 5: There are options that you can do. For example, hiring
Speaker 5: a nanny would make a lot more sense in paying
Speaker 5: daycare because daycare is per head versus a nanny would
Speaker 5: be just would not like it doesn't like for a nanny,
Speaker 5: nanny's cost doesn't don't double when you have two kids.
Speaker 1: Maybe nanny sharing with neighbors who have kids of a
Speaker 1: similar age. That's another way, right to reduce that cost
Speaker 1: of childcare too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, like a lot of a
Speaker 5: lot of childcare back in back in a kind of
Speaker 5: a less like city based or capitalist society was based
Speaker 5: off of It was based off of social capital. I mean,
Speaker 5: like Christie when she was growing up in a rural
Speaker 5: village in China, there were you know, there were childminders
Speaker 5: that were just that was a designated job in the
Speaker 5: in the village, and then people would drop off their
Speaker 5: people would drop off their kids with their neighbor's house
Speaker 5: and at their neighbor's house, and everyone would just kind
Speaker 5: of like watch each other's kids in kind of like
Speaker 5: this informal commune kind of style thing. When you commercialize that,
Speaker 5: we've kind of somewhat lost that, We kind of lost
Speaker 5: that sense of community in North America.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about Canada and America as well.
Speaker 5: Where we've basically we basically commercialized every every relationship and
Speaker 5: said I would do this for you if you pay
Speaker 5: me in that kind of thing. And that's where things
Speaker 5: get really really complicated and really really expensive. But if
Speaker 5: you were to kind of take some of that, say,
Speaker 5: take some of those lessons from the you know, a
Speaker 5: more social capital based bartering system, then there are agreements
Speaker 5: that you can come up with. For example, and nanny
Speaker 5: shares a great example of one in which you take
Speaker 5: hire one nanny and then you pull the kids from
Speaker 5: multi one or two families together wants to get to
Speaker 5: take more advantage of economies of scale. You can also
Speaker 5: do things like babysitting co ops where you know, a
Speaker 5: bunch of families like come up with an agreement that
Speaker 5: is like Okay, I'll watch your kid on Monday, and
Speaker 5: then you watch my kid on Tuesday, and then that
Speaker 5: kind of thing, so that people kind of share the
Speaker 5: share the labor amongst each other in a non commercialized
Speaker 5: way and more of like a barter system, more a
Speaker 5: vout your system. So there are ways of doing that.
Speaker 5: And if things get really expensive, I always kind of
Speaker 5: go look, look to see if there's kind of like
Speaker 5: a barter way, like like a bartering version of what
Speaker 5: you're trying to accomplish here, because because the situation that
Speaker 5: you are facing, odds are many other families that are
Speaker 5: right nearby you are also facing that same situation. If
Speaker 5: you pull your resources, these these problems become a lot
Speaker 5: easier to fix.
Speaker 2: I just want to mention even with nanny sharing, there's
Speaker 2: like three different flavors from what we from our experience.
Speaker 2: One is you could hire a nanny for multiple kids,
Speaker 2: so then for each kid it doesn't scale. It's not
Speaker 2: two x, it's maybe like five to ten dollars more
Speaker 2: per hour. Another way is nanny sharing where it's another
Speaker 2: family who only needs it two days a week and
Speaker 2: you need it three days a week, so you kind
Speaker 2: of have the nanny like you drop off your kid
Speaker 2: at their house on certain days and they drop the
Speaker 2: kid at your house, and the nanny is watching them
Speaker 2: on separate days depending on your work schedule. And then
Speaker 2: the third one that's really interesting is that you yourself
Speaker 2: become the nanny, so you're watching your kid, but then
Speaker 2: someone else brings their child and then you get paid
Speaker 2: to watch your watch someone else's child while also taking
Speaker 2: care of your own, So you're getting paid essentially watch
Speaker 2: your child.
Speaker 1: So even with nanny sharing, there's different feat the same.
Speaker 2: Time exactly while teaching them lessons of sharing and like
Speaker 2: basically it's like having a sibling, So there's different ways
Speaker 2: of nanny sharing as well. So there's actually so when
Speaker 2: people think about childcare, it's not just like daycare or
Speaker 2: nanny there's different flavors that people have come up with
Speaker 2: or maybe a combination of that, and then the babysitting
Speaker 2: co op that Brice was just mentioning, and then if
Speaker 2: the math works out, sometimes it makes sense to actually
Speaker 2: stay working even if your salary is being eaten up
Speaker 2: would have been, or your salary is being eaten up
Speaker 2: by daycare or childcare, because over the long term trajectory
Speaker 2: of your career, you'll be able to make up that
Speaker 2: money and more, because again daycare is not a forever cost.
Speaker 2: So there's actually quite a different, many different angles to
Speaker 2: look at this equation. It's not just like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to show out this money and there's no
Speaker 2: other options. So I would advise like thinking about what's
Speaker 2: best for your family, thinking about whether it makes for you,
Speaker 2: it makes sense for you to stay in your career,
Speaker 2: So even if you don't want to sacrifice your career,
Speaker 2: you may not have to. The math may actually work
Speaker 2: in your favor, even though it doesn't seem like it
Speaker 2: in the beginning. And then if you want to consider
Speaker 2: nanny share, there's many different variety varieties of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, we're not here.
