Lauryn:
Welcome to another episode of the Know Better, Do Better series on the Worth Listening Podcast. I'm your girl, Lauren Williams, and I'm joined by my favorite certified financial planner, Chloe Moore. And if you haven't listened to the previous episodes, we are in the middle of talking all things money, parenting, momming, and bringing up children in this world nowadays and the cost of doing so.

But I wanted to take time today to make space for those who are either child-free or childless, which we'll talk about what the differences are as we get a little bit more into the show.

Not everybody is a mother. Not everybody wants to be a mother. And we need to know how that impacts people financially as well.

So this mom series is inclusive of those who are not interested in being moms or, like I said, can't be moms for whatever reason. And so today we're going to be talking about the financial pieces of the puzzle related to those that are either child-free or childless. So, Chloe, welcome to the show.

Chloe:
Thanks for having me.

Lauryn:
All right, girl. You know, trends, taxes, and tea is your thing. And I mean, I've already looked at it, so I've got to kind of like the spoiler alert. But tell us a little bit about what you found that people might be interested in knowing in this category.

Chloe:
Yeah. So an MSU study finds that the percentage of non-parents in the U.S. who never want children has doubled over the last 20 years. So it went from 14 percent in 2002 to 29 percent in 2023.

So during that same period, the percentage of non-parents who plan to have children in the future fell from 79 percent to 59 percent.

Lauryn:
Interesting. So what we're hearing here is that people who never want to have children has doubled. And I've heard a lot of conversations that kind of support this amongst my friend group of, you know, how crazy the world is right now, not having a lot of, you know, confidence in the politics and, you know, just various pieces of the puzzle on where the world is going to go.

And that, you know, they feel better like not creating a child because they just don't know what kind of world that child is going to be brought up in. And then to the, you know, the reverse of that, you're saying parents who maybe were planning to have children in the future and they're like, never mind, I ain't doing it. Like, I haven't done it yet and now I'm not going to do it.

I feel like I'm also seeing that in a lot of my friend groups. And I feel like that's actually the category I kind of fell in before I created my five month old was just like, well, like, yeah, it hasn't happened for me yet. No big deal if it doesn't because like you said, I'm doing all right all by myself. So it wasn't like a, you know, diehard need or passion for me. So I think I can relate to this quite a bit.

Chloe:
Yeah. Yeah. And I've never wanted to have kids. So, yeah, this is a topic I'm definitely passionate about.

Lauryn:
And so tell me about this other study that you found.

Chloe:
Yeah. So, the study basically categorizes non-parents into different categories or different types. Cause you know, we just want to make sure we're all kind of consistently using the same term. So, uh, so they basically use child free as people who do not want to have children and then childless as people who wanted children, but maybe couldn't have them.

Um, and then not yet parents as people who plan to have them in the future.

Lauryn:
I think this is an important distinction because like you said, like there are various categories of people that are doing things or not doing things, um, for various reasons. So you don't want children, you are child free.

Like, Ooh,I don't want it in my life. I am choosing my freedom over having a child. Whereas, you know, childless, like if we actually go off of the language, you know, like you're, you're without, you know, like you're that, that less on the end of it.

Yeah. So people who wanted children, but can't have them, um, it actually makes sense that that term and then not yet parents is like, Hey, I'm, I'm 25 living my best life or I'm 35 living my best life because we are having children older and older nowadays. But yeah, you're not yet a parent and those are three distinct groups of people.

And I think it is important, like you said, we talk about in the current day and age, how people identify to respect that people come from different categories and that we shouldn't lump them all together.

Chloe:
Yeah. And so, um, so yeah, with that in mind, we also want to be careful about the language that we use, and how we approach conversations.

I just know being a child free person, and I'm sure you've heard a lot of these things too. There's a lot of reasons that people don't want to have kids. And then, you know, there's some people, like you said, that aren't able to have kids and maybe they're trying or they've tried in the past and gave up.

So it's all really personal. And so you just need to be considerate of those things as you're talking to people.

Lauryn:
Mind your business is, is what she just said, y'all. And I can also, like, I remember sitting at the table one time and having a very awkward conversation with some people we had just met. I was with my husband and we were on kind of like a double triple date sort of situation. But somebody did, they were just like, so when are you guys going to do it? And yeah, we were in a situation where we had been having some tough conversations about it.

