Episode four eighty five, How to Budget if you Don't have kids with Jay Zigmont.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking to all you danks, all you sinks, all you frugal friends out there who do not have children or and mostly do not plan to have children at least not in the near future. Always have every right to throw them a curveball in the story, but right now, don't plan to have children.
Yeah, I talked with Jay on his podcast recently, and so now we're having him on ours. To recognize that there's a good percentage of the population who this is our lifestyle. As you know, Jen has two children, Eric and I do not. We're solidly in our thirties. So recognizing that this advice needs to be out there, like it's not the most common experience for people, but it is still an experience for many of us, And to recognize that some of the traditional personal finance advice doesn't
actually fit us. And so Jay is specifically geared towards working with people who don't have children and helping them to define what their lives can look like, how their finances may look different. He also counsels couples, so a lot of research and wisdom coming from him. He wrote a book on being child free, so we're excited to be able to hear from him on this really important topic.
But first, this episode is brought to you by Beating around the Bush. I'm not going to do it. This episode brought to you by the friend Letter. Every week we send out via email where to find free events, free food, what you should be doing to stay on top of your spending habits and your finances. And if that sounds like something you need, you want that thrice weekly reminder, then head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com
to sign up for free. It's really fun. Always some good suggestions and ideas in there, and we're going to have Jay's interview LinkedIn there. Jay is a PhD, MBA and certified financial planner who works exclusively with couples and singles who plan to remain who are and plan to remain permanently childless, and he is currently the first and only life in financial planning firm dedicated to serving child free people. So this was and honestly, there was some
just really good life advice in this episode. So if you cite it fore to.
Hear listening and you're like, oh, I do have kids, maybe should I turn it off, I'd say keep going because there's definitely some conversation that we have that I think is good for all people. So glad to have you here again. Jay's book is called child Free Wealth, so let's get into it.
Jay, Welcome to Frugal Friends. So happy to have you here.
Thanks for having me.
I had a great time coming on your show and we are excited to have you on ours to talk about the ways that our money can look different for those of us who don't have children. So from your perspective, your expertise, Jay, I'm curious to hear what you've seen are the biggest differences in money management for people without kids compared to those who do have kids.
Yeah, So I use the term child free so just for definitions, as people who don't have kids don't plan on kids. Ever, it's not like your child free for the weekend. So like when I'm talking about biple, don't have kids, like it's a lifetime thing versus not yet, and you're doing that. The interesting thing is your goals are different. So for parents, there's kind of the standard lifecript. You go to school, you get married, you have kids. It's the American dream, the house of two and a
half kids, the white pick offense. But for child free people, it's a different path, and it's not better or worse, it's just different. So, for example, how much money you pass on to the next generation is not a priority for most child free people. For my wife and I, our nephews get well what's left over. But if they
get ten grand or one hundred grand, that's fine. If they get a million dollars, we made a mistake, like there actually can be too much money as a child free person, and if that's the case, you can actually do different things with your money, and having a high net worth may not be the goal. To the point where I have a lot of child free folks to get to kind of mid thirties, mid forties, and I
tell them, hey, you're going to have a problem. You're going to die with too much money, which just sounds really weird, but it's true. And if that's the case, how do you spend your money either on the people you love, the things you want to give on yourself and shift your life to match the life you want to live.
Yeah, I think you know what, who you're talking to is definitely a minority, but we still exist, we still matter.
Right, it's twenty it's twenty five percent of the US, So yes, it's a minority. But in comparison, the LGBTQ plus community is eight percent of the US, and about fifty percent of the LGBTQ plus community is child free, So we're talking about a huge like one in four Americans. So it's not like it's like, you know, three people down the street.
Yeah, it still is a lot of people. But still we are ingesting typical personal finance education and advice. And I know, even for myself, this is Jill speaking, I don't have kids, and all of the traditional advice is you know five twenty nine say for kids are tiring, like these are part of the steps that you're supposed to be taking. And then you know, invest in retirement not just for yourselves, but what do you want to
leave behind? You're saying to kids, And so there is quite a bit that can be reoriented for not just the long term, but what I'm hearing you describe is some of the short term too, with how we're spending money now if we don't have some of these more longer term goals.
