Meet Dr. Jay Zigmont

[00:00:00] Jay: We start with the life stuff. And what ends up happening is if you don’t start with the life stuff, you can make a financial plan that works and completely miss the life. And clients have gotten used to this, and my two cents on this, and we’re doing some work on studying this… Clients sign up for the financial stuff; they stay for the life and behavioral stuff.

[00:00:24] Linzy: Welcome to the Money Skills for Therapists podcast, where we answer this question: how can therapists and health practitioners go from money shame and confusion to feeling calm and confident about their finances, and get money really working for them in both their private practice and their lives? I’m your host, Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money, coach and creator of the course Money Skills for Therapists.

[00:00:43] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Dr. Jay Zigmont. Jay is the founder and CEO of Childfree Wealth, which is a life and financial planning firm that helps childfree and permanently childless people. Childfree Wealth is the first life and financial planning firm dedicated specifically to childfree people.

[00:01:06] And our conversation today gets into being childfree and the specifics of money that come from being childfree, but also very quickly deviates, probably because I myself am not childfree, into like the bigger questions of meaning and purpose and kind of those philosophical questions that can come up of what money is for and what it can do for us when we are not just focused on obligation, right?

[00:01:31] So something Jay and I talk about today is folks who are childfree don’t have that default project, right, of just like providing for their kids, and trying to give their kids the best in life, and trying to leave a legacy for their kids, and because they don’t have that project, they have the question to ask themselves, I think, much sooner than folks who have children can or do: what is my purpose?

[00:01:52] What can money do for me? What do I actually want in my life? What brings me joy? And so Jay and I today talk about some of the similarities in our approaches. He comes from an education background. I come from a social work, trauma therapy background, but different language to talk about some of the same things, the way that he supports their clients in taking care of the behavioral and personal, the life parts of money to allow them to learn.

[00:02:15] And yeah, these bigger questions that money brings up about life, kind of spiritual questions about meaning, and purpose, and what creates for a satisfying life. Here’s my conversation with Dr. Jay Zigmont.

[00:02:42] Linzy: So Jay, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:45] Jay: Thanks for having me.

[00:02:47] Linzy: I’m excited to have you. We were just chatting off mic, of course, before we got started, about, you know, we’re coming from different worlds and different language, but kind of helping people with the same, the same issues with different language, different scripts. So can you tell folks who are listening a little bit about your background and what you do?

[00:03:06] Jay: Yeah, so I’m one of those weird people that come to finance from not finance, you know, so I came out of actually healthcare and academia and my PhD is in adult learning. So I’m really on the learning side. And the way I say it is we are a learning organization that does financial planning. We help people learn how to do their finances, not necessarily do it for them.

[00:03:22] And that’s a little shift because a lot of the investment stuff is like, Oh, we’ll just take care of it all for you. And that doesn’t work. And I specialize in helping people who are childfree and, just from a definition standpoint, those are people who don’t have kids, aren’t planning on kids ever childfree tends to be by choice, childless not by choice, but you know the bottom line is kids are never part of the picture, and that’s about 20 to 25 percent of the population. And most people go, I have no clue that that is that larger percentage… or because of that population, it has unique concerns, unique issues, and really we do a lot of work on life planning as much as we do financial planning because they’re following a different life script.

[00:04:01] Linzy: Absolutely. And I mean, I love your emphasis on learning, first of all, to jump back to that point and what you said, because I feel similarly, like there are so many financial professionals that are like, “I’ll take care of that. You just give that to me,” right? And what I see with folks who I tend to support, who can be really avoidant of money, is that can be very enticing to be like, “Oh, they’re just going to take care of it for me.” right. But like that has a lot of long term consequences. And you mentioned that doesn’t tend to work. Can you tell me what you’ve seen doesn’t work about that approach?

[00:04:32] Jay: Yeah, so the approach we use is actually called “advice only.” We give them advice, and they do it. We’re going to start offering some investment management, but really we’re just trying to do some paperwork for people. But what we’re trying to argue is you have to learn about money at some point in your life.

[00:04:47] And I’m in the U. S., and in the U. S. we do a terrible job teaching people about money… I mean, the only thing I learned in high school was how to balance a checkbook, which is a giant waste of time. And we do a terrible job at this, and then we expect people to be able to do it. And I’ve worked with a lot of folks, and I’m more on the coaching side, looking forward, but I was working with somebody who’s a social worker, and I asked her, how do you split the work?

[00:05:11] You know, how much work can you do? And she said it this way. She said, “Look, if a client’s not willing to do at least 50 percent of the work, I can’t help them.” And she’s right, but I’m like, well, then why in the world, in the financial world, can we do 90 percent of the world? We can’t. Like the actual data on this says somewhere around 80 percent of your success with finances is behavioral.

[00:05:31] It’s your mental models, your ways of thinking. 20 percent is your numbers. But most financial planners, most investment managers, others, spend 90 percent of their time on the numbers. And might talk about one behavioral issue. Like the CFP, Certified Financial Planner, actually 10 percent of the content is around behaviors.

[00:05:49] And I’m like, No! This is missing it because, you know, I can help you work on a financial plan. We can do all the numbers. But if you don’t change your money mindset, you’re lost. And I don’t necessarily mean saving more money. We spend more time with our clients talking about spending money than saving money, which really seems weird, but you’ve got to learn all of it in order to feel comfortable and having more money is not going to make you more comfortable with money. You have to work on your mindset.

[00:06:17] Linzy: Absolutely. And, you know, I love you pointing that out because my partner and I worked with a financial coach. I’m Canadian. We worked with a Canadian money coach a few years ago when we were, you know… my business was still building and like we were having kids, we were thinking about having another kid, you know, which we’ll talk more about all of this in a minute. but what I noticed is I wanted someone who could help us… kind of do for us what I do for other people, which is help you dig in and be like, “Okay, well, what, what matters? And why are you doing what you do? And like, what are you looking for when you’re spending this kind of money?” And I got none of that. And I felt so dissatisfied. And then I felt disappointed with the service we got, even though she did kind of what she promised, which was make us a plan. But when we would look at numbers, she’s like, “Well, you have to make more or spend less.” I’m like, oh, really? Brilliant. Thank you so much. Mind blown. Because I think she just didn’t have the training. She didn’t have the training to actually help us dig into, okay, what’s happening here? And how do you work within your situation as it is right now, and how do you think about how your situation is going to change, and how do you align your money with your needs at the moment, and like, put things in perspective, like, all of these things are so important, and as you say, like this is that, like, important 80 percent that actually makes the numbers work, and yet so much of the financial world, it’s just all spreadsheets, all numbers, all the time, but that’s not what life is.