And so it wasn't, it wasn't a conversation that I wanted to have with these people that I just met. And it, and it is very personal, like, you know, why or why not, uh, you decide to have children or don't have children, or if you're trying and you're not getting pregnant, there's all sorts of different things. So be really careful before you just kind of spit that out, assuming, you know, okay, you're married now, what's next? When's baby coming? And even with the grandparents, oh my goodness, like, well, when's my grandbaby coming? You know, you don't get to decide for me if I'm going to procreate or not.

And you also found this bingo card. It really summed up a lot of things perfectly, but go ahead and tell us, tell us about the bingo card. We definitely check this out at the show notes.

Yeah, we'll have a link in the show notes, but yeah, there's this child-free bingo card. So it lists the number of things that you should definitely not say, uh, when someone says that they don't want to have children. And the idea here is that, you know, people make decisions about a lot of things in their lives, but you never ask anyone to explain, you know, like why they want to have kids or explain other circumstances.

So it's definitely something that you shouldn't have to explain.

Lauryn:
Yeah. I would just give y'all like two or three, there's a whole bingo card full. So there's literally like 24 different options. Um, but I mean, I've heard more than, I probably heard 20 of the 24. Um, but your children would be so beautiful.

Like what? You want me to have kids because you think my kids would be cute. Like, and I got that a lot. Like I said, once again, I had a white husband, I'm a black woman.

They were like, Oh, but those cute little mixed kids are going to make. And I'm like, excuse you. Pardon me. Like, you don't get to tell me what I get. And nobody knows what your kids are going to look like.

“You're never going to experience real love.” Like so disrespectful, like because I, because I don't have children, I'm not going to experience real love. What planet are you growing up on?

“Your husband will leave you.” Yes. Like I said, there's, there are 24 of them y'all. So I'm not going to give them all away. Check out the link in the show notes.

If you want to hear all the, all the ignorant stuff that people say about other people who don't have children.

Chloe:
Yeah. Yeah. It can get real interesting.

Lauryn:
For sure. And then they don't, don't be mad if somebody says something equally ignorant back to you for saying something like that.

All right. Enough with the foolishness. Let's get to the topic.

Because like I said, I'm sure there's someone out there that is listening to this episode and wanting to understand, you know, um, the impact of their choice. But also like you get some resources and things to help like live their best child-free life.

Chloe:
Yeah. So, uh, one of the first things just to kind of level set is, you know, how does being child free impact your finances? So there's a lot of different things that you have to think about there. The first is, you know, as you can imagine, you have time, money, and freedom to do what you want. So traditional goals like retirement, buying a house, passing money onto the next generation, they could all look different to you, and you really can, you know, make choices about what you want those things to look like without having to consider other people.

Lauryn:
Yes. Time, money, and freedom to do what you want. I can attest to this because I just spent 10 days on the road and, traveling with my five month old by myself.

And time, yeah, was not mine. Uh, I had things I had to get done, but then once I got back to my hotel room after speaking engagement, there was no rest. She demands my attention.

So yeah, you have, you know, this freedom to be able to choose how you spend your time because there's no one else that had taken a consideration. Money. Woo.

And she's costing me money all the time. Look, extra baggage fees is what I'm going to say comes to mind right now. I didn't have to buy her any clothes or anything. Thank goodness for all these aunties. Look, child-free aunties are taking great care of her, but baggage fees on top of formula. Yeah. They will cost you some money.

And then just like you said, freedom. I couldn't, you know, pivot and decide I wanted to stay out all night because yeah, there was somebody counting on me and there's somebody who was probably not going to be sleeping all night.

And I needed to be the, the, the main caretaker for her over the course of time. So yeah, those are some, some, some benefits, but there's also some pieces of the puzzle that we got to think about that, you know, I said are not necessarily traditional.

Chloe:
Yeah. And so another thing to think about, um, this is kind of a downside. Um, our tax systems, our laws, our economy, everything is really built around people getting married and having kids. So if you're both single and childless, there's, you know, studies out there that show that you could spend up to a million dollars more during your lifetime because of those choices.