Speaker 5: We're not here to tell people, like what the right
Speaker 5: choices for their family because I have no idea.
Speaker 3: We're here to give people options because and a lot
Speaker 3: of people do options.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people don't realize how many different styles that and
Speaker 5: like how many different configurations of childcare and daycare and
Speaker 5: families that there are out there, and you can pick
Speaker 5: and choose the one that really makes no sense.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, that makes the no sense to you.
Speaker 1: And oftentimes you've seen one thing and you're or maybe two,
Speaker 1: like you just don't know the breadth of options that
Speaker 1: exist that could maybe give you fit your family better.
Speaker 1: So I think that's great. There's a lot more I
Speaker 1: want to get to with you, including what it looks
Speaker 1: like to become financially independent as parents. What is it like,
Speaker 1: what should our thought would be about generational wealth. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about those kind of concepts with y'all.
Speaker 1: Right after this our we're back from the break, still
Speaker 1: talking with Christy and Bryce. We're talking about what it
Speaker 1: looks like to parent and not maybe fall flat on
Speaker 1: your face financially at the same time. And I guess
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know your thoughts about let's start with
Speaker 1: generational wealth. I think this is such a there's even
Speaker 1: more pressure on parents now than ever to think about
Speaker 1: setting your kid up for success. And it's gone beyond
Speaker 1: just like getting your kid into a great college and
Speaker 1: thinking about that at the age of three, and now
Speaker 1: it's like, do I need to save and invest on
Speaker 1: their behalf so that they're a millionaire by the time
Speaker 1: you know, they're in their thirties or forties. I think
Speaker 1: there's especially in this personal finance podcast Realm, it can
Speaker 1: even add right to that sort of sense of obligation
Speaker 1: and duty that parents have when it comes to stuarding
Speaker 1: their own money, but also for the next generation. What
Speaker 1: do you guys think about that and what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts about building generational wealth for your child?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a delicate balance because one hand,
Speaker 2: you want them to be safe, you want them to
Speaker 2: not have to stress out about money, but you also
Speaker 2: don't want them to, you know, have a free ride
Speaker 2: in which they don't have to have any skin in
Speaker 2: the game, and then they don't really learn how to
Speaker 2: manage money. So no matter how much money you give
Speaker 2: to them, it'll just all of a sudden be spent
Speaker 2: rather than invested. One lesson that I found was very
Speaker 2: valuable that came from my parents, And this was out
Speaker 2: of necessity, not by choice. Just because I grew up
Speaker 2: poor and we didn't have a lot of money, was
Speaker 2: giving me the autonomy to make family money decisions. So,
Speaker 2: for example, my my parents could only afford a secondhand car,
Speaker 2: but because that was such an interest, Like once I
Speaker 2: learned about the depreciation of cars, it was such an interesting,
Speaker 2: like mathematical problem for me. I think I was around
Speaker 2: like ten at the time that I was looking through
Speaker 2: all these like auto trader magazines and trying to optimize
Speaker 2: for like gas, like optimizing for a like mileage, and
Speaker 2: like the age of the car and how much it costs,
Speaker 2: and like how long it's going to last, and how
Speaker 2: expensive insurance is and because I because they gave me
Speaker 2: the autonomy to pick a family car even though I
Speaker 2: was only ten, and they didn't say, oh, what the
Speaker 2: heck do you know like MOVESI well, the parents are
Speaker 2: doing the work once I found them a couple options
Speaker 2: and they're like, hey, that actually works, that we might
Speaker 2: actually buy this. You actually did the work to optimize
Speaker 2: the math on this. They actually bought the car.
Speaker 1: That family got a Lamborghini right exactly.
Speaker 4: What I think.
Speaker 2: It was like a Honda Civic or something like a
Speaker 2: very practical, practical That was the lame. I was super
Speaker 2: lame anyway, So I was very lame. No, I had nothing.
Speaker 4: I was very lame.
Speaker 2: I even picked the most safest color that was like
Speaker 2: good for insurance. And it was a very weird lame
Speaker 2: kid at ten. But because but because of that, that
Speaker 2: experience having autonomy to pick my family's car, I think
Speaker 2: that that was a very strong lesson that I took
Speaker 2: going forward, which is, hey, I you know this, finances
Speaker 2: are important and there is not an unlimited amount of money,
Speaker 2: and that I like what I think matters. So I
Speaker 2: think we're going to try that with our kid. Give
Speaker 2: him some autonomy to make decisions. For the family plan
Speaker 2: some of the like maybe help us take care of bills,
Speaker 2: maybe plan a family vacation. Maybe eventually if we need
Speaker 2: to buy a car, like help us buy the secondhand
Speaker 2: family car. Whatever it is that makes him feel valued
Speaker 2: and useful when it comes to financial decisions, I think
Speaker 2: that will help him manage any money going forward that
Speaker 2: we invest for him.
