Legacy Beyond Lineage: Rethinking Wealth in the Child-Free Economy
Dr. Jay Zigmont
Books: Portraits of Childfree Wealth and The Childfree Guide to Life and Money
Dr. Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP®, is a TEDx speaker, cultural economist, and the leading expert on the Childfree Economy—the multi-trillion-dollar economic and social shift driven by the 25% of Americans without children. He is the founder of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®
Childfree Wealth® is an SEC RIA dedicated to serving Childfree people. Childfree Trust® enables Childfree people to appoint a trust company to serve as their medical POA, financial POA, executor and trustee, effectively acting as their next of kin.
Dr. Jay is the author of the books “Portraits of Childfree Wealth” and “The Childfree Guide to Life and Money.” Dr Jay is the co-host of the Childfree Wealth podcast. His Ph.D. is in Adult Learning from the University of Connecticut.
He has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, MarketWatch, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, and many other publications. In 2023, he was named a “Rising Star” by Financial Planning. In 2025 he was named one of the Top 100 Money Experts by GoBankingRates.
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast, I'm your host Dr. Kirby Rosplock and we're going to explore some interesting concepts, some that might be new to you, actually it's new to me because I have children. Today's conversation takes us to a really important, often overlooked portion of the family systems that are out there today. I'm talking about this child-free economy. Which our guest today, Dr. Jay Zigmont, he's a TedX speaker, a culture economist, he's a leading expert on this child-free economy, and guess what, it's a huge segment. Jay, you said it's something like 25% of Americans don't have children.
Jay Zigmont
It's 25% is the number right now. But you look at the younger generations, it's growing. You look at adults under 49. If they don't have kids, 47% said they're not ever going to.
Kirby Rosplock
That makes my jaw drop, right? I mean, it's pretty incredible. I really don't think most financial planners, most investment strategists, most people are thinking about the implications of this because, Jay, this is your business. This your whole target. Tell me how you came to focus on this segment. It's fascinating.
Jay Zigmont
When I was starting to become a CFP, the interesting thing was there's no mention in any of the education, any literature about living a life without kids. Everything assumes you either do have kids or you will have kids. My question was, both my wife and I are PhDs in research. My research question was, are we just weird? Is it just us because we don't have kids? We're weird because we'll sit around at dinner and talk about a research study. That's a little weird. But are we weird for the life we're living? And come to find out, it's 25% of US. So my thing then is, why is it that all financial planning has these assumptions in it that just don't fit? A quarter of the population.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. I mean, it's mind-blowing, right? When you think about primogenitor, this concept of passing on wealth along the blood lines in your eldest male heir, and all of these really foundational views on wealth transfer start to go out the window because we're not talking about passing on wealth or business interests or material things to people in the sense of our family. It means you got to plan completely differently. Tell us how you even approached thinking about the planning of this unique subset.
Jay Zigmont
Yeah. Actually, I went out and talked to a whole bunch of child-free people. I've talked to over a thousand child-free people, either interviews, surveys, to figure out what they're doing and then going, Oh, wait, how can we help? And tell me to find out, by the way, from a financial planning standpoint, 80% of them have never worked with a financial planner, which is flip of what you normally get.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
Jay Zigmont
So when we get clients into our company, almost all have not worked with a planner, or they got handed down their dads, and I don't really like him. We a lot of it. What we find is that as a child-free person, you have to plan for your life first, then your finances. The standard life script says you go to school, you get married, you have kids, you pass on generational wealth. It's the American dream. Well, What happens is that's actually built into software, built into financial planning assumptions. It's the life stages that we are all taught, and you don't realize how much that creates a systemic bias that doesn't fit child-free people. We add on the children, one-third will never get married. They might be partnered but not married or all through family structures. And all of a sudden, you start realizing, Oh, our standard planning process just doesn't work. So we work with the clients, and we'll try to figure out, What do you want to be when you grow up, which sounds like a joke, but it's like, that's the question. What's the point of it? And then how do we make your plan match that?
Jay Zigmont
And the financial planning stuff is actually relatively easy. The way we look at it is we try to make their life amazing and make their finances simple because that's how you get that magic combo.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. And the other thing I love about how you're set up is you set up a child-free trust structure. Maybe you can tell us just a little bit about your business and how that's a little bit differently positioned than maybe a traditional RIA.
