Childfree Life by Design

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 your unmarried partner pays you that the IRS counts as income. The throughline is one every Childfree person building a life outside the standard script needs to hear: the tax code has sharp edges around staying single, filing unmarried, and living abroad, and ignorance of the rules is the one excuse the IRS will never accept.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why "I post about my life, so my life is a write-off" is a myth, how the IRS separates a real business with a profit motive from a hobby, and what actually happens when you never show a profit
How unpaid taxes can get your passport revoked, why the IRS can lien your home or garnish wages after the fact, and why a payment plan keeps you current and protected
Why chasing a lower tax bill by moving states or obsessing over brackets can cost you far more in happiness than it saves, and how to weigh the real tradeoffs
Why getting legally married often works against Childfree couples on taxes and student loans, and how filing unmarried, gift-tax limits, and estate-tax cliffs quietly reshape the math
How an ordinary foreign bank account can trigger FBAR reporting and life-altering penalties, and why your CPA and financial planner can only protect you if you tell them everything
Episode Hosts:
Bri Conn, CFP® is a Childfree Wealth Specialist® at Childfree Wealth® and Customer Experience Manager at Childfree Trust®. She specializes in financial management, life design, and estate planning, with particular focus on LGBTQ+ individuals and couples, drawing on her own early financial challenges and recovery to fuel her work in personal finance education.
Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® is the Founder of Childfree Wealth®, a life and financial planning firm dedicated to helping Childfree and permanently Childless people, and Childfree Trust®, the first of its kind next of kin representation service for Childfree people. He is also the author of The Childfree Guide to Life and Money.
Maddy Roche is the Chief Growth Officer at Childfree Trust®, where she leads all sales, marketing, and partnership initiatives and brings sharp insight to estate planning, LGBTQ+ legacy considerations, and Childfree financial decision making.
About Childfree Insights:
Childfree Insights delivers education for financial and estate planning without children. It supports people with no kids in making informed decisions about retirement, legacy planning, beneficiaries, and long-term care. Home of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®.
Connect with Us:
Ready to work on building better financial habits? Connect with our financial planning team at childfreewealth.com or learn more about estate planning at childfreetrust.com.
Follow Childfree Life by Design on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childfreeinsights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeInsights/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/childfreeinsights
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChildfreeInsights

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.

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 move is to design your own. The throughline is the opposite of chasing a lower bill this year. It's using taxes as one more tool to fund the life you actually want, paying the IRS what's owed without leaving a tip, and knowing when the strategy some influencer swears by simply doesn't fit a life without kids.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why the tax system is intentionally pronatalist, how that shapes everything from the child tax credit to head-of-household status, and why designing your own tax breaks matters when the built-in ones were never meant for you
Why the popular "become a landlord for passive income" advice often breaks down for Childfree people once you factor in the lost step-up in basis, and how a charitable remainder unitrust can turn an appreciated property into lifetime income plus a charitable benefit
How to think through the pre-tax versus Roth 401(k) decision, why your tax bracket, your state's income tax, your student loans, and any dream of moving abroad all change the answer
Why the Roth conversion and backdoor Roth strategies the financial press pushes every November are so easy to get wrong, and when the paperwork simply isn't worth it
Why paying zero tax in a given year is not always the win it looks like, how donor-advised funds let you time your giving for maximum benefit, and why coordinating a CFP® professional and a CPA protects you over a lifetime rather than a single April
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Early Retirement Tax Planning with Cody Garrett, CFP®, Ep 166: : https://childfreeinsights.com/resources/podcast/episode-166
Get Dr. Jay's book "The Childfree Guide to Life and Money" here: https://childfreewealth.com/childfree-guide/
Learn more about Childfree Wealth:  www.childfreewealth.com
Learn more about Childfree Trust: https://www.childfreetrust.com 
Episode Hosts:
Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® is the Founder of Childfree Wealth®, a life and financial planning firm dedicated to helping Childfree and permanently Childless people, and Childfree Trust®, the first of its kind next of kin representation service for Childfree people. He is also the author of The Childfree Guide to Life and Money.
Scott Barnes, CFP®, TPCP®, CLTC is an Associate Advisor at Childfree Wealth® and the go-to expert for long-term care strategies and tax planning questions.
About Childfree Insights:
Childfree Insights is a trusted resource for life planning without children. It explores financial planning, estate planning, relationships, and long-term decisions for adults building a future without kids. Home of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®.
Connect with Us:
Ready to work on building better financial habits? Connect with our financial planning team at childfreewealth.com or learn more about estate planning at childfreetrust.com.
Follow Childfree Life by Design on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childfreeinsights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeInsights/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/childfreeinsights
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChildfreeInsights

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.