[00:07:38] Jay: Well, and part of that has to do with incentives. So mostly investment management folks are paid a percentage of assets or something along those lines. So their incentive is to sell products or bring assets in. That’s it. I come out of the coaching world and our model, we actually meet with clients on a monthly basis

[00:07:54] usually. You know, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. It is much closer to a therapy practice where it’s like, “Hey, we’re going to work on one to two issues at a time. We’re not going to overwhelm you. We’re going to work on what’s key to you and we’re going to build your plan over time as you get there,” rather than, “Hey, let me drop a plan on your desk and you know, here’s 150 pages and like, good luck.”

[00:08:13] And some of my colleagues, and it’s been interesting, they’re like, really? Clients want to talk to you that much? I’m like, they always have something to talk about. And now mind you, we have childfree folks and they tend to have a lot more flexibility in their life. And they change their goals every week, it seems.

[00:08:27] So it is part of the audience. But, what I find is people come to us and go, Well, I don’t, you know, first couple of meetings, I don’t know if I’m going to have enough to talk about. And then we’re two years later, and they’re like, Oh, so this came up, and this, you know, now I’m taking my parents, I’m letting them do it.

[00:08:41] I’m like, cool. There’s always something, and we’re able to do that. And one of the really interesting things where you are, is it’s like this discussion with couples, of like, hey, sometimes I can say things to a couple, you’ve been saying to each other forever that’s just not heard. And I can call things out.

[00:08:57] You know, I was having a discussion yesterday with somebody. We have a lot of couples that have large age gaps. So when you have somebody like, say, seven, ten years age gap, at some point, somebody’s going to be living ten years without the other person. And that impacts your finances, impacts your thoughts around it, estate planning, long term care.

[00:09:14] And people are like, well, I just don’t want to talk about it. I’m like, well, no, you have to. Like, this is not an option. You have to, especially with childfree folks who don’t have next of kin to make decisions for them. You have to figure that out and we can have those tough conversations. Well, the thing with the financial world is there’s not really an incentive to dive into those tough ones in the normal model.

[00:09:34] We charge an annual fee; we get paid for our time. We don’t get paid by products. So yes, our structure is there, but that is a rarity.

[00:09:42] Linzy: Yeah, it is a rarity, and I would say, my opinion is it’s essential. I personally do not share with my audience any financial planners who are actually just selling you products. Because as you say, like those important conversations that are actually going to impact the way that money works for you in your life,… the traditional financial planning model doesn’t actually pay people to do that work with you, nor does it actually train them to do that work, right? But it’s like, as you say, like, they’re being paid to sell you a certain product, they get a certain percentage of, you know, assets under management or whatever, but it’s just not what they do.

[00:10:15] That’s just not what they offer. And so, you know, I appreciate you and folks who are doing the kind of work that you’re doing where you are just being clear of like, this is what we are offering you, this is how much it costs, because then you can have those actual important conversations that make a change, that help people change the way that they’re relating and spending their money because like… I love spreadsheets. I love me a good spreadsheet, but it doesn’t actually solve Interpersonal or emotional or just those big existential issues like you’re talking about like one day You will probably live without your partner.

[00:10:47] What is that going to look like? Those are scary things to talk about, and a spreadsheet doesn’t actually do that for you.

[00:10:53] Jay: Absolutely. And this group will understand. I’m going to take you behind the scenes. I don’t usually talk about this. We’re training people to do this. We’ve got people we call childfree wealth specialists. And I’ve been working with my staff on building the next generation of people to do this and, you know, taking on more clients.

[00:11:08] And one of the things we’ve been talking about is we have about an hour with a client and how do we set an agenda? And how do you like to work this through? And we always say a client brings one or two things to talk about; we bring one or two. So we try to prepare for two or three things in case they don’t have anything that day.

[00:11:24] If you’ve worked in a therapy world, you know, sometimes clients walk in with things, you’re like, “Alright, that was not on the list, and we’re going there!” But what I’ve been trying to explain is how do we do this? And one of the frames we come up with is for our three things, the number one is a life or behavioral component.

[00:11:38] So what are they, what’s the big picture they’re working on? Number two is kind of like we, a little bit of the homework stuff. Like, oh, we have got to get these accounts done, the paperwork done. Like just, that’s the financial stuff. And number three is we have what we call, an annual calendar.

[00:11:53] We have like, Oh, in February we’re working on taxes… and you know, one, whatever it is. But we start with the life stuff. And what ends up happening is if you don’t start with the life stuff, you can make a financial plan that works and completely miss the life. And clients have gotten used to this, and my two cents on this, and we’re doing some work on the, on studying this.

[00:12:14] Clients sign up for the financial stuff, they stay for the life and behavioral stuff. And We have clients, you know, that’ll say, this felt like a therapy session and, you know, I’m like, okay. And, you know, we often have clients that end up in tears because money has so much baggage and other things with it.

[00:12:30] And they’re like, all right, we took care of the investments. Can we talk about… and it’s like, sure. That’s where the magic is. That’s where we truly change people’s lives, where we’re helping them, you know, have discussion. I have a podcast, one of our top download podcasts is I’ll Make You Quit Your Job.

[00:12:47] And it’s those people that are miserable at what they’re doing. And we’re like, cool, let’s figure out another plan. They’re like, well, but I can’t, I got to make the money. I’m like, no, you can change and be happy. And like, I have people that, you know, quit these high paying good jobs and then go be an author and pay nothing, but they’re happier.

[00:13:05] Like, that’s the type of stuff, that’s where the money is, like, that’s where the good stuff is. And people say, well, but you’re not just talking about investments. I’m like, nope. Investments are the easiest part of what I do.

[00:13:17] Linzy: Absolutely. I mean, you’re preaching to the choir here, 100%. You know, and, and as you said, like, we are coming at this, this from different silos, different language, but like, same thing, the way that I talk about this distinction is the, the emotional pieces and the practical pieces, and the practical pieces need to happen, right?

[00:13:32] Like, you do need to have your papers in order to pay your taxes, right? You do need to know when certain deadlines are; you do need to have a plan that actually is going to work. But those emotional pieces, what I found, Jay, is like, if you don’t address those pieces, those emotional pieces, which, with my therapy background, it’s like I see their, I see trauma, I see childhood stuff, I see larger societal messages about who is deserving and who is worthy and who is capable. But if you don’t address those things, then the practical stuff can’t happen. Like the emotional stuff is in the way. Like that is the actual lived experience of being a human. And if you’re not taking care of that, you can’t learn.

[00:14:10] Jay: Absolutely. So let’s pick an issue. And we actually have a program we call The 8 No Baby Steps for childfree folks. Step 7 is a plan for parents. And we end up with two boats. We have the parents that have nothing, that long term care and health care is going to be a big issue. And we have the parents that have a whole lot of money coming down.