Jay Zigmont
Yeah. It's a separate company. What we found is when we were starting to talk to child-free people, the number one question is, who's going to take care of when you're older? It's somewhat thrown in child-free people's face. It's a double-edged question because my thing is, that implies you think your kids are going to take care of you. By the way, the data says, Well, maybe. What happened was we started looking for who makes decisions for child-free people when they can't. It turns out in the US, about 25% of people either live five hours or more away from their family or have no family at all. If you have no family, no kids, and you're single, it's an estate planning problem. Who makes the decisions? If you don't appoint somebody, you end up in the court system, which nobody wants. The conservatorship, guardianship, that's just a no man's land. It turns out in California, Arizona, you can appoint a professional fiduciary to do it, but they're the only states that have a licensed professional fiduciary that can do the medical, the financial, and all of it. Trust companies can do it, but they really don't want to do the medical.
Jay Zigmont
The medical is like, No, I'll do the assets. But the other problem is child-free people can somewhat be a bad client in the eyes of trust companies because they want to die with zero. If they're trying to run down their assets, the trust company, percentage of assets, it's possibly a conflict that's going the wrong way. We created a child-free trust. It's the first nationwide solution to who makes the decisions for you when you can't. We become their medical power attorney, their financial power attorney, their executive trustee. The example I love to use is my wife and I in a car crash. Who makes our medical decisions? Who makes our financial decisions, and who lets our dog out? Now, my wife says, I'm wrong, but you know darn well, if I'm in the hospital with her, she's going to be more worried about the dog getting let out than me. That's like those things you think about, Oh, well, my kids will take care of that. Well, no, you don't have that. And that's where we step in.
Kirby Rosplock
That's amazing. I'm sure you've probably had some of those incidents already manifest, huh?
Jay Zigmont
There's these things you don't realize. So a great example is we had somebody reach out to us before we started, and she was going to get a surgery, knee surgery, which is technically elective. And the hospital denied her getting the surgery because she didn't have somebody's name to put down. I'm like, What's she supposed to do? Hobble on the knee for the rest of her life? But the problem is the system is so broken that if you don't check the boxes, the hospital is like, No, that's a liability. Forget it.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Which honestly is the worst... That's insult to injury, right? You're already You're already probably up tight about whatever surgery or medical issue that you have, and then to be ashamed for not having a person or family. There are a lot of individuals that are either estranged from their family, maybe they were orphaned and don't really know their family. I can imagine that the data also I know and the research shows that people are just more insulated. They're more isolated. They're living not in a community framework as much as we were, say, a decade or two ago. So I'm sure you're seeing incidences of child-free households growing.
Jay Zigmont
We are. We talk a lot about solo-agers. About 60% of child-free people over the age of 55 are single legally. So they're not married, they're not divorced, they're widowed, whatever it may be. And that becomes quite the issue. There are 15 million child-free people over the age of 55. So you're talking about millions and millions of people who keep running into these issues. But the problem is our state planning system, and you touched on, it was created in the 1500s, British law. And it really has not changed much since then. And let's be real, we go back to the 1500s, your life. Your life, expectancy was like 35 years. You were born and died in the same house. Your family was all there, generational house. None of that's true anymore, but our system still assumes it is. We end up in this, we call it the fiduciary void, this problem of like, Oh, these people are left out to hang.
Kirby Rosplock
Let's clarify really what is so different. Obviously, we know you're focused more on the now versus who's next. But what are the other elements that someone who's child-free has to think about that we haven't talked about?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, so let's run through a few different things to change. One of my favorites to poke at is buying a house. For a child-free person, if you're going to move all the time, why buy a house? We are a mobile group, and we don't have to stay in an area for the school system or to be near family or whatever else it is. I tell my child-free clients to rent. Actually, if you do the math on it, renting in most cases works out better because you don't have that built-in cost to move. When you look at your investments, there's actually a point for child-free people where you can have too much make money because most want to die with zero, where they can make different choices early, where we call it file, finish, spend, live early, which is like, let me dial back on work. Let me do the work I enjoy. Let me Coast the rest of my life in something I enjoy rather than classic retirement. Things like life insurance, not a real big use for a single person. You need to have some money to bury you, but it's supposed to be there to protect your income for others.