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 these intimidating legal terms apart and draw a clear line between the reactive path and the proactive one: guardianship and conservatorship are what happen when no plan exists, while a power of attorney set up ahead of time keeps every medical and financial choice in your hands. For solo adults who may not have a default next of kin to name, they talk through how to build that safety net on purpose and how Childfree Trust® can step in when there is no obvious person to list.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
The real difference between guardianship and conservatorship, why guardianship is best understood as reactive, and how a court process gets triggered when no plan is already in place
How a guardian or conservator actually gets chosen, who can file the petition, what the two-professional assessment involves, and how the role can fall to a stranger or the state when no one you know is willing or able to serve
Why guardianship is so difficult and costly to reverse once it is granted, and what the ward has to go through to try to reinstate their own rights
How a power of attorney for both medical and financial decisions keeps your choices in your hands, why it never requires a court, and why naming a backup is just as important as naming your first choice
What belongs in your care documents, from doctors and billing details to your wishes on treatment, facilities, who to notify, and even who cares for your pet, and how Childfree Trust® can serve as the power of attorney when you have no one to name by default
Explore Childfree Trust:
Explore Childfree Trust & start protecting your future today: https://childfreetrust.com/ 
Episode Hosts:
Bri Conn, CFP® is a Childfree Wealth Specialist at Childfree Wealth® and Customer Experience Manager at Childfree Trust®. She specializes in financial management, life design, and estate planning, with particular focus on LGBTQ+ individuals and couples, drawing on her own early financial challenges and recovery to fuel her work in personal finance education.
Melissa Holcombe, DSW, LCSW  is a Senior Advisor at Childfree Trust® with three decades in social services across child welfare, public schools, and guardianship and probate. She is also one of the nation's first Certified Veterinary Social Workers, with deep expertise in the legal and emotional terrain that vulnerable individuals navigate. She has conducted guardianship and capacity assessments within the court system for many years.
About Childfree Insights:
Childfree Insights delivers education for financial and estate planning without children. It supports people with no kids in making informed decisions about retirement, legacy planning, beneficiaries, and long-term care. Home of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®.
Connect with Us:
Ready to work on building better financial habits? Connect with our financial planning team at childfreewealth.com or learn more about estate planning at childfreetrust.com.
Follow Childfree Life by Design on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childfreeinsights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeInsights/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/childfreeinsights
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChildfreeInsights

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.