Yeah, and you know, if you've better on finance for long enough, you've probably heard of the seven Baby Steps. We actually have a program I put on a new book we call the eight No Baby Steps, you know, and a lot of the basics like getting out of budget, getting out of debt. You know, you have an emergency funt, that's all same. But then it's like, what am I doing with my money? What's the impact I want to make?
What brings me joy? And really, a lot of child free people kind of that mid thirties mid forties hit the child free midlife crisis, which is I've hit my personal professional financial goals, and like, now, what what's the point of working just to put a bunch of money in the bank if I'm not enjoying it. What's the point of doing the standard process if it doesn't fit my life?
What is after the basics are mixed, because the basics will be the same for child with child versus child free, what is that first differentiating step that child free people should be making with their money.
Yeah, so our no baby step four is save and invest towards your goals. And that's specific because initially enough, a lot of child free folks don't want to retire or like not the classic retirement. You have a lot of clients that are like therapists and they want to like cut back from four days of work to two of seeing clients something like that. So if retirement is not your goal, what do you want to save towards? Even things like buying a house are a choice for
child free people, not a requirement. So what it really requires is the way we do it is you have to plan for your life first than your finances, Like what is it that matters to you? If you're working in a couple, Often we'll have couples approach something we call the gardener in the rose, where once biding support and one's growing, Well, how do we invest in that person that's growing, That could be moving, that could be
you know, going back to school, could be anything. For my wife and I, she got offered a job twelve hundred miles away. We packed up the dogs and the cat and went, I mean the biggest hassle was putting two massives in the back of a prius, which is hilarious to see, but like, we could invest our money in us in the life you want to live rather than just like putting it mindlessly into a retirement now, which goes against a lot of the basic you know, tenets of financial planning.
Okay, this is a little bit of a side tangent. But this gardener and grower piece, is this something you talk about a lot with couples, something that you see like go and seasonality. Can you say more about this concept?
Yeah, so originally I didn't come up with it. Like you know, I can't take credit for it's called the garden of the flower, but I always called the garden the rose because my wife is no just any flowers, She's a rose. So like what we do is it's kind of an interesting thing that happens with couples in that it's really hard to find two careers at the same level at the same time at the same place.
So my wife and I were both PhDs. We both spend some time in academia, and in academics they always have like kind of the position for the tenure track person, and then they have this thing called the trailing spouse, which to me just sounds terrible. It's like the leftover job for somebody, like, Ah, you're not as good as your spouse. Here's what we give you. So trying to get away from that with the garden in the rose is you have a conscious effort to take turns in
those roles, because I personally don't think it's possible. There's a book out of like the eighty percent marriage, like you both settle eighty percent of what you want. I think that just causes resentment where instead of we're taking turns, we both get that opportunity to grow and it doesn't have to be career, you know. So for me, when i'm the rose, I'm going to get in a boat and travel the world. You know that's already planned five to seven years down the road from now. That's what
we're doing. And when we do this with couples, that awareness that we're going to take turns goes a long way because it allows the rose to be a little more selfish because that's intentional because they know the gardener knows, hey, they're going to get a turn, and the rose knows this is my turn. And when you have that like good conversation about it, it gets away from a lot of the resentment or you know, the judgments or other things. It tends to work out.
Yeah, I think you're identifying a lot of the fluidity that can happen in a life lived of adulthood without having children, and some of this negotiation that happens. It's I've never put those words to it, but Eric and I have experienced this so many times. I've gotten my master's degree while married and started a business, and he started a business, and there's been different times where we've kind of ebbed and flowed in that way, and we've
appreciated that flexibility. I think a lot of that was available to us because we don't have children, and you know, some of those typical constraints that can happen with that. But I think what you're saying here is having even the language to put around it can help to define it a little bit more, have a little bit more of that give and take and reciprocity. And I just appreciate kind of the underlying awareness of life can look
different and that's okay. We can give ourselves permission to not just say, well, okay, I won't invest in a five twenty nine because I don't have kids. But there's a whole other conversation that can be happening here of what do we want with life, both now and in the future, beyond just thinking we just have to tweak a couple of little things here.