Speaker 1: Would Yeah, I mean, like it is it kind of like,
Speaker 1: are you guys taking more of the approach of like
Speaker 1: teach my kid to fish and not just catch the
Speaker 1: fish exactly. I mean, I'm sure it's in some ways,
Speaker 1: like saving up a little is not unwise, but like, man,
Speaker 1: there's just it's so pressure filled. I think for parents
Speaker 1: now we've just added even even more onto our shoulders.
Speaker 1: When and it's like, how am I going to be
Speaker 1: able to have a kid and build generational wealth for
Speaker 1: them while saving for my own retirement and said, well,
Speaker 1: you're just putting too much on your plate, And there's
Speaker 1: no you don't need You can take some of that
Speaker 1: off and still you know, and have a kid and
Speaker 1: this can be in a enjoyable experience.
Speaker 5: The goal, the goal of building generational wealth. While admirable,
Speaker 5: it like that is something that keeps us up at night,
Speaker 5: which is, you know, we could make our kid a
Speaker 5: millionaire tomorrow, but if we did, he would buy all
Speaker 5: the ice cream and then get diabetes and then like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's like, it's not this is one of
Speaker 5: those situations where it's like, I'm not I'm not convinced
Speaker 5: that this is something that's worth stressing out over because
Speaker 5: even if you like, because it's like, this is one
Speaker 5: of giving your kid generational wealth might be one of
Speaker 5: those things where you spend a lot of money and
Speaker 5: get a worse result. So I'm not at all convinced
Speaker 5: that that's like a worthwhile goal to pursue. We want
Speaker 5: to we want to reward like skill and skill with
Speaker 5: managing money rather than just hand them a whole bunch
Speaker 5: of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how important is passive income in the parent like
Speaker 1: a millionaire equation? You guys had done obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of what You've written a book right about saving and
Speaker 1: investing becoming millionaires. And and you know, Christy, last time
Speaker 1: we talked, you know, you you shared your story of
Speaker 1: growing up in poverty in rural China and and then
Speaker 1: just kind of man the overcoming those those trials of
Speaker 1: living in an immigrant family in Canada, I'm curious, like,
Speaker 1: as people who frontloaded the sacrifice in so many ways,
Speaker 1: your outliers right when it comes to to parenting, but
Speaker 1: having tons of financial resources because you work so dang
Speaker 1: hard in those early years. Yeah, how does the way
Speaker 1: you guys are living in parenting? What what can people
Speaker 1: learn from that, even if maybe they don't have a
Speaker 1: seven figure investment account right to tap to ease some
Speaker 1: of the stresses and pains of parenting.
Speaker 5: Sure, because what we discovered, what we realized that when
Speaker 5: we came parents, is that every parent, no matter how
Speaker 5: rich or poor they are, they're all all poor in
Speaker 5: the one resource that matters, which is time.
Speaker 2: We're all like time doesn't matter how much money you have,
Speaker 2: we're all time poor.
Speaker 1: As parents and sleep poor often.
Speaker 4: Too, sleep which is a function of that.
Speaker 5: So so passive income becomes really really important because because
Speaker 5: it allows you to kind of it allows you to
Speaker 5: free up time in your schedule that you would have
Speaker 5: to worry about, like like like working and building and
Speaker 5: working to pay for some expense in order to be
Speaker 5: more focused and actually think about what is best for
Speaker 5: the kid. But what I want to emphasize here is
Speaker 5: that that passive income is not something that you require
Speaker 5: a million dollars to have. Passive income is something that
Speaker 5: you can build in micro like blocks over over time.
Speaker 5: So one example that we'd love to that would like
Speaker 5: to tell is, you know, when you're a new parent,
Speaker 5: one of the expenses that are very visceral to you
Speaker 5: or diapers, uh so every unless you are using disposable
Speaker 5: not sorry, misusposable reusable diapers cloth diapers, which is like
Speaker 5: not not for me, thank you, but.
Speaker 1: I tried and I stopped at one point. We'll leave
Speaker 1: it there.
Speaker 3: We'll just move past that.
Speaker 5: But diapers is like a recurring cost that you have
Speaker 5: for the first you know, for the first three four
Speaker 5: years of the kid's life, until their party trained.
Speaker 3: But uh, if you can, but if you can, but
Speaker 3: imagine how cool.
Speaker 5: It would be if that cost was just eliminated from
Speaker 5: your life forever. You wouldn't have to worry about the
Speaker 5: cost of diapers. You wouldn't have to worry about the
Speaker 5: cost of diapers and ands. And we work out the
Speaker 5: math in the book. The investing enough money to passively
Speaker 5: pay for just that one cost is not as insurmountable
Speaker 5: as as people think. I think it's something like, uh,
Speaker 5: like maybe like a thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Or something like that.