Jay Zigmont
But disability insurance on the other side is a huge priority. If you're single with no kids and you get disabled, Social Security disability pays you nothing. It's a reality check. Then we get into long term care and how we plan around that. We always have to plan on the cost. And the problem is long term care is most expensive for single women. Well, welcome to the audience. And then what gets interesting is a lot of child free people are expected, Well, you don't have kids, so you can take care of mom. And I'm like, Oh, wait. That's an assumption. We need to have a conversation about that. So we actually build into our financial planning process, what we call plan for parents, which is weird because we're child-free folks, but it's talking about their parents. Most people are talking about generations going the other way. No, we're making plans going, How do you take care of your parents? Because we don't want you to get forced to move back with mom unless you want to. People are like, The millennial is not leaving the parents' homes. I'm like, It's flipping now. Then we start looking at the overall plan, and then we have to plan to die with zero, which breaks all the systems.
Jay Zigmont
If you've ever done a Monte Carlo simulation, the whole goal is to not die with zero. For our child-free people, if you get a 95% success, that means a 95% failure. All of a sudden, you start seeing it breaks all of these norms to the point where most planning software has a trouble with it. We use right capital as our planning software, and part of the reason we do, it's the only one that allows a couple to be in the system and not married. Everything else assumes. This is where you start seeing weird things. Then the other one, particularly for your audience, is if you're going to be in a generational wealth setup, so your family is passing down generational wealth, we have big issues with generation-skipping trusts. Because what happens when you're not going to have another generation? I don't know if you've ever had to do it, but if you've ever had to go to court and try to prove to the court, Hey, by the way, there's no new generation coming, and I want to amend this trust, it is a huge, nightmare. I try to have people have those discussions earlier because the reality is they're not going to change their mind.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. It's not like at 75 or 60, they're going to start adopting. It's also this weird... There's a phase in your life, and maybe because I'm past this phase, whether you're either thinking kids are in your wheelhouse or not. I don't know that it sinks in, that that makes you in a different financial planning track. How do you reach your audience? How do you help them be aware that they have some different planning options? I'm not saying this isn't good or bad. It's just they have things that they have to think about that maybe the married couple with two kids or five kids doesn't.
Jay Zigmont
Yeah. I mean, realistically, if you take two parents' financial plan, you got two kids, five kids, it's It's really linearly the same. It's the same path. The timing changes a little bit, some of the numbers shift, but they're relatively similar. What I tell child-free people is if they're working with a financial planner or they want to, ask the financial planner how your plan is different because you're child-free. The number one answer they get from financial planners is, Well, you'll change your mind. I'm like, No, that's disrespectful and disregards them. The number two The third is, It's not different, which is just as bad. The third is, Let's figure this out. I don't really know. We find we actually are very fortunate. I've done a lot of press, done a couple of books on this, done all the podcast. If you put child-free financial planning into the Google machine, it comes back with us. People start going, Oh, I never thought about that. I never thought about that. I never thought. I got a phone call from somebody. I did a piece with Wall Street Journal. They did a feature on us. I got a phone call from this gentleman, and he goes, I I didn't know the word child free exist, but it's me.
Jay Zigmont
I didn't know this is things that change, but that's me. Can you help me? I'm like, Yes, that's like that aha moment. But it's that one of those things I If you go into AI now, because that's a favorite, and ask it how to do your financial plan, it's just going to assume you have kids and give you that advice.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, I mean, it is. It's so built in everywhere into the assumption. I know you have written the Portraits of Child-Free Wealth and Child-Free Guide to Life and Money. I mean, I can imagine that you have so many incredible stories of how you're helping. I'm curious, If we shift to the millennial demographic, that's probably a child-free growing sector. They're in the thick of it right now. But I would imagine you're seeing more and more couples who are cohabitating partners who are like, Yeah, we're not doing this. We're not procreating, and we don't have any interest to. What does that look like for those that are really in the thick of it in that time where they would be making choices to have kids or not have kids?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, so we see a lot of it, and we call that... Often we see it, we call the moment, we call the child-free midlife crisis, which is you hit your personal professional, and financial goals and you're like, What's next? Which is a good question. Am I going to just do this for the next 40 years, where am I going? And one of the other weird things about us, so our social media, our clients, it's 80% women. And even if it's a couple, usually the woman is the one that's reaching out to us. Where other firms may have a whole lot of men reaching out and followers, it's really women. What they're reaching out for is they're like, Okay, what's the point? And am I doing it right? I always love this, Am I behind I'm like, I hate that type of concept because there's no such thing as being behind or ahead. But what we tend to find is people that have done very well, and they're like, Okay, I've hit my fire number. In some cases, some people that love that fire stuff or other things, I've hit my professional goals, and they're like, What's the point of money going forward?