So, there's a book that another good book, and we'll put a link in the show notes called Solo. And so it's about people who you choose kind of, kind of a similar thing, like choose not to get married o maybe they just haven't found the right person yet. And they're still looking forward to getting married, but you know, just the idea of being by yourself and how that impacts your decisions.

Lauryn:
Yeah. So yeah. And impacts, like you said, time, money, freedom, also tax, and your just general life. But I think there's also like, you know, considerations related to the retirement, the insurance, the estate planning, you know, all the pieces of the financial planning puzzle that we frequently talk about. You know, what's coming in my mind right off the top of my head, you mentioned earlier, like buying a house, you know, along with like traditional retirement and buying a home is a lot harder when there's like just your income to go off of what you can afford is different than what somebody who has a two income household can afford. And depending on where you choose to live, the cost of living like is a whole thing.

So, okay. Let me stop stealing the show. Chloe, let's talk about cashflow. I know I'm probably getting ahead of myself, uh, related to being child-free or childless.

Chloe:
Yeah. So, um, so just when you think about your cashflow and budget, um, you know, there's obviously different types of child-free people.

So you could be a single solo person without kids, you could be dual income without kids, or and like married and partnered. And then maybe one person working, one person not. So, um, so all of that kind of affects, you know, the cost of things, uh, as you're, as you're going into this child-free life.

And so, um, it could, it could definitely be more expensive being single for sure.

Lauryn:
Yes. A hundred percent. I just think about like, yeah, I bought a house that was like pretty simple. You know, in relationship to the house that I owned before that house. Uh, and it was because I was like, you know what, if I never find anybody else, if I never, you know, want to do it, like, I know I can afford this.

I can work at McDonald's and cover the property tax and insurance. And it just gave me a lot of freedom, but you know to be able to get into a bigger house and a nicer neighborhood, you know, fill in the blank, I want to be able to entertain people. It was also going to trap me into, you know, having to work a certain amount. And so without that dual-income household, you know, I was kind of limited in what I felt like I could do and still feel free to be able to kind of prioritize things like travel, which you all know has been really important to me.

Chloe:
Yeah. And even when buying a house, you could, you know, maybe get a condo or a townhouse or a smaller space, that, you know, if you have kids, it might not be, you know, that you might need more space. Or you don't have to think about, you know, school, school zones or different things like that as you're looking for, for real estate.

So, another benefit is that you have flexibility to move around. So you could move for work, you know, if you wanted to relocate to another state and take a job, um, and pursue a certain career, or, you know, just for personal reasons, if you want to move somewhere else, cause you just like the scenery in a different area. Or if you have passions or hobbies, when you don't have children, you can easily explore a lot of those things.

Lauryn:
Absolutely. Which, yeah, um, for those of you that are new to this podcast, I have fled the country then. And it was exactly that I wanted something new and different.

Nothing was tying me down to being in America. I didn't have to consider, you know, a child. I didn't have to consider their parent, you know, the other parent, any of those things and up and left and went to a new country. A city surrounded by mountains where the weather is nicer.

And I felt happier, um, where I had better community. And, you know, when you think about like the hobbies, I think about like people who like to hike, you know, moving to like a Colorado or Montana or, you know, something where there's more nature. You can do those things without having to consider like, what's the school system like, how are they going to continue their activities? And you know, those little pieces of the puzzle.

Chloe:
Yeah. And then just because you're child-free, doesn't mean you don't have children in your life. So you can definitely spend time and money on like nieces and nephews got children.

And, you can even include them in your estate plan. So, so there, there are still ways to have an impact, you know, on kids' lives, but you don't have to do the day-to-day taking care of them.

Lauryn:
Which, yeah, I would say this is the best thing. I loved being super aunt. It's like, I come in, swoop in for a week, you know, they keep me busy. I keep them busy. I am exhausted afterward, but guess what? I get to wipe my hands free and clear. And the mom has to keep on momming.

Now I got to keep on momming too, but thank goodness I got, these aunties kind of swooping in and saving me from time to time.

Chloe:
Yeah.

Lauryn:
But yeah, no, it's really nice. And I mean, too, like you get to think about like where you want to leave your dollars behind, you know, as far as like a state planning, if you want to leave it to these nieces and nephews, you know, where will your dollars have the most impact you get to decide that versus kind of it being prioritized for you.