Speaker 5: But just if you were able to but if you're
Speaker 5: able to invest, if you're able to invest that in
Speaker 5: low cost index funds, just the same wins that we
Speaker 5: used to retire, you can you can start benefiting from
Speaker 5: this passive income like now, and you can do and
Speaker 5: just being able to take that one expense off your plate,
Speaker 5: the one thing that you no longer have to worry
Speaker 5: about is such like it's such like this, like weight
Speaker 5: lifted off your shoulders, because then you then you can
Speaker 5: take that time and then go and then look at
Speaker 5: and then worry about something else, right and then work
Speaker 5: on the next thing that you work on the next
Speaker 5: thing that you are you know, dealing with right now.
Speaker 5: So yeah, like passive income is kind of like a
Speaker 5: snowball where you get like a little like where you
Speaker 5: start getting a taste of a little bit of it.
Speaker 5: Then you kind of want more, and then when you
Speaker 5: when you realise how the machine works, then you want
Speaker 5: to build more and more passive income so that it
Speaker 5: passifies more and more of your of your baby expenses,
Speaker 5: until eventually the entire thing is is until until eventually
Speaker 5: the entire thing is passive and then that's not something
Speaker 5: you have to worry about anymore.
Speaker 2: I think passive income is one of the best things
Speaker 2: ever because it uses time, the map of time and compounding,
Speaker 2: and what happens is when you have to, like, for example,
Speaker 2: when you have to work out, like you need to
Speaker 2: put a lot of effort in it. You need to
Speaker 2: care about what you're eating, and it takes months of
Speaker 2: effort to eventually be fit and to be lean and healthy.
Speaker 2: You don't just wake up one day fit. But what's
Speaker 2: magical about passive income is you can invest a small
Speaker 2: amount of money over a long period of time. In
Speaker 2: your thirties, you invest a few thousand dollars a year
Speaker 2: and you just keep going every single year, and then
Speaker 2: thirty years later, because of magic of compounding and using
Speaker 2: index funds, you can wake up a millionaire. Like that
Speaker 2: would never happen with anything else. Can you imagine, like
Speaker 2: you don't have to go to the gym, You just
Speaker 2: think about fitness and then do a little bit of
Speaker 2: like passive stuff, and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 2: wake up thirty years later and you're like super buffed
Speaker 2: and fit. No if you have to put more effort,
Speaker 2: if only right. But the magic of passive income is
Speaker 2: that you can put money in, forget about it, wake up,
Speaker 2: and then you become a millionaire. It does the work
Speaker 2: for you, which is one of the things that completely
Speaker 2: blows my mind, especially giving you said, given my background,
Speaker 2: someone who grew up in poverty, I'm not familiar with
Speaker 2: this concept of investing. I was terrified of it in
Speaker 2: the beginning. I was terrified of the stock market. I
Speaker 2: thought that you could only buy a home in order
Speaker 2: to become wealthy. I thought that only gold, things that
Speaker 2: were tangible worth anything, and everything else was dangerous. But
Speaker 2: now that I have been retired for ten years, the
Speaker 2: magic of passive income and the magic of compounding has
Speaker 2: really blew my mind. That whole concept of you could
Speaker 2: put the money, forget it, wake up decades later and
Speaker 2: become a millionaire better than any kind of workout plan
Speaker 2: because you could never just not care about it and
Speaker 2: then wake up.
Speaker 1: Buff And I agree. It's just not like if someone's
Speaker 1: looking to pay for their diapers, they're not waiting thirty
Speaker 1: years for their index funds to crue those compounding returns.
Speaker 1: And that's why I do like what you're saying bryce
Speaker 1: about kind of the micro microblocks, Like, oh, think about
Speaker 1: it's trying to mass enough to be able to pay
Speaker 1: for the diapers, right, and that might be something that
Speaker 1: I could do in a year and a half of
Speaker 1: dedicated investing, I can cover the diapers. Then with just
Speaker 1: the returns. I'm getting that that they're being split off
Speaker 1: from those those index funds. I guess that that. My
Speaker 1: question right now is what about someone who what would
Speaker 1: you say to someone who would come to you who's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I really want to have kids. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm financially prepared. I feel like the biological clock is ticking.
Speaker 1: I want to get the family started. How do I
Speaker 1: need to financially prepare so that I'm actually ready? Like
Speaker 1: is there a certain amount of passive income they need
Speaker 1: to have socked away before they can really start building
Speaker 1: a family or is is it not quite that simple?
Speaker 5: I think that, Uh, I you know, I don't want
Speaker 5: to I don't want to put like a number for
Speaker 5: like you need to have this much in order to
Speaker 5: have kids, because you know what, if you want if
Speaker 5: there is a biological clock ticking, you do want to
Speaker 5: get like it does you do want to get you
Speaker 5: do want to get a move on that, because eventually,
Speaker 5: like things to sart become really expensive and really difficult
Speaker 5: after that.
Speaker 1: But or impossible or impossible unfortunately. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But.
Speaker 5: What we just want to tell people is that having
Speaker 5: a kid it does not need to be as expensive
Speaker 5: as people make it out to be. And there are
Speaker 5: techniques and there are tips and techniques that you can
Speaker 5: use to make that a lot cheaper like once you're
Speaker 5: in it. So it's not something that so I don't
Speaker 5: I don't want to make I don't want to scare
Speaker 5: people and say you need to have this much money
Speaker 5: before having kids.