Yeah, I mean, and even like I have kids and I'm sitting here thinking this is such a healthy conversation. Like we just launched a book and my husband is doing a lot more of the you know, home caregiving, and I'm off a lot more doing work stuff. But you know, when this all dies down, it can switch back and forth and it has before. So like this is just healthy advice, no matter whether your child free for life, child free for now, or like in a you know, a gaggle of children.
A gaggle, a gaggle. How many is that? Six for two? I mean, anything over over zero is a guide it to me. But like, so, the one thing I'm going to challenge both of you on is having the conversation up front of like what are the roles and to what time frame? And it's not a hard and fast time frame, but it really helps to have that clarity versus just falling into it. A lot of folks do fall into it, you know, Hey, I'm busy at work
or whatever. But just that awareness that I'm gonna lean on you for a little bit of time and then you get to lean on me tends to help the conversation.
Yeah, I wish we had had I wish I'd had this insight and could have had a clearer conversation with my husband before all of this. Like, we still had the conversation, but it was I didn't know the words to use or like Gardner and Rose, I think that would have been really helpful.
We might be getting at some of this already. But what would you say, Jay, are the biggest mistakes that child free people can make with their money?
So I think when you talk about mistakes, I try not to like shame people like you did that wrong, you know. But what tends to happen with child free folks is they've left the standard life script. So they're on their own path, they're doing their own thing, but then they get pulled back to the standard life script for other things. So let's talk about buying a house. For example, buying a house if you have kids and you're going to stay in the schools system and you
have family in the area. I get it. If you're child free and you're going to move every three to five years, renting is a perfectly fine choice. You know, my wife and I sold our house and we rent and I'm a big fan are renting because it gives you flexibility. But the standard life script says the only way to get ahead is to buy a house, buy real estate, do all the other things, and you end up with kind of head trash between the life you want to live and what other people are saying you do.
And to the point I will ask my client, who's voice in your head saying you got to do that? And it's very rarely there. It's culture, it's religion, it's parents, it's and I'm like you, they're not living the same life as you. Why are you listening to them? And then they'll go, well, but I don't know any other option. Okay, well, at least that I can work through. But it's that awareness of I'm getting pulled back to this standard script that doesn't fit me.
Yes, that is so much when we talk about spending and people are trying to justify what they spend money on with like I need this or I deserve this, and like hearing like what are the voices in your head saying that you need to buy this or that this is a problem that you need to solve by purchasing something, And it's usually like not theirs, yep.
And we're talking about house purchase, so we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I had somebody the other day, I'm like, did your hot We always try to like balancing and say how do we make your
finances simple to your life can be amazing. They're gonna be a landlord And I said, Okay, that's not going to make your finances more simple, and they said, okay, great, I said, and nobody's ever totally being a landlord makes your life more amazing, like you know, like you're dealing with renters, you're dealing with and they're like, you're right, But my dad says, I gotta get you know, and I'm like, Okay, your dad bought a house in the
nineteen sixties when it was sixteen thousand dollars. Okay, Like it's not the same world and you're not living the same life.
So true, Yeah, I also am a landlord, and I can I agree with that?
Yeah, is it worth it is the question? And like I'm like, okay, we can invest you in a real estate investment trust and you don't have do any work if you really want to act, it's the real estate. Like, but you're told you have to do this because that's what's expected.
I am really interested in the difference how you would counsel someone who is a single, like child free, because they are single and single intentionally versus couples, Like what do you what like financial advice do you give to the person who is not in a relationship.