If you have kind of a next to kin in the form of a child.

Chloe:
Yeah. And then you could also have more resources to help with aging parents or give money to charities or causes that you care about.

So, you know, if you have siblings and maybe you're the only one out of your siblings that doesn't have children, then, you know, that's more resources that maybe they don't have that you could use to help your parents if they need something.

Lauryn:
This is a really good point because you know, there's a lot at most of the people that are listening to our podcasts are millennials and we're now becoming the sandwich generation, the new sandwich generation where our parents are in need of help.

And then we also have young children and if you don't have those young children, then you just have the aging parents to think about. And that gives you a lot more ability to be able to help parents in a situation where you might not, because your resources are stretched really thin.

So yeah, I think that's a really great point because the reality is that our parents have not saved the way they're supposed to, the vast majority of America in these baby boomers and even now Gen X is getting closer to retirement, and someone's going to have to figure out like how to make sure that they're okay.

Chloe:
Yeah. So, moving on from like cash flow to retirement planning, when you think about that, uh, for someone that doesn't have children, you know, most retirement calculations are based on, you know, preserving, you know, money and leaving money to the next generation. So if you don't have anyone to leave kids or to leave your money to, then, you know, there's different things that you can think about.

So, I mean, there's people that are child-free who want to, you know, quote, unquote, Die with Zero. That's actually a book that was written a while back. And so we'll put a link for that in the show notes as well.

But they basically, you know, it's not completely possible, but you know, they want to die with as little money as possible in their hands, um, and, and just be able to spend it down and enjoy what they saved. So, that's, you know, one of the possibilities.

Lauryn:
And you're not selfish for doing that. You know, like these, as far as language and things like that, I feel like people get a bad rap for saying like, I'm gonna spend it all.

Like it's mine. I can't take it with me. You know, there's different ways to plan for your retirement, different ways to plan with your dollars and you have the freedom to do what you want with them.

And so if you want to die with zero, like have at it, you just need to do the proper planning in order to be able to, you know, to accomplish that, or you may say, get as close as you can to accomplishing that.

Chloe:
Yeah. And then some other people like the idea of, you know, taking sabbaticals along the way.

So maybe, you know, take a little bit of a break from work, whether it's, you know, a few months or a year, and then going back to work and just taking those periods throughout your career, um, or even, you know, working longer, if you really enjoy your job, if you find something that's not stressful and you want to work as long as possible. So those are all, you know, opportunities that you have, you know, to do those things.

And then, you know, if you're in a couple, you can take turns pursuing different careers or goals. I know I have some friends that are a child-free couple, a child-free couple, and they literally move to a different state in the country every few years. So they just decide they want to pick up and move. But, and, you know, other people might take turns, you know, pursuing a business or different career goals.

Lauryn:
Yeah. Well, one person could be the breadwinner for a bit and other person can be, you know, kind of learning and growing. I love that idea. Actually, I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't come across any clients that, you know, were actively thinking about doing that, but it's a great idea. If one is just kind of, you know, like you said, being the breadwinner, doing the heavier lifting, as far as keeping the bills paid and things like that, the other person has freedom and then you switch and you go, you know, it's my turn to make sure we're, we've got the roof over our head and your turn to kind of pursue your dreams.

Like, I love that idea.

Chloe:
Yeah. So another topic that, that you have to think about a little bit differently is insurance.

So depending on your life goals, there, you know, could still be, a need for life insurance. You know, whether it's like, if you want to leave money to others, if you have charitable goals and maybe you want to, you know, die with zero, but still leave some money to other people or charities, you can guarantee that through the use of life insurance. Or, you know, if you're a couple and, you know, one person is depending on the other person's income or for retirement or other, other things that you need. So there, there are definitely still reasons why you might need life insurance.

And then also you have to think about disability insurance. That's important for everybody, but specifically if you, you know, don't have, if you're solo and don't have a spouse or children, you definitely need that money to be able to take care of yourself and still stay for retirement.

If you have to stop working for some extended period of time.