Speaker 4: It's like you can have the kid and then and then.
Speaker 5: And then figure it out. But and because there are
Speaker 5: ways to make kids cheaper, and there are ways to
Speaker 5: boost your income, and there are ways to use passive
Speaker 5: income to make everything easier. But do what's right for
Speaker 5: your family first and then worry about the finances.
Speaker 1: But we can help and if you can do more
Speaker 1: on the front end, if you can think about what
Speaker 1: your goals are years in advance, like you're let's say
Speaker 1: you're twenty five, and you're like, I want to start
Speaker 1: having kids at buy thirty, Like you can start to
Speaker 1: kind of think ahead about that now and you don't
Speaker 1: have to wait until you're thirty to be like, all right,
Speaker 1: how am I going to pay for this kid? You know,
Speaker 1: you really can start advance and you're going to be
Speaker 1: less stressed and more you're to have more financial resources
Speaker 1: at your disposal if you've taken that approach versus just
Speaker 1: kind of waiting until you go to your first ultrasound
Speaker 1: appointment and you're like, yes, you should start saving for
Speaker 1: this little guy. I'm curious how has becoming a parent
Speaker 1: changed the way you two think about, like adulting necessities
Speaker 1: which also come at a cost, right, So, like life insurance,
Speaker 1: creating a will, those things come along with having a kid.
Speaker 1: Are those necessities? And are those I think people traditionally
Speaker 1: think about those as kind of expensive realities of entering parenthood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely something we never had to think about
Speaker 2: until we had kids. We had to think about having
Speaker 2: a will, even though though it's not fun. We had
Speaker 2: to think about life insurance. But there's a different way
Speaker 2: to think about life insurance that regular people don't think about,
Speaker 2: which is something we learned from becoming financially indepenant, which is.
Speaker 5: If you are financially inpenant, you don't actually need life insurance.
Speaker 5: So the whole passive. So this is kind of one
Speaker 5: of those things where it's like one of like the
Speaker 5: work that you do in one field actually kind of
Speaker 5: like like like helps in another completely unrelated thing. So
Speaker 5: the more passive income you have, the less you need
Speaker 5: life insurance. Because what life insurance does is it if
Speaker 5: something happens to the breadwinner, it takes care of that.
Speaker 5: It basically ensures that person's earnings and make sure that
Speaker 5: the families not left destitute, that they still have a
Speaker 5: bunch of money coming in. But if you're financially independent,
Speaker 5: the more passive income you have, the less dependent you
Speaker 5: are in your job, and the less dependent you are
Speaker 5: in your job, the less you need to the less
Speaker 5: you need to ensure that, the less you need to
Speaker 5: ensure that those earnings from you know something bad happening
Speaker 5: to you. So what we discovered is that the idea
Speaker 5: of financial independence and parenting and for this example of
Speaker 5: life insurance, they kind of interplay off of each other.
Speaker 5: When you are completely dependent on your job, you need
Speaker 5: to ensure like you basically need to buy whole life
Speaker 5: insurance or something like that.
Speaker 3: But if you're but.
Speaker 5: If you're gradually working your way your way towards financial independence,
Speaker 5: you don't need to buy a whole life insurance. You
Speaker 5: can buy term insurance based on how long you are
Speaker 5: projecting for how long you think it will take for
Speaker 5: you to become financially independent, and as you get closer
Speaker 5: your For example, if your portfolio can take care of
Speaker 5: half of your living living expenses, what the other half
Speaker 5: is taking care of your job, you only need to
Speaker 5: ensure half as much of your earnings over the remaining
Speaker 5: period of time that you're working.
Speaker 3: Towards financial independence.
Speaker 5: And if you are completely financially independent, meaning that your
Speaker 5: passive income takes care of your living expenses completely, you
Speaker 5: don't you can just drop life insurance because you're you know,
Speaker 5: your portfolio is paying for your living expenses. Even if
Speaker 5: you drop dead, that portfolio will still be there. So
Speaker 5: it acts as a way as it acts as a
Speaker 5: as a self insurance, if you will. So, like that's
Speaker 5: a great example of something that if you kind of
Speaker 5: understand how all these pieces like kind of fit together,
Speaker 5: you can find synergies and efficiencies that make things a lot.
Speaker 3: Cheaper than you think.
Speaker 5: So in this case, in this case, life insurance is
Speaker 5: something that we don't We thought about and then realize
Speaker 5: we don't need, so we don't have it.
Speaker 2: So it's like scale factor again. It changes over time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can. It's cool. You can buy less insurance.