Jay Zigmont
This is where we have some really good discussions. My PhD is in adult learning. I'm really on the behavioral side. It's how do you shift your money mindset is where we spend a lot of our time. What we tend to find is a lot of people are doing jobs they don't like. They're working towards retirements they don't want, and they're following the script they're told to do. Like buying a house, they I already bought the house, they hate it. Then I'm like, How about we change it? One of my paraplanners at the time was keeping track. It was something like 60 or 70% of the people I met with in the initial meeting, I told them to quit their job. The reason is, if you're going to work this in this job, and we see this a lot in millennials, All right, I'm making $150,000 a year. It's a good job. I'm moving up the ladder. I hate it. I'm like, Well, then you're saying for $150,000, you're willing to be miserable. They're like, Well, but that's what I'm supposed to do. I went to school for this. I'm like, Are you going to do that for another 30 years or whatever else it is?
Jay Zigmont
And all of a sudden, you see these childfree people going, No, I want to do something different. And where we have people, quote, unquote, retiring, we call it, file, cutting back on work at 40. And they're like, I'm going to go back to school and be a librarians. And I don't know why it's always a librarians, but that's pretty popular. Or I'm going to go follow a different passion. And what we also see with millennials, and my wife and I, I'm Gen-X, my wife is millennial, we follow what we call the gardener in the rose approach, where we take turns between who's growing and who's providing support. We see a lot of that. And what you're seeing is a lot of career, life, work, and focus, and less on like, Hey, can I get you an extra 1% in the market?
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. So intentional, right? So purposeful and really connecting the dots of your means and what you can do. What is the possibility? I'm curious if you've run into child-free inheritors who are torn between that expectation of build more wealth, succeed the family business, do all these things, and then also feel like, but that's not I want, and I don't really want to pass this down to heirs, or I don't have an ambition to be a giant wealth building mogul. So how do you deal with those kinds of cases?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, there was a funny one. This person inherited... Dad died suddenly, so there wasn't really a good discussion around it. Tens of millions of dollars, and they get pulled into a room with a whole bunch of suits. This is her wording. But you know what I'm talking about? The four suits come into the room, Hey, let's sign this pay report. And she's like, I don't even know if I want this money. This is what my father earned this money. I don't know that I believe in using it the same way. I want to give it away. I want to go... And the suits are in there giving her a portfolio analysis and how it's going to grow and how much she can safely... She's like, None of that meant anything to me because it's not my goal. And it's an identity question about what matters. So a lot of child-free folks are terribly minded. That tends to be where their money goes, but we want to give it during life so we get the tax breaks and we see the impact. It's not about, Hey, I'm going to take that tens of millions of dollars and then three-ex it over my life and then give it to the next generation.
Jay Zigmont
It's not. But there's also this honor your father, your mother thing of like, this is where it came from, and the pressure. And what we find is many of them, if it's sudden like that, they have to work through it. If it's where they can have a conversation with their parents, it's always better if you can do it before they die. Hey, I'm going to go a different path. Is that okay? And I don't know. I probably 50/50 on if the parents accept the person's life or not, and where they're going to go with the money or not. There are some parents where I've seen they go, Okay, you know what? My son is not having kids. My I'm going to give my daughter all the money, which is always going to cause its own issues. But what I try to get people to do is have those conversations early. I had a client, we just went through this, inheriting I don't know, seven or 10 million, something like that. The parents had given them the paperwork, and it was all set up in a Generation Skipping Trust, and they're not having kids. So they went to the parents and like, Let's have this conversation.
Jay Zigmont
It took two years for the parents to go, All right, I get it. Let me look at updating my paperwork. That sounds small, but that is a huge win for the family in having that conversation because now, I She said in meetings as their financial planner sat with the parents' financial planner. We're like, Okay, well, maybe the better answer here is to give someone while you're alive. Can we use it to go back to school, to invest in a business or something? Can we see the impact? Can we shift that? But what I we love is the family was actually talking about it, and that's the bigger part.