Lauryn:
Yeah, no disability insurance is a big deal. Um, when I think about this, I think it's a bigger deal than most people think in general. It's something that, like you said, it's kind of commonly overlooked or it's the thing that people opt out of when they're looking at their employer benefits. But if you're single and something happens, and you're not able to, to work, like where are the dollars going to come from? What's going to help supplement in the time period, whether it's short-term or long-term. But this disability insurance is going to be a key piece of the puzzle, to be able to help out as far as income and being able to cover things.

My mom had a friend that actually just passed away and she was, and she should have been able to use disability insurance for a good bit of the time before she passed away, but didn't have access to it, and so she was dependent on other people to help her figure out kind of just like basic things because her income was kind of very, like she was a real estate agent. And so, if she, you know, wasn't selling homes, there was no income coming in.

And so that's a really tough place to be, to not be well enough to be able to do your job, but also, you know, still have irregular bills that are kind of piling up on you. So, to kind of negate those sorts of things, you would definitely want to think about disability insurance.

Chloe:
Yeah. And specifically if you're a self-employed, you have to create a lot of those benefits for yourself. Like don't skip out on some of those things like disability insurance.

Lauryn:
And I'm not going to lie, it's not cheap, like don't get me wrong there, but it is important.

Chloe:
Yeah. And then, another one is estate planning. So, this is something I personally just did recently, with estate planning. And so, you know, you have to think about as you're looking for attorneys, like is, is the person that you're working with sensitive to the fact that you don't have kids? And I remember with my experience, I get the draft of my will and everything kept saying that my estate goes to my descendants, my descendants, my descendants. And I'm like, I have no descendants, and I don't want to have descendants.

So it's like a lot of, a lot of the templates and things that are out there are built, especially the DIY tools, everything is built around having a spouse and kids. So, you know, it's not the deep, like that's the default. So, you know, if you're child free, you have to think about how are those things going to be different for you?

So it's definitely important to have a will. If you die without a will, typically what happens is your, the state, you know, will determine who gets your assets. And a lot of it's based on who's your next of kin. You know, if you have a spouse, you know, go to your spouse.

If you don't have children or don't have a spouse, you know, who's your next of kin, if you don't have siblings, if you're an only child and don't have children, you know, I mean, that, that could create some serious complications. So, you know, definitely make sure you have a will estate where you want your money to go. So that everything is clear.

Lauryn:
Yeah. This is also like a common area where kind of fraudulent people kind of come into play. It's not a commonly talked about way that people are scamming.

But yeah, if you die without a will, um, you die intestate. And then, as they're going through your actually probate is the proper term to like actually sort everything out. All of that is public.

And so I could be like, Chloe was my best friend, never met Chloe a day in my life. And, you know, she wanted me to have everything. And I knew she didn't like people go and they research who doesn't have anybody and then they go make a claim against the estate and sometimes they win. So now a complete stranger is, is inheriting what, what would have been somebody else's, even whether it was your best friend or you can say that, uh, a guide child or whatever, because you had no documentation in place and people didn't know where to go or what to look for. People come out of the blue and make all kinds of crazy claims.

So be mindful that you should have something written saying what you want.

Chloe:
Yeah. And another thing to think about is who will make decisions for you. So, that could be medical decisions or like business or financial decisions. But if you have siblings or, obviously, if you have a spouse, you know, that would be the first person in line, but you still need to have backup. So, you know, if you have siblings or other family members, you know, do those people live near you? If you only have one sibling and maybe they live across the country, are they really in a good position to make medical decisions for you? You know, if something, if there was an emergency, do they have obligations of their own? Do they have a spouse and kids and other things going on to where they just can't drop everything to take care of you if something were to happen? So, you know, if you're, if you're child-free, especially if you don't have siblings or other family members, you know, these decisions can be difficult.

So, you know, you have to think, who are other people in my life, whether it's cousins, aunts or uncles, best friends, or do you need to maybe even pay someone? You know, there's people that you can appoint to do that as a professional. So, so yeah, it's, it's really, there's a lot to consider there as well.

Lauryn:
Yeah. I just think of this and I think about, like you said, like people who don't have anyone and, you know, like you get to choose what kind of life you want to live. If you want to be a loner and kind of stick to yourself, like by all means, you absolutely can do those things. But there's something that's important to you.

