Childfree Life by Design

Building real community as an adult is quietly one of the hardest things about modern life, and it gets harder when you're Childfree. The friends you assumed would always be around get busy, have kids, or move away, and one day you look up and realize the built-in social life adulthood promised never actually arrived. Maddy Roche sits down with four people who got tired of waiting and built the communities they couldn't find. Kari ...

Loneliness carries the same health toll as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and for Childfree adults there is no built-in carpool lane to friendship. You build your crew on purpose. In this episode, Melissa Holcombe, DSW, LCSW, Maddy Roche, Bri Conn, CFP®, and Alli Gage trade honest stories about the moments that forced them to rebuild their circles, from divorce and sobriety to cross-country moves, and the practical ways they found th...

Being Childfree changes how you build a business, from the money you can pour back in, to the hours you keep to the question of who it's all for. Jena Gribble of Blush Cactus and Huzefa Kapadia of Scalar Learning join Bri Conn, CFP® to talk about what that has actually looked like for them, the runway that lets them weather a slow season, the boundaries they set by choice, and how they think about a business's future when handing i...

In this episode, Bri Conn, CFP® sits down with Ilaria Rawlins, CEO of Fortuna Bank, to talk about why female entrepreneurs are denied business loans three times more often than their male counterparts, what it actually took to build one of only 15 women-owned banks in the country, and what every woman building a business needs to know about finding a banking partner who is genuinely in their corner. Fortuna Bank is only the second ...

Carol Marak spent years as a family caregiver before a single, sharp realization changed the course of her life: her parents had three daughters looking out for them, and she was navigating the road ahead solo. Rather than let that fear sit, she turned it into a decade of research, a widely followed community, and a body of work on how to age safely and securely as a soloist, without a spouse or kids. In this episode, she joins Dr....

For Childfree adults over 50, the next wave of AI-driven job displacement does not have to be a crisis. It can be the push that finally makes starting something of your own feel not just possible but necessary. In this episode, Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® and Alli Gage break down what it actually takes to launch a small business in the second half of life,  from the two questions every founder needs to answer first, to how AI can ma...

In this episode, Bri Conn, CFP® and Melissa Holcombe, DSW, LCSW sit down with Jennifer Crowley, registered nurse, certified life care planner, and founder of The Life Care Experts, for a conversation about what it actually takes to plan for aging with intention. Jennifer has spent over 30 years walking alongside individuals through the most vulnerable chapters of their lives, and she brings a clear-eyed, practical framework for Chi...

In this episode, Maddy Roche sits down with Sherrill Wayland, Senior Director of Special Initiatives and Partnerships at SAGE, the country's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ+ older adults. Sherrill brings over two decades of advocacy experience, a deeply personal connection to the community she serves, and a clear-eyed understanding of what it means to age as an LGBTQ+ adult in a world that ...

In this episode, Bri Conn, CFP® sits down with Nikolai Blinow for a conversation about wise mind decision-making, the real definition of rest, and what calm hustle actually looks like when you are building a business on your own terms. Nikolai Blinow built her entire practice around one idea, that you should not have to burn your life down to build a successful business. As a licensed mental health counselor, life coach, and TEDx s...

In this episode, Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® brings his TED Conference takeaways directly to the Childfree community for a straight-talking look at what the AI economy actually means for people building a future without children. He does not sugarcoat it. The next recession will likely be the one that takes the jobs and does not bring them back, and the people who will be okay are not necessarily the ones who saw it coming, they are the ...

Buying a home has been sold as the responsible, obvious next step for so long that most people have never actually stopped to ask whether it fits their life. Dr. Jay Zigmont CFP® owned homes from age 21 to 45 and now rents. Fiona Waller CFP® works with clients who have spent years in properties they quietly resented. In this episode, they take apart the financial math, the family voices, the passive income myth, and the real cost o...

For Childfree adults building a future without a traditional family support structure, the quality of your later years matters as much as the quantity. In this episode, Dr. Jay Zigmont CFP® sat down with Joshua Herring, President and CEO of the Longevity Science Foundation, to talk about what it actually takes to fund the research that could extend not just how long you live, but how well. 

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why...

Rental properties, passive income, and long-distance real estate investing sound great on social media. The reality looks a lot more like what Justin Brown-Woods actually lived -- two properties across Michigan and Ohio, squatters, stolen copper pipes, three evictions in one year, and a net loss of $25,000 on the first property alone. Bri Conn, CFP® sits down with Justin Brow-Woods, Accredited Financial Counselor® and co-founder of...

In this crossover episode, Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® sat down with Dr. Bill Yount, host and founder of the Catching Up to FI podcast, for a conversation that starts where most financial conversations never go. Bill recently hit financial independence and found himself in what he calls the fog of FI -- that disorienting stretch after you reach the number and realize the number was never really the point. He and Dr. Jay compare notes on ...

Every major life change comes with a to-do list most people don't think about until they're already in the middle of it. The job switch that leaves you a month without a paycheck. The move that triggers a tax bill from a state you no longer live in. The divorce where nobody updated the beneficiary and the ex-spouse got the pension.

Being Childfree means more flexibility to make bold moves. It also means more responsibility to plan t...

In this episode, Bri Conn CFP®, Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, and Maddy Roche share four real client stories, the kind that start with someone doing everything more or less right, and then life intervening in ways nobody planned for. 

These stories are not cautionary tales. They are honest, human reminders that planning is not about predicting the future, it is about being ready for the version of it that actually shows up.

In This Epi...

In this episode, Bri Conn CFP® sits down with Hillary, a client who is Childfree not by choice, for a real-life Childfree Wealth® checkup. Hillary has already done much of the emotional heavy lifting, moving through grief, redefining what her future looks like, and arriving at a place of clarity and intention. Now she is ready to match that clarity with a financial plan that actually fits her life.

What unfolds is an honest, grounde...

Sister Monica Clare knew from a young age that marriage and children were not her calling. She just spent decades being told otherwise. By the time she made it to the Groundlings in LA, she had checked every box society handed her: the career, the marriage, the full script, and none of it fit. What came next was a $150,000 debt payoff, a cross-country search for a convent that actually aligned with her values, and a vow of poverty ...

Women could not open their own bank accounts without a man's signature until 1974. That is not ancient history. The people who lived through it are still alive. And the financial world Childfree women are navigating today was built in that shadow.

In this episode, Bri Conn, CFP® sits down with Grace L. Williams, financial journalist and author of Give Her Credit, to trace the women's banking movement from a living room in Denver to ...