Speaker 1: You can buy insurance for a shorter time period, or
Speaker 1: if you are at the point where you've built up
Speaker 1: enough in assets, you can skip that insurance altogether. Or
Speaker 1: even when it comes to making a will, I think
Speaker 1: some people have like over they've they've overcomplicated uh and
Speaker 1: and made it seem like it's more expensive than it
Speaker 1: needs to be. And there's all these great services now
Speaker 1: that'll you can create a will online that's perfectly legally
Speaker 1: valid and covers you in the ways you need to
Speaker 1: be covered for your pennies on the dollar of what
Speaker 1: it used to cost, which is pretty cool. So that's
Speaker 1: what I always like. Technology has made that a lot
Speaker 1: easier too. I want to get into some of how
Speaker 1: becoming million millionaires and and how that changes your experience
Speaker 1: of parenting. I want to get to a few more
Speaker 1: questions with with Christy and Bryce will get into that
Speaker 1: right after this we're back. I'm still talking with Christy
Speaker 1: and Brice. We're talking about parenting and gosh, of course
Speaker 1: parenting not not cheap, but it's also not as expensive
Speaker 1: as some people make it out to be. That three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars headline number that we see touted once
Speaker 1: a year when the new USDA number comes out. Christy
Speaker 1: U demystified that a little bit, and I think there's
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of truth to the fact
Speaker 1: that we've overblown how much it costs to have kids.
Speaker 1: That also, by the way, that headline number includes the
Speaker 1: cost of paying for their college, right, isn't that involved
Speaker 1: in that number?
Speaker 2: I think it doesn't actually include there's like additional cost.
Speaker 2: It doesn't include the college college charrier. That's why people
Speaker 2: are terrified.
Speaker 1: So the average cost of college people estimate at what's
Speaker 1: something like eighty thousand dollars at least right now, and
Speaker 1: although that's going up, and that's again that's another thing
Speaker 1: I think that parents put on themselves. Do you guys,
Speaker 1: are you guy We talked about generational wealth, but are
Speaker 1: y'all saving for your son's college? Do you think that's
Speaker 1: an imperative? I think of that as like a a
Speaker 1: back burner sort of financial goal that if you've got
Speaker 1: extra good go for it. But for most people, like
Speaker 1: that's another burden you're putting on yourself to say for
Speaker 1: your kid's future when there's so many ways to pay
Speaker 1: for college and you don't even know if your kid's
Speaker 1: going to go want to go to college.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing with AI coming the fact that
Speaker 2: the world has changed because of AI and ten years
Speaker 2: ago software engineering was the golden ticket to winning at
Speaker 2: life in terms of getting a lucrative salary, but that
Speaker 2: is no longer the case. So if with you know,
Speaker 2: with university so far down the road, like we don't
Speaker 2: know what's going to happen by then, so do you
Speaker 2: what is it that you want to save for and
Speaker 2: do you really need that much money for them to
Speaker 2: go to college? What if you get an associate degree
Speaker 2: and you go into the trades. That's what some one
Speaker 2: of the things we talked about in our first book
Speaker 2: in which it may not make sense to be a
Speaker 2: doctor compared to being someone in the trades because financial independence,
Speaker 2: you can actually get too faster by being a plumber
Speaker 2: instead of being a doctor. And the same thing applies
Speaker 2: here with college, do you really need to go to college?
Speaker 2: Or is community community college the way to go and
Speaker 2: then you transition that into a college degree later. There's
Speaker 2: many different options. And the whole eight hundred thousand number,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like the three hundred thousand number two.
Speaker 2: It's eight hundred eighty thousand dollars. The numbers that seems
Speaker 2: to be coming out. It really is just an average,
Speaker 2: and it really depends on each individual and where they live.
Speaker 2: So just taking one scary number and trying to apply
Speaker 2: it to every single person doesn't make sense. And also,
Speaker 2: with the world changing so fast, we have more options
Speaker 2: than ever. It's becoming very easy to become an entrepreneur
Speaker 2: compared to before. You don't need to hire an entire team,
Speaker 2: you don't need to hire multiple developers, so there's many
Speaker 2: different ways to make an income that didn't exist before
Speaker 2: as well. So I think being flexible with college costs
Speaker 2: and not just being attached to the idea that they
Speaker 2: have to be a doctor, engineer or a lawyer, because
Speaker 2: guess what, software engineer not exactly the lucrative field that
Speaker 2: it used to be, not that it's completely disappearing, but
Speaker 2: being open to different ways for them to earn a living.
Speaker 2: I think that's what we're doing. We're not saying that
Speaker 2: he has to be doing the exact same thing that
Speaker 2: we did taking the engineering path. Maybe he wants to
Speaker 2: go into trades, maybe he wants to be an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: Just being open minded and not having to save a
Speaker 2: significant amount of money for his college costs because he
Speaker 2: may not ever need it.
Speaker 1: I want to know how becoming millionaires has changed your
Speaker 1: experience of parenting versus what you think it would have
Speaker 1: been like had you not saved up very much. And
Speaker 1: I'm also curious to know because like there is, let's
Speaker 1: be honest, in this personal finance podcast fire area of life,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like over optimization that happens for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and people miss out on important
Speaker 1: experiences because they're so focused on getting their finances in
Speaker 1: ship shape that maybe they delay something that they otherwise
Speaker 1: would really enjoy. So like is now that you're seeing
Speaker 1: it as parents? You and I we talked about this
Speaker 1: right before we started recording, how it changes you in
Speaker 1: so many ways, and it's like the greatest thing ever
Speaker 1: right to have a kit. It's incredible, Like I've got
Speaker 1: three if I could go back and do it over,
Speaker 1: I would have more and pretty long in the tooth.