[00:14:26] And by the way, there’s nowhere in between. Like, just the income disparities that just, like, I either see one or the other. And we start pulling this apart, and the first step we get into is, what’s your boundary around this? And people are like, wait, what? I’m like, no, seriously. Mom did not plan for her health care.

[00:14:44] You know my mom’s been disabled since I was 16. I can’t teach my mom anything. It’s just kind of the rule.s You can’t teach your mom or your spouse finances. Just can’t. But like you have to have a boundary around how much can you help because if you help too much, you’re going to sink yourself, and you have to set that boundary when they’re not sick Be like well, but but but you’re saying I I’m like, “Yes, I’m saying your mom’s going to be in Medicaid care because she can’t afford anything else, and you can’t afford to pay it.” And if I don’t address that boundary issue first, the finance is just destroyed.

[00:15:20] And I’ve seen people where, you know, they don’t want to dig into that because of all the guilt and other things, you know, expect expectations and it just becomes a nightmare. And on the flip side, I got the ones where, Oh, well, I’m, I’m inheriting 10 million. You know, I, it’s not my money. The baggage that comes with it and, you know, what should I do with it?

[00:15:40] And what’s my purpose in life now? And now I don’t have to work. And it’s all this stuff. And I’m like, the money management of this? So easy. It’s the, it’s the discussions. Like, the only parents we take on as clients right now are actually parents who are childfree folks. And we’ll sit in the room with the parent and, and our childfree client and say, okay, what’s your estate plan?

[00:16:00] What’s your financial plan? What’s your insurance? And it’s the first time that as an adult, they’ve had a conversation with their parents about money, and their parent is 80 years old. And we’re over here trying to figure out a plan. And I’m like, “We need to have this conversation,” and that’s so important.

[00:16:16] I have so many clients now, saying, “My mom loved you…” you know, blah, blah. It was great that we actually had the conversation. And I always tell my clients, they can blame me for everything. You know, say, Dr. Jay says, I’ve got to talk to you about this. Cool. Blame me for all of it. And starting that conversation and that is just so powerful.

[00:16:33] When you’re talking about this practical versus, you know, the behavioral, the emotional, I sometimes have to use the practical as the gateway to get into the emotional and sometimes the other way around. So it’s like, how do you find that balance between the two? Because if you have one lens too much, you almost can lose the client in the meantime.

[00:16:52] I had somebody who would not let me touch anything on the life or behavioral side until we had gone through a whole bunch of practical stuff. And I got to know him over time and I’m like, yeah, you took like three, four months before you let me dive in. And her answer was, yeah, I wanted to make sure you’re not an idiot first.

[00:17:08] And I was like, all right, well, you know, there’s a judgment call there, but now I’ve proven it on the numbers. Okay, now you can dig into the life stuff. And I’m like, wow, that’s really interesting. I’m going to think about that one for a long time, but that’s where you have to find the balance. And I think the challenge is whichever school you come from is where you see the problems first, but that’s not always where the client is.

[00:17:31] Linzy: Yeah, that’s such a good point. I mean, we have our own bias, obviously, of the zone that we like to focus on and like to be with. But yeah, I mean, what you’re describing every therapist, and every manual health practitioner, listening is going to hear as well as like, you need to meet the client where they are. Right? You might see this glaring issue that needs attention right away, but if they’re not able to be with it, then you’re wasting your, your air, right? And you might lose the client by moving them too fast or, or not focusing on what feels important or what they’re able to focus on at that time. So I think everybody listening right now is nodding like, yep, yep.

[00:18:03] That’s how we work with our own clients, right? And I love you drawing these parallels because I think with money, it’s easy for us to, as therapists, as people who didn’t get great financial education, or maybe who are coming to this late, right, like feeling behind, it’s easy to focus on all those numbers pieces and feel left behind, and expect somebody to just like slap down a bunch of numbers.

[00:18:25] But like, yeah, they need to be doing what we do with our own clients, which is like meeting us where, where we’re at. And that’s legitimate to be done. So Jay, I want to dig into the childfree side of things now because I know that’s such a big specific part of the work that you’re doing. With the clients that you work with, what do you see in terms of how being childfree impacts their finances and their life? What looks different for them?

[00:18:48] Jay: So the first thing you’ve got to think about is this standard life script that says you must go to school, you get married, you have kids, buy a house, pass on my next generation, retire, all that fun stuff. That life script, and we, you know, it’s part of what we call pronatalist bias, it’s just an assumption, you’re going to have kids, you’re going to go through this process, you’re going to do all that, is so strong in our culture, in our religion, in our families, that when childfree folks or childless, not by choice, take a hard right turn off that standard life script, you end up without a script, really.

[00:19:23] And that becomes a challenge, you know. The hard part of this is, we all do stuff that we don’t even realize why we do it. Let’s be honest with that. And, you know, we’re following decisions the 18 year old version of us made. You know, like a life path. And at some point, by the way, we realize the 18 year old version of us was dumb.

[00:19:40] Okay, like, let’s just be honest with that. Like, we need to rethink that. But we start following the standard script. So now, you deviate off that script. I have this kind of love and hate word with that deviation because now you become a deviant because you are doing a different life path.

[00:19:56] The first thing is people think we’re weird. Okay. And we are a little bit in the general population, but we’re talking about something like 20 to 25 percent of the U. S. for example. In Japan it is 33%. I don’t know Canada off the top of my head, but like there’s large percentages. And it’s growing, you know, younger generations are jumping on this. And I don’t…

[00:20:15] I don’t, at all, vote on how somebody else should have their kids. I don’t want them to vote on mine. You know, like, you get your own choices. But I think the hard part is, when you are on that childfree path, you can actually get to a point we call the childfree midlife crisis, which is you hit your personal, professional, and financial goals, and then you’re like, now what?

[00:20:35] Where childfree folks, you know, don’t really care about how much money we’re passing on to the next generation. You know, we don’t have next of kin for that. We don’t really care as much about retirement, I actually have a couple therapists that work with me, and they’ll cut back their practice, but they’ll probably do it for as long as they’re around, because they enjoy it.

[00:20:54] Where they can make different choices in life, and we say living a life of childfree wealth means you have time, money, and freedom to do what you enjoy. Now that doesn’t mean you’re rich, like there’s no magic checks that come from the sky and make you rich, but it’s almost an analysis paralysis, paradox of choice routine of like too many choices. What do you do when you can do anything?

[00:21:17] And I will tell you, that’s the hard part. And that’s why in our process, we always work on what life do you want to live first, then your finances. I have clients, they’ll come to me first and go, well, when can I retire? And I’ll ask them, well, do you want to? They go, no.