So thirty two percent of childless folks will never marry, as opposed to two point five percent of parents, So we're talking about the third of our folks are what we call soloists, single with no kids. Some people don't like this a single term, so we use soloists. And it costs between four hundred thousand dollars and a million dollars across your lifetime to be single because you can't split like the rent, you can't split the electric bill,
you can't split the groceries. And people don't catch that. Like, our society is not made for singles, you know, like we really should have some community housing things we can share different things, but it just doesn't exist. And what happens for our soloists is they have a lot of choices. You know, the way we say it is living a life of child free Wealthy is means you have more time, money, and freedom to do what you enjoy. Doesn't mean you're
rich and can disparis are still the same. But then it's like almost too many choices, Like if you don't have a limit to where you can live, what do you do? And we talk to two soloists or like maybe you need an accountability partner to bounce things off of, someone that can work with you on it. And it
doesn't have to be a professional. It could be a friend, could be whatever, but someone that can speak into your life to just be a sounding board, which sounds simple, but that's actually hard to find somebody you feel comfortable talking about your money. You know, when I did my first book, I did a whole bunch of interviews and I found out people would rather talk about their sex life than their money, Like you know, it's like this
like taboo thing. I'm like no, And then the hardest part for single folks may actually be towards the end of life of who makes decisions for me when I can't, which is often overlooked. You know, if you have kids, your next of kin tends to be that default choice. If you're in a couple, your spouse might be the first choice. But if your child free or single, who does that? And if you don't have a will in place, you don't power attorney in place. All that the government's
making the decisions for you. Which I'm not getting political. I'm like, I don't care which side you're on. Nobody trusts the government to make decisions for you, and that is really hard for single folks, to the point where it's something I've been working on for about three years now a solution for this, and we hope to have a solution coming out from our company later in the year on this. But in California, Arizona, you can pay a professional to do this, called professional fiduciary. In the
other states you can't. So if you're in the other forty eight states, you're like, hey, I need somebody to be my medical power attorney and my finance power attorney, my executor. You got to find a friend you like. And I had somebody email me the other day. She's seventy one, and you can you ever read an email You see the panic in the email, like you like, this is one of those. And she's like, I'm seventy one, I'm single. I've got a little bit of bunny, but not a lot. The only family I have is a
nephew across country that I've never met. How do I find somebody to make these decisions for me? And I felt back because my answer was like she said, washing it. I'm like, I don't have an answer in Washington right now. We're working on trying to solve it, but like you can see this panic. And one of the problems is if she names her nephew like oh, she was like, can I give him the money in my will? You can?
But if you name him in your will and he's also one put me in the home, he might put you in the not so good home in order to save money so he gets more in the will. Like you think those things don't happen, but that abuse does. And these are the type of things that solos have
to deal with, and there's not a solution. Like I talked to an exper on this who's been doing this for a decade, work with solos only, and she's like, my best solution is live in a trailer park where everybody has a small community together, or like a Golden Girls home, but that doesn't always work, at least not for the last friend to live.
I think my next business is creating Golden Girls homes. I think that is what I want to get into.
So I had a real estate expert reach out to me and he was trying to get into work with dinks and different things, and that's doing with no kids. I said to myself, you're missing the boat. The answer is these community homes whatever you want to call them, but they have to be fun. Yeah. I was like, I had somebody for one of my books. She wants to buy a castle and every one of the single ladies gets a different room in the castle and they
all live in a castle for the last days. I was like, you know that one actually world also Wow.
As an elevator, that's right, I know, but I'm like, just to make sure it's not too drafty.
But you know, we have not as a society gotten to understand there are so many people out there that are living child free lives. But our system is all based on still kind of the nuclear family, the American dream, all that, and it's just a challenge.
So what is one thing that if somebody is single with no kids is listening right now, what's kind of maybe one protection they can put in place, or one thing they might you think they might want to change about their planning right now.