Speaker 1: I think that ship has sailed for me. But do
Speaker 1: you think does any part of you think that you
Speaker 1: optimize your finances too much before diving into parenthood. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I know that's a little bit personal, but I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: I think financial independance is not just like the aspect
Speaker 2: of it is not the retire early now that we
Speaker 2: realized after becoming parents. It's the having options part that
Speaker 2: changes the entire game. And before we used to think, okay,
Speaker 2: financial independence lets us quit our job and travel the world.
Speaker 2: Now it's financial independence lets us buy back our time
Speaker 2: so that we can do what we want with it,
Speaker 2: which is right now is raising our kid. And you
Speaker 2: don't even have to have the full financial indepenence amount
Speaker 2: because we talked about how important passive income is and
Speaker 2: even if you buy a small amount of time back
Speaker 2: with passive income, it lets you do so much more
Speaker 2: with seeing your kid grow up and not miss those milestones.
Speaker 2: And just basically, because now we're in our forties and
Speaker 2: when we first retire we're in our thirties, we're seeing
Speaker 2: there's a lot of life events that happen that completely
Speaker 2: change our perspective. One of the things that happened after
Speaker 2: we became financially independent is that we lost my father
Speaker 2: in law, which is Spies, his dad cancer, and that
Speaker 2: kind of changed our entire perspective about this whole buying
Speaker 2: your time back and what it means compared to be for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was right around there.
Speaker 5: It was right around in like twenty twenty when the
Speaker 5: pandemic was first kind of like becoming a thing. And
Speaker 5: then I found out that my dad was diagnosed with
Speaker 5: brain cancer, a terminal brain cancer, and that's when so
Speaker 5: we uh so we were dealing with all that masking
Speaker 5: and all the and all the social distancing and all
Speaker 5: that kind of stuff at the same time I was
Speaker 5: dealing with my dad going through this very devastating disease.
Speaker 5: And what I realized then that that was when I
Speaker 5: realized the really true value of financial independence, which is
Speaker 5: which has allowed us to kind of be fully present
Speaker 5: for the you know, the last couple of years of
Speaker 5: my dad's life. We basically kind of moved into my
Speaker 5: mom's house and to to kind of to take to take.
Speaker 3: Care of him.
Speaker 5: We were doing shifts with my sisters and my mom
Speaker 5: and making sure that he you know, as disease progressed,
Speaker 5: he needed like twenty four hour care, so we needed
Speaker 5: to make sure that somebody was always there to make
Speaker 5: sure that he was okay.
Speaker 3: And we had the.
Speaker 5: Luxury of being able to do that because we had
Speaker 5: done this whole financial independence journey, like you know, years
Speaker 5: before and and the and that was also the time
Speaker 5: that Christie was pregnant, so it was like we it
Speaker 5: was like it was a very rough transition for for
Speaker 5: me and the rest of my family as well, because
Speaker 5: I was at the same time losing my dad and
Speaker 5: then and then becoming a dad at the same time
Speaker 5: his his his memorial service was actually the same day
Speaker 5: as her due date, so it was like they were
Speaker 5: just really just kind of jammed together.
Speaker 3: So it was a very.
Speaker 5: Very painful transition for me. But I don't know how
Speaker 5: I would have been able to handle that if I
Speaker 5: had to also worry about, you know, a job is
Speaker 5: about you know, my job as well. So I'm internally
Speaker 5: grateful that I did that at the time. And that
Speaker 5: was where financial independence became the the like the real
Speaker 5: benefits of it came into stark relief and then after
Speaker 5: my son was born, I was figuring out us being
Speaker 5: able to kind of be there and and you know,
Speaker 5: double team this new problem and figure out how all
Speaker 5: this kind of parenting stuff worked at the same time,
Speaker 5: and that was invaluable as well. So I think the
Speaker 5: gift that financial independence and becoming a millionaire's back back
Speaker 5: when we were in our thirties gave us is the
Speaker 5: gift of time, and time is what allowed us to
Speaker 5: kind of figure out like how all this stuff works
Speaker 5: without going crazy. So yeah, it was, it was. It
Speaker 5: was a huge deal. It was like a that was
Speaker 5: like the biggest change I think for us. And because
Speaker 5: we had the time to make that transition, we were
Speaker 5: also had the time to then, you know, kind of
Speaker 5: like figure out all the different ways that you can
Speaker 5: optimize and all the different things that you that you
Speaker 5: can that you can do as a parent that to
Speaker 5: give your kid the same or better results for less money.