What that is, I can't, I can't make that decision on your behalf. If it's your pet, if it's, you know, some sort of hobby that you have, the chess club, the checkers club, um, you know, even if you play it online, like there's a place that, or there's something or someone in your life that is important. And that might be the place that, like you said, if you want to give all your money to the SBCA or whatever it is with the animals, I don't know if that's the right letters, but, there's nothing wrong with being a loner, you know, and I don't want people to feel like, oh, I don't have anyone. I feel so sad.

But, you know, also being child-free doesn't mean you're without community. You can have a really rich and happy life, full of other people that you love and care about, you know, regardless of the fact that you don't have children and, or, you know, even direct siblings, or maybe your parents have passed away, you know, sometimes we make that out to be like, oh, poor little person that, you know, doesn't have any of these things, but, you know, you get to decide who your community is, what your community is and, and how to live the life you want.

And money is a tool to live the life you want. So, I just want to like encourage the people out there that might be listening to this, like, oh yeah, I don't have that. And I don't have that. Like don't get in a sad state, like live your best life, but decide what that best life is for you.

Chloe:
Yeah. And it's definitely important. You know, like, like you said, we're in a build community. So, um, there's definitely people that, you know, can be in your life that aren't family. You know, like, like we said before, you can have kids in your life, um, without having kids physically yourself, um, through godchildren or nieces and nephews.

So there's a lot of people out there that, you know, that can care for you and care about you, um, and, and, you know, make some, make some of those decisions if you need people to designate, and then also people that you can leave your assets to.

Lauryn:
Important, important. The other thing I would think about is like, yeah, like as we're talking about, like being child free, um, what I see frequently nowadays is I talked about the sandwich generation is like, adult child having to care for their parent long-term because they don't have what they need, in order to be able to like have insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, you name it.

They don't have any long-term care in place. And so there is something actually referred to as long-term care insurance that you'd be eligible for. And it's kind of a tricky one because it's something that you don't need to necessarily have your whole life. You wouldn't be 25 with long-term care insurance. But you can't wait till you're 60 and be like, oh, I need long-term care insurance because it's usually cost prohibitive at that point. So there's kind of a sweet spot and I'll let you talk a little bit more about it, Chloe, but long-term care insurance is also going to be something that's really important as you think about like what might happen as you age over time.

Chloe:
Yeah. So definitely, um, you know, if you, if you don't have children, and I'll say this too, there's no guarantee that your children will take care of you. So, you know, a lot of people choose to have kids because they, you know, they're like, oh, who's going to take care of me when I get older. But, there are a lot of people in nursing homes that are alone and they have kids. So, so that's, that's not a guarantee, but you want to be financially prepared either way, whether you have kids or you don't have kids to be able to pay for the quality of care that you desire.

So that you're not in, you know, in a bad situation. So, depending on how much you have, you know, investments or assets, you could have the financial means to self-insure, which means that you could pay that out of cash, and if you're not trying to leave money to, to kids or to another generation, you can easily spend that money down to make sure that you're getting the best care as you get older.

Or, you know, you could consider long-term care insurance if you don't have enough money to spend on your care, or if you want to preserve your money to lead to other people.

Lauryn:
I love it. I love it. Like there are so many different ways that you could be thinking about this. It's just a matter of, like I said, what do you want to do? How do you want to organize your life so that it best fits what is your vision, your goals, and your values? I mean, Chloe, you said like at the beginning of the episode that you are child free by choice. Do you want to talk a little bit about like, you know, how you've organized things and what you think, or your, what your decision is like, you know, or…

Chloe:
Yeah. So yeah, for my estate plan, um, I do have a younger sister. And so, so right now everything goes to, you know, my sister and my mom.

And I do have some charities as a backup. But yeah, my goal is to be able to give money to charity and help and do charitable things like throughout my lifetime as well. And then for the long-term care, I'm still, I'm still young enough to where I can have some time to make that decision, but, ideally I would have enough money to, to be able to cover that without having to get insurance. So that's the plan. Yeah. But it's definitely things that I've thought about, being child free.

Lauryn:
Have you always wanted to be child free or did you recently make a decision that you wanted to be child free?

Chloe:
I've never wanted kids even, yeah, even when I was younger. So, so yeah, that's just something I never, never considered. But, yeah, and another thing that people think about with long-term care and, you know, this is a little, a little morbid, but, there are some child free people who choose to what they call opt out.