So if I had to pick just one thing, I would get something on paper for who makes decisions for you? Your will, your power attorney. And by the way, you can do that cheaply. I mean, there's a website called freewill dot com. You can get it for free, like besides getting a notary you might have pay whatever ten bucks for. But even if you don't have a best answer for who makes decisions for you, your friend that you kind of think is a better answer is probably
a better answer than a random government person. And then you can specify your will who gets your stuff, because if you don't, the government gets it. I was just meeting with a banking regulator and I asked them, what's your process if somebody dies, you know, don't have kids. They said, they post it on their website, And I'm like, so I've got to look at all fifty states across the country, like I guess every week to see if my cousin died, and they're like, well, yeah, people don't
reach out to us. And then if they don't reach out, it just goes to the government's pocket, which is part of the reason why the government doesn't look. So if you got nothing else you can do, get the paperwork done. It's not going to cost you much and you can at least get it. You know, you can update it whenever you want later, but get your first set. I don't care what age you are.
These long term considerations are so helpful and often not on our radar for any of us to be considering a will and you know what we want to happen for us medically and just assigning beneficiaries like these things are a very important And I also like what you're describing here of thinking bigger picture, what do I want for my life to be able to know it doesn't have to look status quo, doesn't have to mean that I am buying a house, and it could mean that
I get to have, as you said, you know, more time, flexibility, more freedom, more money in my pocket, as we distill that down then for kind of the day to day or month to month, like our present moments, how do you counsel people in what making a spending plan looks like? Then, if we've been able to identify, Okay, I've got this vision now for what I want my life to look like, how do we then incorporate that into the here and now.
So we've tracked it with our clients, and we're a financial planning firm, so we do a lot of work with you know, our focus to child free folks. We do a lot of work on investments, all the things. We actually spend more time talking about spending money than saving money because what happens is if you're good at saving like you just like that, it's your habit, and it's actually harder to teach you how to spend money. So when I'm talking about a spending plan, it's usually
getting people to spend more, not cut back. And that sounds a little different, but I'm trying to make sure they're getting to those like, oh, if they don't care about how much money they passed on next generation, we don't want them die with millions. We want to match them. And what tends to happen. Is that first step you're talking about, like I have a plan for my life. That's the hardest one. Most people don't have that answer, that takes forever to figure out. Once we have it,
we will set goals. So I will set actually minimum spending goals on the things that matter to them. For example, a lot of our clients are travel enthusiasts. You know, they just love travel. Good thing about being a child phrase like you can pick a random time of the year and travel, and you know you can find the
cheaper times you can go random places. And what we'll often do is we'll say, all right, we want you to spend more on travel, and they start getting to kind of this guilt thing about like, well can I really spend that on me? Is it okay for me to spend that much? And what we'll try to do is kind of offset it is we'll say, all right, how do we do an equal amount of giving to you have the charities that matter to you or the people that matter to you as we do to travel.
You know, I have a couple right now we're working on, Hey, I want you to travel for one hundred thousand dollars a year, and give away one hundred thousand dollars a year, which sounds crazy, but at the end of the year I will ask them, like, which did you get more out of the giving or the travel? Most out of times it's the giving. So we can find ways to shift their mindset around money. It's much like what you've gotten in your book of like how does it match
your values? The impact you want to make, the bigger picture stuff. And it's interesting once they get used to it, they can start spending a bit more. But I still got people with you know, millions and millions of dollars cutting coupons. I'm like, first of all, there's ass for that now, but like, wow, you don't need to cut coupons anymore. Like you're okay, do you really want to spend hours cutting coupons? And I did have one clan
and go I enjoy it. I'm like, okay, fine, you know, like that's you enjoy But it's that mindset that becomes tough to deal with.
How do you help child free people identify what is excess because like, for someone like me, I still I'm going to need money. I'm not imagining that there's going to be anyone to care for me. I'll probably outlive my husband if it. You know, we just have the status quo life expectancy. So I do want to invest, but I'm also hearing what you're saying that there's all these other demands on money that you know, people with kids have that that I don't have. But how will
I know? But I could spend this, I actually don't have to do all of these other things with my money. How can I know what that excess is?
Yeah, So the first thing is I really don't truly want you dying with zero like, you know, I don't want you like at the end, you know, having to work at Walmart to pay the bills, Like that's the worst outcome. So what we're going to do is we create a die with zero safety, that's what we call it, where we have a plan for long term care. So if you came to me as a client, we'd actually figure out whether you put money aside for long term care or insurance. Which long term care is really expensive.