[00:21:32] Well, then why are you asking about retirement? Well, because that’s what the standard script says. The standard script says you buy a house, you retire, you pass away. How do you do that? And how do you do it when there’s really no great examples? Like, you don’t have a friend where you’re like, oh, you know, Jane did this! I’m just going to follow Jane.

[00:21:50] And when society is saying, hey, that’s not the right path in quotes.

[00:21:56] Linzy: Well, it’s something that occurs to me with this… I had a conversation with one of my students who’s a dietician who’s in Money Skills for Group Practice Owners, so she’s a group practice owner, she does have kids, but she lives in Kansas, so life is affordable. She owns her house, right?

[00:22:10] And we had a conversation once, a call where I had an accountant come in to share some American accountant expertise, and the student asked her, like, What do you do when you’ve hit all your goals? Like, if I’ve paid my mortgage and I don’t really need to work that much. And what I’m thinking about is she kind of hit that point that folks who are childless get to, or childfree, get to much faster, right?

[00:22:36] Like, when you have kids, it’s hard. Kids are expensive, right? Like, you’re saving for their education. There’s kind of all of these. obligations and necessities that are in your way that mean that you don’t hit the point that you’re talking about until kind of your kids are gone, right? Like, I see my parents hit that point of like, What does life mean?

[00:22:53] How do we make life rich like in their seventies, right? But like when you don’t have kids, you skip all of that. I love my child very much, but there is all this obligation. There’s this kind of burden of setting up their life and like the money goes towards that and you’re tired and there’s, there’s all these like, obligations on your time and your money and your energy. When you’re childfree,

[00:23:12] what I’m hearing is like you get to that kind of like what is the meaning? What is my purpose way earlier because you’re not participating in this very labor intensive, and I say that, you know, literally, process of raising a child. Does that seem fair or am I missing something there in the mix?

[00:23:29] Jay: Well, I mean, it’s not necessarily easier or harder, you know, like that’s a judgment that, you know, I’m not going to judge anyone’s life. I think what I’ve tended to find is when parents hit that earlier, so this is the classic midlife crisis, you buy the car or whatever, you know, but they tend to shift their goals to their kids.

[00:23:47] Now, little Johnny needs to go to Yale. I need to set them up for the future. I need to do this. And it’s a way to kick the can down the road. Now, when it comes to the elderly folks, you know, so we’re 70, 80s now… Everybody’s all, well, I want to set my grandkids up for… I want to leave a legacy. I want to… so we keep pushing it to someone else versus answering that question of like, what is my impact on the world, and what do I enjoy?

[00:24:14] We often talk about Marie Kondo in your life: getting more of the things that bring you joy, and getting rid of things that don’t. And people are like, But what brings me joy? I’m like, how do I know? But nobody’s ever asking that question. It’s, you go to work, you work hard, you retire, you pass on money.

[00:24:29] When those aren’t there, you’re required to answer those questions. And for the folks that are childless not by choice, it’s actually a grieving process of the life you thought you were going to live to picking a new life. To the point where I will say, if you’re still in the grieving process, you’re not ready for working on where’s your life going to go, you’re not ready for me, and I’m not saying anything.

[00:24:52] I’m not judging. I’m just saying you’re not in that spot in life. I was on another podcast, and the guy had kids and he said, listen, parents should really learn from the childfree folks to ask these questions earlier because it’s really about the big ones and we’re imprinting on our kids the same like hedonic treadmill, the same expectations. If we said hey enjoy your life, and that’s the priority Like we’d all be just a little bit happier, right?

[00:25:17] Well, we did a study on this. We asked childfree folks Are you happy? Just an open ended question. Little bit under 300 responses. 94 percent said yes.

[00:25:25] Linzy: [00:25:26] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:26] Jay: If you look at the general population, you are never going to hit that number.

[00:25:30] Linzy: Yeah. No, and I have a friend who is not planning to have kids. He’s in his late 20s and he, you know, quoted this data to me, and I’ve seen other places… yeah, people without children are happier, right? 

[00:25:41] That’s interesting. As somebody who wanted kids, I can’t imagine that life. But also I’ve changed my brain by having a kid so it’s like I biologically kind of messed with my brain when I went down this path, and that’s such an interesting point that you’re making about that deferring of your own happiness or deferring of your own purpose of like, yeah, my, my role is to work hard enough that my kid can go to private school.

[00:26:03] And then my role is to save for them to go to college. And then I want to have a down payment for them to make their life easier. Like we’re constantly focusing on the well being of others. And therapists, especially, folks who are listening, therapists and health practitioners. We already tend to be so much that way. Even without children in the picture, right, of always thinking about is everybody else okay. And are my clients okay? Can my clients afford my service? Like, is, you know, is my mom okay? Is my sister okay… who is really difficult to have a relationship with, but I should talk to her anyways because she needs to talk to me… If you want to talk about boundaries,

[00:26:34] right, like when you’re already in that kind of martyr, self sacrificing… And yeah, I love what you’re saying because I think too it gets down to this basically philosophical question of: what makes your life rich, and meaningful, and worth living?

[00:26:46] And yeah, I’m hearing that that’s a central question for the folks that you’re working with because, yeah, I hear what you’re saying earlier about what I said. Harder/ easier… who knows? Everybody’s life is different… But certainly you don’t have this one project happening that can be very distracting. that project is not in the way. you’re with your humanness, and your own life, and you don’t… I think it’s probably harder to hide in obligations to others when, when you don’t have a kid.

[00:27:15] Jay: It also allows you different choices. I’m not saying better or worse, just different. So if you look at the stats of childless folks in the U. S. over 55, 32.1 percent were never married versus 2.5 percent of parents. So you have a huge difference in the coupling structure. Now, they might be in a long term couple but not married, different things.

[00:27:35] Where just basic assumptions get changed. And the challenge is, for childfree folks, You often get pushed back to kind of the standard plan. Like everybody around me is like, of course, you’ve got to save for retirement. And you’re like, but I don’t care about retirement. Of course, you got to save money for the next area.

[00:27:52] No, I don’t care about that. My nephews get what’s left over, but like if they get 10,000 or a hundred thousand, that’s fine. If they get a million dollars, I made a mistake because I should have given that throughout their life when they could have used it. Not when I was 90 and dead.

[00:28:04] All these things are changing, like buying a house is a choice for childfree folks, not a requirement… Life insurance is not a big issue for childfree. It starts changing, and what happens is you find out as a society, we have put such a value on how much money you make. And it really doesn’t matter.

[00:28:22] Now, for the people that are struggling, that’s different. If you’re barely making rent and ramen, the amount of money you make absolutely matters. The data changes, but something like 85,000 a year, anything above that, doesn’t add much happiness. Sometimes I see 100,000, but, you know, whatever.