So, you know, if they get a diagnosis where maybe they're, they have like Alzheimer's or dementia and their mind's going to go and, you know, it's going to get really bad, they'll need eventually need 24-hour care. There are people who choose to, you know, just end their life, you know, voluntarily. And it's, you know, something that, you know, obviously not everybody agrees with it, but it's something that people choose to do. And so, you know, as a, as an advisor, if you have a client that that's what their choice is, you know, just being accommodating to that and respecting their decisions.

Lauryn:
Are there a lot of options for that in the United States? Is that, that's kind of like…

Chloe:
Oh yeah. Yeah. You can't, you can't do it in the United States. Like you'd have to definitely go to another country, but there are options in other countries.

Lauryn:
Excellent. Excellent. Okay. So something else to be thinking about, like you said, it, I don't think it's necessarily morbid. Like no one likes to think about the idea of death, but at the same time, it's responsible to be thinking about this in advance so that you're not ending up in a situation where, you know, it is something where the few people that do know you, or, the people that are interacting during the time that this unfortunate thing passes are not like, Oh man, so-and-so's in a home by themselves. You know, and it ended up being a situation where you probably what you, not what you would have wanted for yourself if there was another option. So everything is about planning.

Do you have any closing thoughts, Chloe?

Chloe:
Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing is just, hopefully this, you know, just open up your mind to being thoughtful about the language that you use, how you approach conversations with, you know, friends or people in your life that might be child-free, or childless.

And then also, you know, just really think about the different planning considerations. You know, if you don't have children, there are so many possibilities for you to live the life that you want, on your terms and also, you know, that you can plan, you still need to plan very carefully for how you want things to happen.

Lauryn:
Yeah. It's just different sets of options. You know, the kid, the people with, with kids options, and then the people without kids options, but everybody's got options.

It's just a matter of, like you said, getting on top of the things and using financial planning as a tool to make sure that you are ready to go, in the best way possible based on whatever your goals are.

All right, let's get to these money quotes. I actually picked two, Chloe came up with some really good quotes. There are actually three, six quotes listed here. And I was like, I like all of them, but in the interest of time, we're not going to give you guys all of them. The first one says “As a mentor and an advocate, I've seen no end to the ways that childless people can contribute to the lives and well-being of kids and adults, for that matter.” and that is from Megan Dom, you know, Megan Dom is, I don't know who she is. It's a good quote.

Chloe:
But yeah. And then the second one, is “I would rather regret not having kids, than have kids and regret that.” and that's Allison Janney.

Lauryn:
I think both of these are so powerful because like I said, sometimes people get it in their head, kind of the American dream. You got to get married. You got to buy a house. You got to have one boy, one girl, you gotta have a white picket fence, you know, and on and on and on with all these narratives and different things that are said.

And I think, you know, having children has been added to that, that list of messaging that makes people feel bad sometimes because they did, they don't, but, it is amazing what your village can help you accomplish. Like I said, I just came from a 10-day trip with, various friends and family members, and a lot of them are childless, and I wouldn't be able to make it without them.

So like I said, when I say it has children, they're not available to be able to help you. And so what they can contribute, what Chloe's already contributed to my little five month old, because I wasn't making it at first, she came down, and we were figuring it out together.

Chloe:
Yeah. But yeah, if, if I had kids, I wouldn't be able to just go to another country and help you with your, your kid.

Lauryn:
Exactly. So yeah, let's not, like you said, be careful with the language that we're using around, um, you know, child free and childless people and be grateful for the contributions that everybody makes to this world.

And to that point, the second one about, you know, regret not having kids versus have kids and regret actually having them. And I've seen that too, you know, sometimes we're just as parents, we're in a tough place and we're, you know, fussing in, but there's other people that are genuinely like, I would never do this again. I never should have done this. And, you know, we've seen some of the horror stories related to that as well. So don't be pressured into doing something that you know, is not for you.

Chloe:
Yeah. Yeah. It's all about choices.

Lauryn:
All right. Well, like I said, we've, we've got a few more episodes in this, in this series. So make sure you stay tuned and check out the rest of the episodes. We will see you soon.

Chloe:
Bye.



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