It's one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars a year. Men will spend two point two years in care, women three point seven. We're talking about half million dollars today. But we'll figure out that plan for long term care. We'll put off getting Social Security until seventy with a little cash cushion, and then what I'll show you is in the system, how much money you're gonna die with? Now, this is where we're doing Monte Carlo simulation. Other things
we're looking at the you know, expected return investments. That's all guest mit work. But what tends to happen is people realize they hit their goal a long time ago. So a lot of folks use kind of like that safe withdrawal rate number of four percent. They'll take their expenses times twenty five. That's so much I have there for retirement. That all assumes you want to pass on the money to next generation. Doesn't fit child free people.
So you know, if you and your husband came set down with me, I say, okay, you've got your safety net. This is what you need the end, this is what you have left. How do we bend the curve on your net worth so it stops always going up. The problem is if you've got a kind of quote unquote standard financial advisor who's charging you a percentage of your assets as to under management fee. There's a conflict of interest because your advisor always wants to go up because
that means their salary goes up. So you've got to like find somebody that's willing to work with you and go, okay, let's make an active effort to bring this down over time. And what normally happens is for the people kind of thirties and forties, it means giving up that job you hate and doing something even joy. It might slow down your retirement, but you're okay. Or it might mean going back to school. I don't know why. I have a lot of folks that want to go back and be
a librarian. Sounds like a cool job. I don't know, love librarians, right, but like, how do you do that? And I think what happens is the risk And it sounds like you and your husband are getting close to this is people get into mindlessly saving like they've just always been saving, always put in the retirement, and at some point it could be too much.
I also appreciate how we're not just talking about we're talking about numbers, right, and some of the math and the strategy to that, but also lifestyle pieces that we can also be exploring that there could then be seasons where we can step back a little bit. We don't have to be hustling so hard, and just that awareness for what does the season require of me? What's actually
enough when it comes to money? And how can I reorient and make sure that I'm both enjoying my present life and working towards future goals, but that both matter in this equation.
Yeah, we're not doing yolo. Okay, this is not like let me just spend it all and be broken at the end. No, it's a definite plan that matches your life.
Do you know what else as a definite plan that matches our life? Our Lives podcast The Bill of the Week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the Week.
Jay.
Every week we invite our guests and listeners, after yelling at them, of course, to share with us their bill for the week, and we are excited to hear yours.
It's okay, I've got a love hate thing with one bill. All right, my splurge. It's kind of personal splurges. I've got all the streaming services like pretty much except for Apple TV A. No, he's the living dlay's out of me because it's ten bucks a month. Okay, it's not a lot of money, but I run out of shows on there almost every time. Yo, I'm getting to the last couple episodes of Silo and then this going away.
But like, I know, I can afford the ten bucks, but for some reason, the fact that I'm not gonna touch it for a month or two bothers me for that one streaming service but not the others.
It is so interesting because Apple has prioritized quality over quantity, but it kind of shoots them in the foot, like because you've got this going on.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not my Netflix. I've never canceled because there's always something I can find on there. Now I'm going to be good say like if there's some stuff I watch while I'm doing other work, because it's pointless. But like I think, you know, people get like there's a lot of stuff on subscriptions and should you have a whole bunch whatever? Actually, the best financial would be like I watched this for three months, then
I cancel that and I go another streaming. I'm like, that's way too much work, and I don't commit to anything like you know this show. This week, I'm watching Tulsa King on Paramount cool uh, and then I'm like, I might skip that for a little bit and go over to Hulu. But Apple TV, You're right, there's something wrong, because it just I've canceled it probably half a dozen times.
Yeah, the same issue here, and it's making me realize that then sometimes apparently I'm paying ten dollars a month just for that one show. And remember when we used to be able to buy entire DVD sets of a show for ten dollars, and here we are potentially paying twenty to thirty to watch it over the course of a couple of months.