[00:28:35] Something along those lines. And now it’s like, but I went to school for this, and I’ve been going up the ladder, and I’ve done all this, and, my identity is my work. No, it’s not! Your work’s the least important thing about you, but we’re so stuck on that. And I think the hard part is finance pushes people towards those numbers.

[00:28:59] What’s your net worth? What are your numbers? And our childfree folks want to die with zero net worth, so we actually have to bring it down. Try changing somebody’s mindset to actually have to, like, bring their net worth down. It completely messes with it. And then everybody around is like, are you crazy?

[00:29:11] What are you doing? And like, no, I’m perfectly fine for my plans. It might not fit your plan. And that’s that hard part, and I think the challenge right now in the hyper political environment we’re in and some of the social media stuff is everybody’s judging each other way too much, good, bad, or ugly. And finances are just an easy way to judge, and you don’t know people’s lives.

[00:29:35] And for childfree folks, you know, they work with financial planners, and I always tell them, ask the financial planner: how’s my life different because I’m childfree? And if they say, well, it’s not different, well, they’re wrong. You know, if they say, well, you might change your mind.

[00:29:47] Well, that’s a judgment. That’s a different problem. You know, walk away. If they say, I don’t know. I am actually okay with that answer! Or we’ll figure it out. But automatically the answer is, oh, well, we’re just going to do the same plan everybody else is on. Well, no. From a financial standpoint, two parents’ financial plans are actually relatively similar.

[00:30:05] They’re probably 90 percent plus the same. The numbers change. The steps, the timing. But then the plan is very linear. For childfree folks, not so much. And that’s the piece that just messes with everybody’s brains. Because if you go out and you Google financial advice, almost all, I mean, 99 percent plus assumes you have kids.

[00:30:30] The software has assumptions built in there. The directions… Dave Ramsey here talks a lot. I’m in Tennessee. He’s here. He talks a lot about, you know, getting out of debt. And an interesting thing… He’s got a huge financial plan for everything, but he says, have kids whenever because, you know, that’s God’s will is his words.

[00:30:45] And like, it’s not part of the financial plan. I’m like, hold on, you know, it’s built into the plan! And like, these are all the assumptions you don’t realize to the point where one of my key questions for clients, they’ll get into this. And I say, whose voice is in your head saying you’ve got to do that?

[00:31:04] And usually the first answer is mine and I’m like, you sure? It’s never. It’s never theirs. It’s their parents, the culture, it’s the religion, it’s the other things saying you got to do this. And I’m like, is that what you want? No. Well, then why are we doing it? And that’s where it just starts falling apart for them, and they have to rebuild then.

[00:31:24] All right. What do I want to do? You know, I always jokingly ask, what do you want to be when you grow up, but that’s the question. Like, what do you want to be? And I’m not necessarily saying money. I’m just like, what do you want to do?

[00:31:36] Linzy: Yeah, absolutely. you made reference there to Marie Kondo and like what brings you joy. And, I had a week off a couple weeks ago. This is something that I try to do where like once a quarter, I have a week off just to be a human. That’s what I call it. It’s just my “be a human” week. I don’t go on vacation.

[00:31:50] I don’t try to make it even relaxing. I’m just like, What do I want to do when I’m not doing my job? Because I think that’s a really important question, as you said. It’s so easy to make our identity about our work. This is who I am. I am a therapist. I am a business coach. I am a financial planner. But it’s such a small part of who we are, and like, I said to one of my employees the other day who let me know that she’s pregnant and having a baby, she felt guilty because she’s going on mat leave and we’re Canadian and she’ll probably be gone for like 15 months. And I said to her, That’s great, because like my business isn’t going to be there with you on your deathbed.

[00:32:21] Like if you want to have another child, that’s way more important than work, right? But work, we can make it such a priority. And in this week off, what I did is I took a, I’m on a minimalism kick right now. So I read Minimalist Home by Joshua Becker. I’m doing Life of Focus, which is Cal Newport’s course.

[00:32:37] I’m on this big focus: what actually matters. It’s so interesting because as you said, you know, there, there is this metric. It used to be 50, 000, now it’s like 85, 000. Above that, you don’t get happier. And something that I realized is like, I’m at that point. I’m at the point where our material needs are met, right? Do we have things maybe as fast as we want to? No. But do we actually need those things faster? No, right? Like, do I want to make a $20,000 beautiful, ecological paradise in my backyard? Yes. Do I need it? No. So it’s like, I’m at that point where it’s optional. And then you do have to ask yourself like, yeah, what really matters to me? What actually makes life rich and meaningful? 

And we’re usually moving so fast that it’s a question that we skip and defer, sometimes forever, but money is such a tool to allow us to bring more of that into our life. But I do think it’s a question that a lot of us hide from, frankly, through all of these different distractions and excuses.

[00:33:32] Jay: Absolutely. I mean, I can pinpoint my point of this. I was in health care and unfortunately nobody here is going to be surprised. Um, health care is all about money. Let’s just be honest with that. I thought it was about serving patients, but turns out, not so much. You know, once you become a healthcare executive, you learn that and burned me out.

[00:33:49] And I was like, but I’d hit my personal, professional, and financial goals. And I’m like, now what? And I actually ended up. Like, running a maple syrup farm for a while, and selling stuff on Ebay, and stuff. Because I was just bored. You know, out on a tractor and I remember, I got a text. One of my friends from high school had actually died of cancer, and it was my first friend that I lost from high school.

[00:34:10] You know, I was in my early 40s and it’s kind of like that hit. And I’m going, what am I doing? Kind of like, what’s my impact? I’ve always been goal driven. I’m one of those people that went from no degree to a Ph. D. in five and a half years. I did my bachelor’s in nine months. Okay, like I’m a goal driven person.

[00:34:27] It’s kind of the dog that caught the car. You’re like, yeah, now what? And my realization was, I really don’t necessarily have new personal goals, but I can help other people reach their goals. And it’s one of those weird things is you start realizing that you need something to get you up in the morning.

[00:34:50] People retire and they don’t know what they’re retiring to. It’s always a problem. and I don’t care what that is. The thing is, it’s hard when, if you’re from a helping profession, we’re always giving for others. But how do you find that balance between you and helping others and where do you go and to what level?

[00:35:07] And Right now, my nightmare is who makes decisions for childfree folks when they can’t. You know, and in the U. S., there’s big issues around the next of kin and other things. It literally keeps me up at night. And I think I finally figured out a solution. We’re working on that now. But if everything goes right with my company, we’ll be able to serve less than 1 percent of the childfree population with this solution.

[00:35:28] That’s if everything is perfect.