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 interviewed had opted out for a reason that genuinely surprised her: they watched their parents do it well, understood exactly what good parenting asks of a person, and chose to put their energy somewhere else. She joins Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® for a conversation that runs from the political noise around falling birth rates to what the research actually says about regret, and lands on the thing that reframes everything. If you feel wrong, it may be because you've been measuring yourself against the wrong population.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why there is no scientific basis for the maternal instinct, and how the absence of that supposed pull leaves so many people convinced something is wrong with them
The biggest surprise in Dr. Amy Blackstone's research, that most Childfree people she interviewed had good childhoods and opted out precisely because they saw how much good parenting requires
What the research actually shows about regret, why the distinction between Childfree and Childless matters so much, which group does report unhappiness later in life, and how that compares to the share of parents who regret having kids
Why measuring your life against the standard life script guarantees you'll feel like you're doing it wrong, and how comparing yourself to the right population changes the entire picture
How stigma around the Childfree choice has shifted over the decades, what today's pronatalist politics and policy fights look like, and why roughly a quarter of the country remains almost entirely underserved
Resources Mentioned: 
Laura Carroll, Childfree author and advocate who revitalized International Childfree Day: https://childfreeinsights.com/resources/podcast/episode-74/ 
Marcia Drut-Davis, author of Confessions of a Childfree Woman:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Marcia-Drut-Davis/author/B08429L4CL 
The Childfree Path to a Healthier Planet | Jay Zigmont, PhD, MBA, CFP® | TEDxWilsonPark: https://youtu.be/ltZpfHCpHPg?si=38LrZlkf4oMGWyE8 
Episode Guest:
Dr. Amy Blackstone is a public sociologist who studies and writes about reproductive justice, population trends, workplace sexual harassment, activism and other forms of civic engagement, power and politics, and any other topic that strikes her fancy, hits the news, or gets myopic dingdongs with too much power riled up. In recent years, much of her focus has been dedicated to the COVID-19 pandemic and what's been left in its wake: a silent but no less crushing aftershock, an illness known as Long COVID, that has claimed millions, snatching her from public life, while the world carries on as if nothing has happened. Her book, CHILDFREE BY CHOICE (Penguin Random House) enraged pronatalists the world over, a career highlight. Dr. Blackstone worked as a professor of sociology at the University of Maine for a quarter century and she now looks forward to a future of retirement and troublemaking.
Connect with Dr. Amy Blackstone:
Website: amyblackstonephd.com
Instagram: instagram.com/a.maria.blackstone/
Childfree by Choice by Dr. Amy Blackstone
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Amy-Blackstone/author/B07T7TM4DT 
Episode Host:
Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP® (he/him) is the Founder of Childfree Wealth, a life and financial planning firm dedicated to helping people simplify their finances so they can live an amazing Childfree life. Dr. Jay is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, Childfree Wealth Specialist, and author of the book "The Childfree Guide to Life and Money."
About Childfree Insights:
Childfree Insights focuses on planning for solo aging and later life without children. It offers trusted education on financial planning, estate planning, and building support systems for people aging independently. Home of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®.
Connect with Us:
Ready to work on building better financial habits? Connect with our financial planning team at childfreewealth.com or learn more about estate planning at childfreetrust.com.
Follow Childfree Life by Design on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childfreeinsights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeInsights/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/childfreeinsights
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChildfreeInsights

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.

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 conditions, and long COVID, not the dramatic scenarios people picture. The throughline is the one that runs through everything on this show: your income is your freedom, and protecting it on purpose is how you keep the life you built.
In This Episode, You'll Learn:
Why disability is far more common than people assume, with more than one in four of today's 20-year-olds becoming disabled before retirement and about 90 percent of claims coming from everyday illnesses rather than accidents
The real difference between short-term and long-term disability coverage, and why a solo earner with no partner to fall back on should treat long-term coverage as non-negotiable
How the definition of disability in your policy changes everything, from the restrictive "any occupation" standard to the "own occupation" coverage that keeps paying even if you build a new career
How occupational class, benefit caps, and riders like residual disability shape what you actually pay and what you actually collect, and why mental health claims are often limited to a set number of years
The tax rule that catches people off guard, why a benefit paid for by your employer is taxable while one you fund yourself arrives tax-free, and how that math should shape the coverage you choose
Episode Hosts:
Bri Conn, CFP® is a Childfree Wealth Specialist® at Childfree Wealth® and Customer Experience Manager at Childfree Trust®. She specializes in financial management, life design, and estate planning, with particular focus on LGBTQ+ individuals and couples, drawing on her own early financial challenges and recovery to fuel her work in personal finance education.
Scott Barnes, CFP®, TPCP®, CLTC is an Associate Advisor at Childfree Wealth® and the go-to expert for long-term care strategies and tax planning questions.
About Childfree Insights:
Childfree Insights is the trusted education hub for people who are Childfree or permanently Childless. It provides guidance on finances, estate planning, relationships, and life decisions for adults without children. Home of Childfree Wealth® and Childfree Trust®, supporting long-term planning for people living without kids.
Connect with Us:
Ready to work on building better financial habits? Connect with our financial planning team at childfreewealth.com or learn more about estate planning at childfreetrust.com.
Follow Childfree Life by Design on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation on social media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/childfreeinsights
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeInsights/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/childfreeinsights
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChildfreeInsights

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational & entertainment purposes. Please consult your advisor before implementing any ideas heard on this podcast.