Yeah.
I think this is the double edged sword of being aware of our money. Even if you can afford something, I think we still value being good stewards of the resource, and if we don't feel like we're getting good value in return, then yeah, it's gonna it's gonna irk me too.
I'm with you, Jack, I have been so interested in Apple TV shows, but yeah, I've never I've never subscribed, so I don't know what they're like, but i've heard great. Thanks, Yes, they'll never sponsor us.
Now I was gonna say, you've gone the wrong direction if you want that, but I mean they've got some good shows. But like, as soon as I'm done with that update, I'm like, I'm gone.
Yeah, yeah, great point. Love that. Well, if you all listening, have a bill that you want to submit, if it has to do with subscription services, you have a love hate relationship with bills, You don't mind paying bills. You love paying a person named Bill, whether or not you love or hate them. Frugal Friends podcast, dot Com, slash bill. We can't wait to hear it. And now it's time for the round, all.
Right now, in our vulnerability round, we're all gonna go and our question today is what she's changed. As soon as I go to read the question, she has even up.
Go for it.
What is your favorite way to spend money?
Jay? So I already talked about streaming services. That is one of but the other one is I'm a video game guy, Like I buy a whole bunch of games. But I'll tell you my steam collection is a bunch of games I haven't played yet. But there's New Civilization coming out in a month or so, so that's where we spend some money and hopefully get to spend a lot of time.
Do you enjoy the TV shows that are based off of games? Are those fun for you?
They're fifty to fifty So the Fallout show was great? Yeah, I do enjoy Fallout a lot of the other ones. I'm like, yeah, like they made it too. Can't be to gamey, like you miss the show on the way by.
Yeah, so that makes sense. It's not all or nothing. Nice. My favorite is travel. I just love to travel. It is easy for me to say no to a lot of other things, but to be able to get on a plane, go places, see new sites, enjoy some beautiful things, different cultures. That's my favorite. And I love dropping some money on some of the luxury US things, like I am not doing hostels anymore. I know I'm a frugal friend,
but that was from my twenties. These days, it's four stars are higher, and yeah, it just brings me so much joy.
Okay, well we're here talking about spending one hundred bucks on a game, and you're spending ten grand out of the traveler, Like I didn't know where going that level.
I mean, just what do you love?
I'm not there.
You will, Peter, You'll bring I'll bring us back down. And I would say mine is food. I love to grocery shop. I love to get take out.
I love grocery shopping.
I actually do, but I do it on my phone. Okay, it's my online shopping.
That's your video game. That is the game, like you put the switch to like, I really love it.
Hits my like I love going to Costco. I just love like buying food and snacks, like I just love it.
Uh that is is there any particular food lately you're loving to buy?
I love going to Costco because that I do shop like in store. So really anything at Costco right now or Sam's Club. I just alternate with the membership so I can get the new member deal.
Tell me you have kids? About telling me you have kids?
Okay, I like my snacks and sod of my wife, but like I don't enjoy shopping for them. I just enjoy eating them. I like shopping for them.
Does I do? She likes being in and around food, getting food, eating food, talking about food.
Yeah.
Well, Jay, this has been very fun. Thanks for joining us. If people want to be around you talking about child free things, money, where can they get more from you?
Yeah? So the new books, The Choffree Guide to Life and Money out in stores now, child Free Wealth and all the socials except for Twitter because he thinks childfree people should not vote, and Childfreewealth dot.
Com nice And we saw it at Barnes and Noble when we were going to sign.
Up books, so it's are sold. Thanks Jay.
I really loved the idea of the garden and the rose, and I think it's definitely something that it's language I will use more frequently to define our seasons because we talk about honoring your season, and when we have language to define our season, it becomes easier to honor it.
