Childfree Life by Design

The entire estate and long-term care system runs on one assumption: that you have kids who will make your decisions, provide your care, and inherit what's left. For Childfree people, that quietly turns standard legal documents into a liability. In this deliberately nerdy solo episode, Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® pulls apart the 6,000-word article he wrote for financial planners at Kitces and turns it into a plan you can actually use, fro...

Money is one of the top reasons couples split, and almost half of us dodge the conversation entirely to keep the peace. Bri Conn, CFP® and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® make the case that avoiding it is the actual risk, and they get refreshingly personal about how to do it well, chicken nugget meltdowns and all. They dig into why the fight is almost never about the dollar amount, how a 20 dollar argument and a 100,000 dollar one are the ex...

Nobody wants to picture the version of later life where their mind or body stops cooperating, so most people file long-term care under "deal with it later." Jesse Vickey built a whole company on the belief that later is exactly the wrong time to start. The founder of Long Term What? joins Bri Conn, CFP® to make one of the most avoided money conversations feel clear and even a little hopeful, walking through what long-term care actu...

The worst tax stories aren't about criminals, they're about ordinary people doing what they thought was allowed and stepping into a trap. Bri Conn, CFP® reads a string of real-world cautionary tales while Maddy Roche reacts and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® explains what actually went wrong, from the influencer myth that your whole life becomes a write-off, to the unpaid tax bill that can revoke your passport at the airport, to the rent yo...

Most mainstream tax advice runs on autopilot, and the autopilot assumes you're married with kids, funding a 529, and leaving an inheritance behind. When none of that describes your life, following it can cost you a fortune. Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® and Scott Barnes, CFP®, TPCP®, CLTC start from a blunter premise: the tax code is built to reward having children, so Childfree people are never going to get those breaks, and the smarter m...

Most people first hear the words guardianship and conservatorship in a moment of crisis, when an accident, illness, or cognitive decline has already taken the decision out of their hands. Melissa Holcombe, DSW, LCSW has spent years inside that court system, conducting the capacity assessments that decide whether someone keeps the right to manage their own life or a court steps in to decide for them. She joins Bri Conn, CFP® to pull...

There's a particular kind of quiet worry that comes with being Childfree, the suspicion that everyone else received some piece of wiring you're missing. Dr. Amy Blackstone spent her mid-30s certain she was broken as a woman, and she went looking for the research to explain what had gone wrong with her. What she found became her life's work. There is no maternal instinct waiting to switch on, and the majority of Childfree people she...

When you're Childfree, disability insurance is essential. Bri Conn, CFP® and Scott Barnes, CFP®, TPCP®, CLTC make the case that your paycheck is the engine behind the entire life you've designed, and protecting it isn't the same as guarding against some freak accident. More than one in four of today's 20-year-olds will become disabled before retirement, and about 90 percent of claims come from ordinary illnesses like cancer, heart ...

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...