[00:35:30] Linzy: Right.

[00:35:31] Jay: The other 99 percent I can’t serve and help, like, drive me crazy. Because you start seeing, okay, what do I want my impact to be? Where do I want to go? And yeah, I’m in the financial space… I’m going to make money doing it, but that’s not a driver anymore. It’s just a scorecard. And you know, my wife and I, you know, she’s an epidemiologist, and our rule in the house is you don’t do free work.

[00:35:54] You do work you enjoy, you get paid for it. Because otherwise people will take advantage of you. That’s kind of like, well, volunteer. That’s a different question, but that’s not work for free. And I think the hard part there is it’s so countercultural that it just starts challenging your core beliefs. You know, so I was listening to one of your podcasts and you were talking about pricing for therapists.

[00:36:19] And we had a little bit of a crisis with this, too, on our pricing. Like, whatever price you set is going to determine the clients you serve, and who do you want to serve? Well, we have this helping… we want to help everybody, so let’s make it accessible at a lower price. Yes, but you’re sacrificing yourself to do that.

[00:36:34] And then certain clients are offsetting other clients. And we actually have gone to like, here we have an academy and a group program that’s very accessible to everybody. It’s 50 bucks a month. And then we have our expensive program that’s one on one. But it’s one of those things you need to get through your soul of like, who do I want to serve?

[00:36:49] How do I want to serve them? What’s my impact going to be? Oh yeah, by the way, then my finances will fall behind it. And maybe it is that you need that week to yourself. We actually use a lot of work with sabbaticals taking six months to find yourself and people like, well, I’ve never done that. I’m like, that’s the point.

[00:37:08] And people go, you know, at the end of sabbatical, they always come with a completely different answer than they ever thought. That’s okay. And I think that’s the challenge. We don’t stop to go, so why are we doing this? And I don’t even care why. Like, you can pick any reason. As long as it’s yours.

[00:37:28] Linzy: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, the folks, like the therapist kind of community, tend to be so driven on, on mission and like making the world better. but as you say, like, I think it is helpful to put your life in perspective and be like, even if my practice reaches maximum people, even if I saw the maximum amount of clients, or even if I run groups or courses and I serve thousands of people a year, I would be serving this tiny portion of the folks that I want to reach, and I think there’s something depressing about that, but also really helpful in that it’s like okay so this is an important part of your life you do have this mission but you’re not actually going to change the whole world, so what else is also important, right?

[00:38:10] Because like what I find with the folks I serve, it’s like therapy is such meaningful work. It is meaningful. It is heavy. It is like you are in the dark like dank places with people that they’ve never invited anybody else in, and you’re helping to bring light into those places. And it’s so powerful, and it’s so profound, but also it’s like what else do you need in your life to be fulfilled, right?

[00:38:33] Because that’s not it. That’s not your only purpose. You’re not only there to serve others, right? And so I’m thinking about what makes a meaningful life, and how money can serve us. And I’m, I’m kind of picturing like a plate with a mix of stuff on it, right? And this is something that, in the Life of Focus course that I’m doing…

[00:38:50] So Cal Newport, talking about his thinking and his work, he talks about this with… Scott Young is his collaborator. They’re both guys who teach people how to learn and how to be effective, and they talk about this: if you’re spending all day doing intellectual work, don’t go home and read books all night. You need to go to the climbing gym, you need to go for a walk, you need to go dancing with your partner, like, This variety and richness, I think also we tend to underestimate just like we need to be fed in multiple ways to be satisfied as beings.

[00:39:18] We need to be fed, you know, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, in terms of community and connection. and don’t underestimate the importance of all these things in making life rich and meaningful. I’m curious, how does that land with you? That idea that there’s like multiple points we need to be hitting to have a satisfying life.

[00:39:36] Jay: Absolutely. And there’s lots of frameworks. The pie of life and all that. Pick whatever framework you like. And I’m one of those that I’m okay if your pie is a little slanted. Because, you know, I think people try… we get this concept of work life balance. Like, that’s like a scale and you have to… look, there’s going to be seasons where it shifts.

[00:39:58] And I’m much more on that seasons of life approach to it. I think personally, one of those reflections. So I grew up, and my parents… my father was a bus driver, my mother was a stay at home most of her life. Not a lot of money. Broke, broke, broke. But the one thing they taught was whatever you do, be the best at it,

[00:40:14] which is a really double edged sword. Okay. And, and as I get older, I’m learning the second edge to that more and more. Because like, oh, I can serve 1 percent and I’m like, That’s not enough. And I’m like, no, that is. And how do you be good with good? You know, we just did a book club for our podcast on the gap and the gain.

[00:40:37] And how do you look at the gain rather than the gap, and saying, yes, I’ve served these people. Don’t look at the ones you didn’t serve. Which, by the way, our nature is just like, I’m going to see the ones I didn’t serve or, you know, the clients I missed or whatever. And I think I personally am working on that.

[00:40:53] Work life balance. We have a concept we call FILE: Financial Independence Live Early rather than retire early.

[00:40:59] Linzy: I love that.

[00:41:00] Jay: And really we’re talking about the dimmer switch for work. How do I pick the right work at the right time, at the right level, at the right place? And have work that’s truly meaningful. And you know what? If that puts retirement off, that’s okay.

[00:41:15] And how do I find that balance? One of my staff members, Bree, she’s our chief experience officer. She’s 20 years younger than me. She’s Gen Z and she’s teaching me a lot about balance. I’m telling you they’ve got it a whole lot better than… I’m Gen X. I’m just saying they’ve got it a whole lot better than us as far as understanding it, and we’ve been working on how do you create a work environment in finance where life is balanced.

[00:41:41] And in finance, by the way, when you start in finance, you work 60 hours a week and you just… nose to the grindstone. And we’re not doing that. And she always is pushing back on me, like, Alright, so what are you doing this weekend? What are you chilling? You know, like, and I’m like, oh, I have got to get this done.

[00:41:56] And I know that’s a problem here. And I help my clients with it. It’s kind of like the therapists that come to me and I talk about setting boundaries and they’re like, I talk to my clients and I’m like, yeah, you need to do that too. I’m not saying I’m perfect. The way I believe to make money accessible is humor, humility, and vulnerability.

[00:42:13] If you can’t admit your own mess ups…

[00:42:16] Jay: My mess up is that balance. And it’s really that double edged sword of always be the best at it. So if I’m going to pick up a hobby, I’m going to be the best at it. That’s the baggage I have to unpack. That’s also the stuff from the financial standpoint.

[00:42:29] Well, I’ve got to be the best at it. I have got to have this right. I’ve got to have this. Right. We’re, me and my wife now have been working more on like, just, what do we enjoy?