Kirby Rosplock
It's just bringing so many things up for me because I think about how wedded one generation can be to what they perceive their legacy is, not really realizing the impact it can have on successive generations. If the conversation is had and they can understand what their children, like their adult children, want and see, it really might change how they perceive what they want to do as you're sharing. I think that's such an aha and so powerful. I also wonder, are advisors equipped to support these conversations? This sounds different. This isn't a traditional Hey, I want to pass wealth down to as many generations as I can. And then, Oh, my gosh, my kids have no interest in passing on wealth. How do you make sure advisors have these conversations in the right way?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, I I love to say that they're all engaged and getting there. I had somebody recently email me. We were talking about our Childfree Trust system and referring to us. And his response was, Well, if I enroll them in Childfree Trust, it takes care of the estate question, but it does nothing good to increase their assets, so why would I bother referring? And I'm like, Okay, there's a lot more to this story than that. And what you find are there are there advisors that are more on the life planning, the comprehensive planning, the true overall picture of planning that can engage. But here's what I found. I was working with a family office, and they were talking about they didn't have the skills in-house to have that conversation. You want to have the conversation about how to make a dynasty trust and how to make this last forever? They've been doing it for 150 years. This is one of those old school. They're like, We don't know how to do this. So that's where I spend half my time educating financial planners and others about it, and the other half talking to child-free people. When we hire people, we actually have an issue with this because I can't hire anyone ready to go with this.
Jay Zigmont
It's not like I'd be like, there's a child-free wealth specialist certification. We have one in-house, but it doesn't exist in the real world. There's not like I can get people who are trained for it. So I have to find people that are interested in more of that life planning, that comprehensive, that having the hard discussions and less on the finance. For us, we actually meet with our clients on a monthly basis, which really messes with people's heads, but their life are that dynamic. Out of the monthly meetings across the year, we might spend 10% of the time on their actual financial numbers. Wow.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, you're working on these big life issues, and you're really getting into the meat of a relationship that has much more depth and knowledge. I'm sure that helps you anticipate in a different way.
Jay Zigmont
Yes and no. I always look at it. If you look at financial planning, the new CFP curriculum, it talks about behavioral finance. Everything says about 80% of your success with finance is behavioral. I'm like, great. So then spend 80% on the behaviors, your time and effort. That's my thing. I try to anticipate with child-free folks, but in the same year, I got one phone call from this couple and they said, Hey, we're going to retire. We said, That's it. Okay, cool. The next month, it was, Oh, I got a job offer in Germany. I'm moving to Germany. Okay, we work on that plan. They're like, No, that's not going to work. We're going to move to Canada for a little bit of time. I'm like, Okay. I get to the end of the year, they're like, All right, we're actually out. We're moving to France. I'm like, That's all within one year. That's the norm for our folks rather than the weird thing. I actually have two clients, I can't think of the time of my mind, where they're almost in an on-off thing month to month. One month, we work through things, no big deal.
Jay Zigmont
The next month, they're like, Oh, by the way, I want to buy a plane. I'm like, All right, sure. And then they're like, No, I'm going somewhere. And that dynamic is why we actually meet with our clients on a regular basis, because things change that fast. And that's the difference.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Well, and I think back to this, stick to a script, follow what you've always known, and this is the model, and we procreate, and so on, so on. I mean, it sounds like they're more fluid they might be more adaptable, and they might be more opportunistic if they see things that they're like, Yeah, this is interesting. I want to do that. How does this shape or shift how they think about their legacy?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, legacy is a great question for our folks, and I'm doing a lot of work on this. What I'm calling it is legacy beyond lineage. We talked a little about parents putting pressure on. By the way, we've all been there. Your parents put pressure on that you need to carry out their legacy. Anyone that's This Gen X, millennial has probably felt it really hard about now of like, Oh, you've got to do the right things, what your parents want. We know that's not right. There's some good and bad there. But for child-free people, what we do is we talk about what we call the obituary question. The question is, the first letter of your obituary is your name, your address, Jay died at this location. The second is what Father 3 leaves behind Jack, Joe, and John. We don't have that. So what is that for our child-free people? Then How do we have that match their overall plan and have their plan go through it? I have a great example. We just put our podcast on this. I've been working with a client for three years. He's actually a NASCAR crew chief, and he's been doing this forever.