Speaker 5: We had the time to actually figure all that stuff
Speaker 5: out and turn it into a book, where whereas if
Speaker 5: we were if both of us were working, we would
Speaker 5: have just been in and go go go survival the
Speaker 5: entire time, and we wouldn't have to we wouldn't have
Speaker 5: time to even notice any of these things. So becoming
Speaker 5: financially appendent kind of gave us that flexibility and that
Speaker 5: freedom to figure out how to make parenting, I hope,
Speaker 5: easier for everybody else.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of what we ended up doing. Well.
Speaker 1: I so appreciate you sharing that, Bryce, and that's man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you had to go through that. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: And you're highlighting just something that I think gets lost
Speaker 1: sometimes in just the acronym fire or the way we
Speaker 1: talk about financial independence, and I think that fact we've
Speaker 1: highlighted how it exists on a spectrum and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be all or nothing, and it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: having to quit work, but it does give you, especially
Speaker 1: for those important, those important moments in life, and you
Speaker 1: never know what's going to come down the pike, right
Speaker 1: whether something's going to happen to a parent, whether you're
Speaker 1: growing your family, and it just gives you the ability
Speaker 1: to lean into those moments by not having to worry
Speaker 1: constantly about money and that next paycheck you know, coming
Speaker 1: through on that Friday, so that you can so that
Speaker 1: you can pay the bills right that next week. And and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think that is that is one of
Speaker 1: the best reasons to pursue financial independence, so you have
Speaker 1: that optionality. Thank you guys so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed our conversation. Where can how the money
Speaker 1: listeners find out more about your new book?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go to www dot Millennial, dash Revolution
Speaker 2: dot com and then you can hit the contact us
Speaker 2: link and then you can you know, if you have
Speaker 2: any questions, we'd be happy to answer any of your questions.
Speaker 2: We have the links to buy the book. You can
Speaker 2: basically buy it wherever books are sold. And we also
Speaker 2: have a free workshop to help as many people as
Speaker 2: possible learn how to invest for step by step kind
Speaker 2: of the way that we did because we want we
Speaker 2: believe that financial education is a right, not a privilege,
Speaker 2: So feel free to follow a on on that workshop
Speaker 2: as well, and we look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1: Love it, Christy, Bryce, Thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thankvank you so much for having us all.
Speaker 1: Right, so good to talk with Christy and Bryce and gosh,
Speaker 1: they just put so much thought and effort into what
Speaker 1: it looks like to reach financial independence and now their
Speaker 1: parents and they're like, this is a little harder to
Speaker 1: figure out. There's not as much of a recipe, but
Speaker 1: the way they're talking about parenting and what it looks like,
Speaker 1: I think really just helping make it more financially approachable
Speaker 1: for people because we have built up and over indexed.
Speaker 1: I think the costs of having kids in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six it scares a lot of people off and they're like,
Speaker 1: how am I going to be able to raise kids
Speaker 1: on my income? And it is going to take some
Speaker 1: shifting around. But it's not nearly as bad as as
Speaker 1: it sounds. And the headline numbers might make you think,
Speaker 1: I love what when they talk about big baby and
Speaker 1: how expensive, how spending more and buying the new stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's just like that's the way forward, right, No,
Speaker 1: Like Chris, you talk about buying that bascinet and flipping
Speaker 1: it and making money. There are ways too. I got
Speaker 1: a lot agree for this, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: I would recommend it, because I mean, I got so
Speaker 1: much grief for buying a used car seat for my
Speaker 1: child when they were little. Most people would be like,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible thing, and maybe they're right, but like,
Speaker 1: there are expiration dates on car seats, don't put your
Speaker 1: kid in an expired car seat. But like, there are
Speaker 1: all of these ways to save on items for your
Speaker 1: kids that the marketing doesn't want you to consider. So
Speaker 1: I think outside the box. I think is more one
Speaker 1: thing to consider, and spending more on your baby does
Speaker 1: not equal loving them more. And I think we just
Speaker 1: also overthink our needs. Going back to kind of what
Speaker 1: we talked about at the beginning of the conversation, we
Speaker 1: have just a different expectation and mindset for what it
Speaker 1: looks like to live a good life in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: And in some ways that's awesome because it means we
Speaker 1: live in a culture of abundance, and yet at the
Speaker 1: same time time we can think that we need more
Speaker 1: than we do, and it causes us to spend more
Speaker 1: than we actually have in search of this lifestyle that
Speaker 1: we see on social media or on TV, or that
Speaker 1: some of the people around us are living, not knowing
Speaker 1: whether or not they're going into debt to live that lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And so it can be really expensive to have kids,
Speaker 1: or it can be not terribly expensive at all, depends
Speaker 1: on your approach. And just I love too that one
Speaker 1: thing that Christy said about involving your kids in financial decisions.
Speaker 1: As a ten year old being allowed to help make
Speaker 1: the decision about what car their family bought, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Teaching your kids how to handle money instead of feeling
Speaker 1: like you have to save up a bunch of money
Speaker 1: for them. That's another win for you and it's a
Speaker 1: win for them.
Speaker 3: All Right.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this episode. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always for listening. You can find the show notes up
Speaker 1: on our website at howtomoney dot com. Until next time,
Speaker 1: best Friend Out.