I think it's really illuminating too, to be able to say my season might even be a little different from this season that I'm sharing a household with, that it's not necessarily going to feel or look the same for you and your spouse or if you do have kids, you and your children, and being able to communicate about those things of here's what we both want long term. But in order to get there, I'm going to need
to scale back or go full fours. And here's what we need to be able to do for one another. In kind of that ebb and flow that can happen. But I think Jay brought up a good point that without talking about it, things can go really awry. And I think similarly, just the overarching piece that he was laying out for us again that I think is important for all people, regardless of whether or not you have children, to be looking at what do I want out of life? And do I have to does it have to look
status quo or can I throw a curveball? Can I do these other things? Can I experience greater degrees of flexibility with the ways that I spend money? I just think that these are really important questions to be asking. So I'm really glad that he brought these questions to the surface. Yeah, so we hope that this was helpful for you all. We really appreciate you listening. We also really appreciate those of you who are leaving very kind reviews of the book. That's right book Buy what you
Love without going broke. It is now out there, and I know that you've heard us talking about our book for a very long time, but it's finally released into the world and it now is forever and always available for purchase, and if you have purchased it, reviews go a long way, same as they did do and did with the podcast. It's very helpful on a book, So we'd love it if you got the book anywhere books are bought and left us a review. Wherever you bought
the book, you can leave one on Amazon. That's where this one came from. From K Montgomery five stars. This was about buy what you Love without Going Broke. They said I wasn't in debt, so I thought I was responsible with money, but I wasn't investing. I barely had enough to cover an emergency. I was mindlessly spending on
stuff that didn't matter. By What you Love Without Going Broke is a wonderful book that talks about how to shift your mindset regarding the money you spend and what you want your money to be able to do with you. I now think about each purchase and if it's something that is in alignment with what I want in life? Is this helping me towards my goals? Is this something that I value? By what you Love Without Going Broke is more of a mindset shift than a how to
save money book, although it talks about that too. If you feel like you have struggled with money and how you spend, but you want to get your finances in order, this is a great book to read. I also highly recommend listening to the Frugal Friends podcast too. Hey Montgomery, thank you, Thank you so much. It's such a good summary of the book because I think we've described that it's not an exact, step by step formulaic approach to finances.
It is a lot more of that behavioral psychology and mindset and under self understanding that gets incorporated and woven into money. While there is still tangible takeaways from the book and best practices, we dig a little bit deeper, so I'm glad that k. Montgomery yeah, is experiencing that.
Thank you so much for reading. If you want to check out the book, head to buy what you loovebook dot com. With every purchase you will get over two hundred dollars worth of free resources at the resources page listed in the book. And if you liked the book, please leave a review wherever you purchased it or on Amazon or Goodreads. It helps us so much. Get the book into more hands.
See you next time.
Bye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
So this is the first podcast episode we're recording in the new year, because you all know us, we're a month ahead on recording eisodes. Honestly, yeah, so a month ahead out of order. But where it lands for us is this is the first time in the new year that we're recording. And fun fact for you all is that we got an office space, so we are no longer in our homes. We are downtown Saint Petersburg in a studio that we built out in a coworking space, and it's been a friggin blast, such a blast.
I am digging it and it has been a fantastic use of our business money.
I will be posting if I haven't already, on our Instagram, just some of the behind the scenes of the buildout of our studio and kind of how it's all come together, so you all can have a visual because we're also planning on doing more YouTube stuff this year, so it's all coming together. But this has been very fun, Like there's people who are walking by the office. We've got a little cute hot pink on air sign so that people can know to be a little bit quieter when
they walk by. But there's just so much more act happening as we're recording, and that's been fun.
Yeah, it's it. It will be a fun minimum of six months.
That's how I.
Can't After six months and we're out of here.
We will reel when the YouTube videos are up, we will really need you guys to stream those, and it won't be podcast episodes like this. It's going to be very new and very exciting and.
We're very new.
It's very new, very new, no one's ever done it before. Just kidding, uh, but it is exciting and I think you guys will like it. We're not going to bore you with the you know, same thing most other podcasts are doing, so that is.
Well teaser will tantalizing teaser.
We kind of looked at what other podcasts were doing and we were like, I don't really care to watch that.
What I do want to watch standard for what we think you want to watch.
Yeah, okay, bye bye