Jay Zigmont
He's got two Dayton rings, which for the non-NASCAR folks, that's like two Super Bowl rings. He's got it. I said to him, we're getting to that 50-ish age, what's next? I said to him, I said, Hey, does the second line of your obituary say crew chief? He goes, No. So what does it say? He says, It's a good man. I'm like, What does that mean? How do we unpack that? How do we make your goals and your life match that? And really, it was about leadership and leaving stewardship behind it others and helping create good men. And I'm like, well, what does that mean in this current society? And then ask... It's been a great discussion. But here's the thing. It's not a simple answer. When you ask that obituary question, you ask that legacy question, it's not as simple as saying, I'm I'm going to pass on generational wealth so my kids are in a better place than I am. That's actually a somewhat simple solution. How do I figure out how to help him get to a measure where when he leaves, he leaves that hole that is a good man, he's happy with that, and his time, effort, and money went to that.
Jay Zigmont
It's not as cut and dry as it seems.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. I could see people maybe jumping to a conclusion like, Oh, well, you didn't use all your up in your lifetime, so you just gave it all to charity. And so that is maybe a cop-out, too, because maybe there are so many different things that that big giving pool might mean to you, right?
Jay Zigmont
Yeah, I had another client. I asked the habitual question, and she's a big gardener. She's actually got a blog about it. She does all this stuff. She said her impact is she wanted a garden that everybody in the neighborhood stops by, looks at the flowers, looks at the plants, and looks at the butterflies, and feels better. So her time and effort, and money should go into that. Well, that to me is giving, but it's not like giving to a charity. It's impacting that small community and really having that impact. But the flip side also is that child-free people often get pressure like, Well, because you don't have kids, you have to do something amazing. That's why I like working with this crew chief. It's a sport, and it's a celebrity and all that. I'm like, he's like, no, that's not the point. It's not about your job title. It's not about how many dollars you leave. If you're child-free and you're terribly minded, I want you to be giving during your lifetime because then you see the impact, you can get the tax breaks. Where we're doing a lot more than people otherwise would do in other structures.
Jay Zigmont
But it's not necessarily about, I have to make more money. It really messes with people's heads when you can say there's a point in a child's free person's life where earning a dollar more is not good for them because it's going to a goal they don't care about. There's actually a point where you can have too much money. And that just sounds weird.
Kirby Rosplock
It does sound weird. And it's so strange when we look at our socioeconomic pyramid of haves and have nots and knowing that there are so many people that can barely make rent, barely put food on their table, barely put gas in their car. And then to think of the abundance, the other side, where there's so much resentment we have to own. There's a lot of resentment right now in this world around means and economic privilege. I think for someone who's child free and doesn't have children, I can imagine they carry more of a load than just the average person.
Jay Zigmont
We get a lot of guilt that we have to unpack. Some of that's self-imposed, some of it's imposed by family. Very, very common to get, Well, you don't have kids, so you should be able to take care of your nephew's college. Or my favorite, it's dumb, but my favorite is Christmas time, the new gaming system comes out and they're like, Hey, you should buy your niece, nephew, that gaming system. And my child, for people, No, I buy it for myself. They can come over my house and play. What happens, though, is the question we often go through with our clients is, Is it okay for you to be comfortable while a lot of people struggle? I don't have a full answer on that one. That's an individual thing, especially when it's family members that are struggling. But we end up having a lot of conversations about how can you help your family members, ideally without giving them cash? We do a lot of like, Hey, let me buy you a financial planner for six months to help you get out of debt. Or let me go hire a concierge doc so they fix your medical problem.
Jay Zigmont
Or let me hire you a dietitian or whatever else it is or a career coach where they can have an impact but not be handing out money, because the problem for child-free people is once you start handing out money to family, you become the ATM. I just said that's for everybody, but it's super true because well, you don't have kids, so you can afford to buy my diapers. And I'm like, Oh, that's just setting up a bad resentment cycle.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. And then it's like, where are the boundaries? And how do you say no? You've set a precedent with this one, and now this one's coming, and this one. Again, we know families are, I'll say, lumpy, where socioeconomically, they're not all the same across the board either. So it's not uncommon for family members who have had success or have had some inheritance or something to be viewed as the endowed party that should be doing more for others. Oh, my gosh. This topic is so fascinating, Jay. What haven't we covered that you want to make sure we talk about?
Jay Zigmont
I want to pick up just where you left off there, and I want to give one great example. I had a client who between the two of them, they had three parents, so two parents on one side, one on the other. They felt the pressure that they want to take care of their parents in their old age. By the way, very common, that's the thing. My argument is your parents' planning or lack thereof, can have more impact on your financial plan than your own planning. What we find is parents that either are broke We're rich. There's nobody in between. There's very little. They said, Okay, we want to plan for long-term care. We're going to put us our financial plan. We want to pay for it. I do the math. I'm like, Okay, you two would need to put aside about three-quarters of a million dollars to cover that. They were like, Oh, wait. I want to help, but there is a limit. We actually ended up setting up a program. It was beautiful for them that whatever they were putting away to retirement, they put an equal amount away towards their parents' long-term care.