[00:42:35] Linzy: Yeah, exactly.

[00:42:37] Jay: She’s like, well, I wanna go to XY dinner. She’s like, well, it’s expensive. I’m like, cool, let’s do it. Like, who cares? Like really, it doesn’t make a difference.

[00:42:45] And what’ll happen is if you go so far down this… We get the Super Savers. They actually, you know, they have millions of dollars, they’ve got more money to do it, but they’re buying the frozen blueberries because they’re a dollar cheaper than the fresh blueberries. I’m like, buy the good blueberries and enjoy life.

[00:43:01] And it’s just so hard. And I don’t know if it’s our culture, our upbringing, our structure, our, for me it’s that double edged sword. I don’t know what. I’m hoping 20 years from now to have a better answer. But, you know, I was talking about Bree, who’s our Chief Experience Officer, and, you know, she’s like, look, work is something I do.

[00:43:21] It’s not who I am. And I’m like, yes! But how the heck do you know that at 26? And I’m over here at 46 going, I don’t know. Like, and those are the things you’re trying to learn that we’ve got to help our clients with.

[00:43:37] Linzy: We do. Yeah. In our company, one of our values is work to live, not live to work. And I feel like I’m one of the few bosses that I know who tells my team to work less on a regular basis. We do an apocalypse list every day where my team posts, okay, these are the main three things I’m working on today. And with one of my team members who’s like a perfectionist, so talented, works so hard. We just had a conversation this morning. I was like, this is an ambitious list, laughy face emoji, uh, if you had to actually prioritize some of these things. And I helped her cut back because it’s like, I don’t want you burning out under my watch.

[00:44:10] That’s not worth it. I want you to enjoy your life. I want you to have a great weekend. I want you to be able to connect with your partner. I actually don’t want my company to be responsible for people having a shitty life. That’s actually really important to me because it’s just not worth it.

[00:44:22] It’s just not worth it for anybody. It doesn’t actually help us in the end, and like, I don’t want somebody burning out to make me more money. That is so against my values, but yeah, there really is this… as you said, there’s lots of questions as to what drives us. And I think I will say, I think Americans, you might have it a little bit more than Canadians, although I, I haven’t done any research on that to prove that. but yeah, really stopping and looking at what matters. Cause this is what I noticed, too, Jay, as I’m going through my like minimalist life of focus kick that I’m on right now, I’ve been throwing out so much stuff. I’ve been throwing out so much stuff. And like, I already considered myself… an aspiring minimalist, is what I would have called myself before.

[00:45:00] So it’s not like I’ve ever been a shopper, all those things. But I threw out half of my clothes in half an hour. Because when I really focus on how much I have and the abundance and like, feel gratitude for that, I’m like, How could I want more? Holy shit, I have so much! It’s so interesting to me that the more that I am slowing down and being with what I have, the less that I strive. Because I’m like, how could I possibly ask for life to be richer than what I have right now? I don’t think it gets better than this. Right? So it’s like, how can you be with that?

[00:45:31] Jay: Yeah. And let’s be real. So. So, I’m on this podcast, we’re talking about finance. We haven’t talked about numbers and, you know, goals and, you know, because it’s not what’s important. Now, it’s a measure, and people need a measure, and what I find with the super goal driven people is I have to give them a different goal.

[00:45:48] So, for example, instead of, you know, the financial goal, it’s number of lives touched, or, you know, some other measure, or you’re going to, I don’t care, read the most amount of books. I can’t reprogram them from being goal driven, like I, I’ve given up on that. But you know, can I shift it to something that matters to them?

[00:46:04] You know, so I, did you pick up the minimalist challenge, the one a day, two a day… Did you see this one?

[00:46:09] Linzy: No, no.

[00:46:10] Jay: Okay. So I love this with clients and it’s funny you mentioned it. So the minimalist challenge is, and we’re recording this end of February, so whenever this airs, beginning of the next month. First day you get rid of one thing, second day two things, three, four.

[00:46:22] So by the last of the month, you’re getting rid of 30 things. And everybody goes, I can’t really. No, you can. Okay, and I donate to Goodwill or whatever I can if I can, rather than just trashing. Let’s go through it. And every time people get to the end, they’re like, Why do I have all this stuff? And then I’ll pull back their budget and I’ll go, Listen, you spent 20, 000 last year on that stuff.

[00:46:46] Would you rather go to Paris on that trip you’ve always wanted to do? Or do you want that stuff? My personal problem is Amazon. Okay, Amazon and me, you know, we have got to, we… Sometimes packages show up at the door, I don’t know what’s in them. Like, that’s a problem. But, we all have it, but how do we find that balance and make sure our money, our life, is going towards the things that matter.

[00:47:09] And what I do is I’ll have this conversation with people like, listen, do you wanna get DoorDash if that’s a problem area? Or, Do you want that once in a lifetime trip or giving or whatever you’re doing… that? You’re like, well I’d love to quit my job and do this starting a side business. Well, if you didn’t buy stuff, you could do that.

[00:47:29] Linzy: Mm hmm. Yes.

[00:47:30] Jay: People are like well, but I need the stuff. We get to retail therapy, you get sad. What do I do? Add to the cart things you don’t like. But I’m like, hey, is it truly bringing you joy?

[00:47:39] Linzy: Mm hmm. No.

[00:47:41] Jay: And I had somebody the other day… we actually set up that for every item that comes in, two have to go out.

[00:47:45] Linzy: Yes.

[00:47:46] Jay: Just, that’s it. And it makes you make a choice.

[00:47:50] Linzy: It does. Yeah, and I think it makes you slow down because like, you know, the folks that I tend to support sometimes can be very scared of things like budgeting, the idea of restriction and being denied. What I have noticed is when you do slow down so you’re actually with what you have, you realize: I actually already have more than what I need, and I actually have more than I can even enjoy or be present with, right?

[00:48:11] Like in Minimalist Home, he talks about how the average American family has 300, 000 items in their home. Like can you even conceptualize that? Like visualize what’s in your home, right? And like the minimalist process is going through and being with each thing that you have one at a time. And what I’ve noticed is like, when I do that, I don’t long for more, right? I realize like, wow, we have so much, and I’m even like, yeah, like trying to pass these like skills on to my child and like really model like what actually makes our life rich and meaningful? Because it’s not how many toys you have and it’s not how many books you own even. It’s reading those books, it’s the space to be with the books, right?