Jay Zigmont
When that money runs out, Mom, Dad, I'm sorry, this is what I can do. But it's about setting those boundaries. That is one of those things. I think a lot of parents can actually learn from child-free people about how to plan for this for their parents and how to do it, and things that we often overlook of like, yes, we're living two different lives, but we can learn from each other.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Wow. So powerful. Jay, I should say Dr. Jay, you have so much wisdom. I I don't even know what to say. This has been so fascinating. Loving this conversation. I want to make sure to do two things. One, promote... You have Love, Wisdom, and Money. No, sorry. Tell me the name of your book again. I just butchered it.
Jay Zigmont
That was somebody else. Mine is a child-free guide to life and money. Child-free guide to life and Money.
Kirby Rosplock
Child-free Guide to Life and Money. Where can they find that?
Jay Zigmont
Everywhere. Amazon, Bookstores, whatever you want.
Kirby Rosplock
It's the yellow book behind you, correct?
Jay Zigmont
It is.
Kirby Rosplock
Awesome. I want to jump into a quick speed round, if you're okay, and just ask you just whatever comes to mind. It doesn't have to be a long response, but what's one myth about child-free living you wish would disappear?
Jay Zigmont
That all child-free people are rich. There's no magic check that comes in when you don't have kids.
Kirby Rosplock
And what's the most common mistake child-free people make with their finances?
Jay Zigmont
They don't have an estate plan in place. We found that less than 20% of child-free people have an estate plan in place.
Kirby Rosplock
Yikes. Okay. If you could change one thing about the financial planning industry, what would it be?
Jay Zigmont
We need to move to real behavior-based and life planning, more than just investments.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, I love that. What's your favorite resource or book for those considering a child-free life?
Jay Zigmont
No, I can't say mine. I think here's the thing. There's a bunch of books about the of being child-free or not. If you're in that phase. I think the other stuff that's out there is actually on social media and online. Most of the stuff for child-free people is just coming out now. So all books are old.
Kirby Rosplock
Interesting. So does that make you want to update yours?
Jay Zigmont
If you haven't written a book, my book came out in December of 2024. It was due 18 months before that. So by the time you write a book, you're two years behind. Yes. I do have others coming. I'm working on one on legacy and that next step. But I'm like, Everything you write is already old. I'm creating child-free financial planning as a concept as I go along and going, Oh, I would update this in the book, and This is the book, and this in the book and this in the book before it even came out.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, no. I'm just curious, who inspires you in your work?
Jay Zigmont
I've been watching a lot of the interesting content creators, the ones creating things that have never existed before. So Stephen Barlett, Diary CEO, is one I love. Rory Sutherland on marketing and how do we can change the way our minds work. They may look a little weird at the surface, but really, I'm looking for people who are willing to challenge the norm, and that's what inspires me.
Kirby Rosplock
And what do you do to unwind after a really busy day?
Jay Zigmont
Unfortunately, when you run two companies, I don't have much time. I tend to, if I can find time, it's video games or because I'm doing this work at Nascar, I get to go to a couple of races here and there.
Kirby Rosplock
That's fun. Well, those are both fun outlets. I am super, duper grateful for having you on the Tamarind Learning podcast today. You are quite a wonder and bring so much good information. We will have more links to resources about child-free planning, your website, and your books. I'm just super grateful for you opening my eyes to this important group of individuals. Some are in my family. I won't call them out, but they know who they are. I know everybody has a child-free if they're not themselves. I'm really, really appreciate that we're bringing the spotlight on this topic and the work that you're doing.
Jay Zigmont
Thanks for having me. I'm sure it's a different topic than you normally have, but that's what I like digging in.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, it's a topic I love digging in, and I'm super grateful and hope you'll come back.
Jay Zigmont
Will do.
Kirby Rosplock
All right. Well, if you've enjoyed this segment, please like, subscribe, share with your family and friends, and you can find us on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you can find podcasts. We should be out there, as obviously on our Tamarind Learning website as well. So thanks. And that's all for now. Signing off.