[00:48:51] It’s like the time to go out with a friend who you haven’t seen in years, or it’s having the money to treat a friend for dinner… I’m turning 40 this year. So all my high school friends are turning 40. So two of my friends just turned 40 in January. And my closest, my oldest friend, I should say, who has been my friend since I was 12… Because I have built, you know, myself to the financial place that I am, I sent him $150 to have a great dinner with his partner, right? And that’s like a really beautiful gift to be able to give somebody. Then he’s like thinking about me. It’s like I’m able to treat him even though he lives eight hours away, right? I’m able to give him an experience where he just gets to relax and it was his first time out with his partner in a long time. Like that’s a beautiful gift to give, and that is so much more meaningful than any object I could have bought him. I gave him a beautiful experience, and I got the honor of kind of being part of that experience by being able to treat him to that. And that to me is so much more powerful than any pair of jeans that I could buy.

[00:49:48] Jay: You’re on the right path. Now I’m going to give you your next step. Now we’ve gone through the minimalist. The next step is, I want you to read the book, Die with Zero by Bill Perkins.

[00:49:55] Linzy: Okay. Yep.

[00:49:56] Jay: And we use it a lot with the childfree folks, but he originally wrote it for parents. And his point is, there’s a relationship between time, money, and health.

[00:50:05] Linzy: yeah.

[00:50:06] Jay: At the end of life, you have time and money, but no health. And right now, you know, in early life, you have less money, but you have less time, but you have better health. And his point was, there are experiences that you can have, you can give, you can do throughout life, that can completely change somebody’s life, that are a whole lot better than passing on money to the next generation, you know, at the end.

[00:50:30] And he comes to that from actually an engineering background, but I love the concept. The challenge is people go, well, but what if I run out of money? I’m like, listen, we can protect you from running out of money. We figure out a plan for long term care. There’s ways to do it. But the concept of what can my money do for experiences to people and help people?

[00:50:52] You know, if you have kids, what can you do for them throughout their life rather than when you die? You know, if you don’t have kids, all right, what impact can I make in my life and others? You know, if you want to see actually a group that understands childfree folks, it’s actually the philanthropic arms because they know who we give more money.

[00:51:07] That’s just kind of the reality check, money, it gets where it goes. But maybe you can give to that favorite charity, be part of their board, be part of their organization earlier in your life; you can make that impact. And when I have these discussions with people, they start realizing I’d get more out of that than the stuff I’m buying.

[00:51:25] You know, like I will have people that have trouble spending money and they love travel. But they won’t spend it on themselves like, okay, cool. So let’s do this: we’re going to set a budget for 20, 000 for travel for the year, and a matching budget for giving And now we’re going to do a test. At the end of the year, I want you to tell me what you get more out of… the travel or the giving?

[00:51:44] You know what the answer is. It’s not the travel. I’m just telling you, it isn’t.And where you can do that type of impact throughout life… And once you realize just collecting more stuff Doesn’t help you, it starts making sense. But the reality check is, it’s from where we came from. I inherited three sets of china.

[00:52:03] Why? Cause, I did. And, I’m like, what the heck do I do with this stuff? And, you know, it came from grandparents and all this… it’s nothing really fancy. At the end I was like, I’m just going to donate this.

[00:52:15] Linzy: Yep.

[00:52:16] Jay: I can’t use it. It’s not dishwasher safe. I can’t put it in the microwave. People in the family are like, what? You got rid of the china? And I’m like, Yes. Seriously, but that’s where we’re coming from.

[00:52:27] Linzy: I got rid of my china two weeks ago. Whole china collection. Full set. Full set. I had the same conversation with my partner. We were like, could we use this as our everyday dishes? And we were like, yeah, can’t go in the dishwasher. Can’t go in the microwave. God forbid we put in the microwave by accident and blow up our house. And I just let it go. Right? Because like, what does it mean? It’s china that came down through my family… I have lots of beautiful… I still even have things in my life that remind me of the people that I love who aren’t here anymore. And I have memories of those people. And I have things that are much more, uh, representative of them than probably the China that they also inherited, that then they kept out of obligation for years and then passed down to, you know, my mom, and passed down to me. So yeah, same page, same page.

[00:53:27] Jay: And then they start realizing, well, do I really want to buy this stuff? And what are we going to do with it? And who’s going to… Our childfree folks are not passing it on to the next generation. So, I got a lot of people doing the van life, other things. You know, my wife and I, we’re going to get in a boat and travel the world. We’re on that minimalist path already. 

[00:53:48] Linzy: Exactly. Yes. Yes. So Jay, for folks who are listening, who want to get further into your world, where can they find you and follow you?

[00:54:17] Jay: ChildFreeWealth. com, ChildFreeWealth Podcast, and ChildFreeWealth on Instagram.

[00:54:24] Linzy: That’s so clear. So check out Jay, Childfree Wealth, who works with folks who are childfree and childless, but as you mentioned, if folks are going through the grieving process, which I know can be a big part of that journey for some folks, give it a beat before you dig into all the potential that comes with your life situation. Thank you so much Jay for joining me today.

[00:54:45] Jay: Thanks for having me on.

[00:55:01] Linzy: My conversation with Jay has got me thinking a little bit about this kind of ecosystem of ideas. You know, like we ended up talking about minimalism quite a bit. Not what I was planning to talk about, but not surprisingly, because the people in my life know that I’m talking about it all the time right now.

[00:55:14] Thank you, people in my life, for your patience. But there’s kind of this ecosystem of different ideas that can complement each other about money and and understanding the purpose of your money, being connected with what really matters to you, what gives you joy, minimalism, and getting away from just kind of buying stuff with money or seeking status, because as so many people who know who’ve kind of reached their status goal, it doesn’t actually give you the life satisfaction that you’re looking for.

[00:55:40] And, it was nice to kind of dig into all these different ideas. I’m definitely going to be checking out the book that he recommended to me, Die With Nothing, I believe it’s called. I will be reading that very soon. And just excited myself to keep digging into these ideas of, Yeah, how do you make life rich and meaningful, especially once you’ve got that primary project that so many of us spend so much time working on creating financial stability, creating a business that takes care of you.

[00:56:06] That’s a project that I personally have not completed, but it’s going well. So these other questions are becoming more and more pressing, I know, for me personally, and I hope that folks listening today took a lot away from our conversation as well. I so appreciated this interview with Jay. You can follow me on Instagram at money, nuts and bolts. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, as always, please leave me a review. I just got a message yesterday from one of my Money Skills for Group Practice Owners students who has WhatsApp, uh, back pocket access to me, voice access. She sent me some messages in our ongoing conversation, talking about some of the recent podcast episodes that she’s enjoyed, and like what she’s taking away from the podcast.

[00:56:46] And I said to her, and I will say to you, if you haven’t already, please leave a review for the podcast. If you’re finding yourself enjoying it, it’s a really, really helpful way for Apple Podcasts to know people are enjoying the podcast, they’re paying attention and that helps other people to find the podcast.

[00:57:01] Thanks for listening today.