Jan 23

DINK Math with Erika & Kristen from Dinky

Get ready for the ultimate DINKY math applications, including the potential for adopting 30 cats a year or splurging on that extra guac and third margarita because, hey, the sitter money is just waiting to be spent! With a dash of wit, a sprinkle of memes, and a whole lot of fun, this episode proves that being childfree doesn't mean being serious.

Join Dr. Jay and the dynamic duo from the DINKY pod, Erika and Kristen, in a hilariously unhinged episode that unveils the wild world of DINK math. If you're childfree and craving laughter mixed with financial wisdom, these self-proclaimed "unhinged childfree besties" have got you covered.

The Childfree Wealth Podcast, hosted by Bri Conn and Dr. Jay Zigmont, CFP®, is a financial and lifestyle podcast that explores the unique perspectives and concerns of childfree individuals and couples.

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

Transcript

Dr. Jay
Hey Childfree Wealth listeners, there's something a little different today. Brought some of my favorite friends from the DINKY pod. Now, if you haven't found this yet, you need to like if you need your humor and childfree together, that's Erika and Kristen come in. I don't know how to explain them, so I'm going to let them introduce themselves. And that's that because I love them.

I love them. But like, okay, introduce yourselves and kind of like explain this thing because like I tried to like put my words on exactly what you two do. It's like everything childfree, funny, good. Like, entertainment is what I got.

Erika
Yeah. Kristen, do you want to take it?

Kristen
You know, that's, like, the most basic question you could ask us. And I don't think Erica and I have any idea.

Erika
I would say we're like your unhinged childfree besties. How's that?

Dr. Jay
Unhinged? Is probably a good word. I mean…

Erika
I'll say it so you don't have to. How's that?

Kristen
Yeah. There you go. You know.

Dr. Jay
It was funny. I was talking with Bri about this as we're working on recording stuff, and. And, like, it's hard with some of the childfree stuff, it gets, like, almost too serious at times.

Erika
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Jay
And you two have found a way to make it like…

Erika
I think that's why we started our podcast, because we were like, everything out there feels so, like, serious and…

Kristen
Heavy.

Erika
Yeah, heavy. And we were like, we're just not into that. We want to just, like, take what we text each other about every day and turn it into a podcast. And I think we've been like semi successful in that.

Kristen
I think we've, we've done a great job and I think we've evolved really into our social media niche now like our childfree memes have now like outpaced our podcast. So our growth has been really successful there. So I think yeah, really that's a good summary Erika. Childfree Besties. We have a lot of memes, a lot of content. You can't get rid of us, honestly.

We're on every social media platform doing different things every single day on different social media channels. And we don't shut the f up.

Erika
Yeah. And as much as we're very messy, I will say, you know, we got to give ourselves some credit. Like our work is like research based and like that. And so we'll, we'll take studies into consideration. We're not too unhinged, just the right amount of unhinged.

Kristen
There you go.

Dr. Jay
So we have a month coming up where we’re doing estate planning, long term care and wills, and caring for parents. And we’re looking at our podcast. We're like, wow, that's going to be a rough month. You know, like it's like deep good stuff. And then I look at yours, like, who knows this week, you know, some celebrity gossip. And I'm like, I'm like, maybe we're doing the wrong podcast.

I don't know. That’s why I brought you here.

Erika
We wonder every day if we're doing the wrong podcast.

So you're not alone.

Dr. Jay
You got a lot more followers than us. So I think you're doing it right. But now just to kind of look behind the scenes, I love sharing behind the scenes we actually talked about for like some things to talk about and I'm already going to go off the script because I just realized I have to and we're recording this in December and we're in the middle of like there was this big old push on the DINK life.

And like these, I don't know, Elon Musk got all pissy over it. And I'm not on Twitter because of that like and other things. But like you do use the DINK term. We don't use it as much because our argument is there are people that are DINKs that are not… they may have kids eventually. It was like the term DINKYs.

Kristen
Right.

Dr. Jay
And from financial if you if you're in like the not yet, we're not the right place for you. But you're using the word DINKY. So talk to me. Kind of like why? Why not? Like this terminology does matter.

Kristen
Well, I will say, when we were like thinking of a name for a podcast, we were literally just like thinking of cute terms. Like, we really didn't have a science behind it. We were like, Well, we're both DINKs. We knew that, you know, that's a popular term as we were like looking through social media. So we're like, let's just like make it like cute and fun.

So we add a little y on the end, really not thinking too much about it. It's just it was.

Erika
It was like the energy, like the mood of it's like we're DINKY.

Kristen
We're silly. And then it wasn't until like a year in that people started being like, DINKY? That means you’re dual income no kid yet. And we were like, oh, son of…

Erika
F*ck off!

Kristen
Yeah. So this…

Erika
I just realized maybe we can't swear.

Kristen
Well, you can bleep us if there's children who want financial wealth information.

Dr. Jay
Who are childfree. Yeah, no.

Kristen
Who are childfree. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of how it like the origin story was just like using DINKs because that's the term we applied and described ourselves as. And yeah, unfortunately it conflicts maybe with the social mainstream now of using that term as a no kids yet movement. Erika, do you have anything to add?

Erika
No. It's like weird to me that it's like like I've seen so many media companies, like talking about the term think as if it's like a new phrase. It's not new. It's been around. So it's funny to me that it's like people are discovering it now. I'm like, what's happening?

Dr. Jay
Yeah, that I actually have Dr. Neil's coming on later in the podcast. They actually just put out an article on defining the term childfree and doing research, and they're really kind of like trying to like… cause that matters. In research like you need a specific term. Yeah but in like the public are you DINK/SINK, are you childfree, are you not or you're childless.

I lose my mind but like it does matter from an engagement standpoint. Like for those who don't follow all the social media, somebody posted on this once like what our DINK life was like and you know just silly things but for some reason people picked up and just people, get all types of cranky about it.

Erika
Oh, my gosh. I know you're. Are you talking about the one where it's the couple, like walking and being like, we're DINKs, we blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Yeah. I've seen a lot of people having feels about that one.

Dr. Jay
Someday we'll all come to a better term. I actually was just on This Week in Childfree and we were reviewing one of these and there are like this where the terms came from and voluntary childlessness and all, and it came from Gen X and like holy, well you get so many… and like I was like, whoa, we got deep way quick on that.

But so we will use the term DINK today, dual income no kids for those that aren't familiar, there are all types of versions of that with a dog, without, dual income large dog owners. A little different one, you know, like there's all different types, I don't care, but we will use that because that's where you come from. And I saw you got something called DINK math. Help me understand.

Erika
Yeah. Okay. So you were very kind and you came on our podcast to give us financial wisdom. And we are here to show you how much that did not sink in.

Kristen
No pun intended for us SINKs.

Dr. Jay
Thanks, I'm glad I wasted my time. I’m kidding.

Erika
We are here to teach you about some DINK math. We'll just start by saying it costs around $17,000 per year to raise a child. So if most households have on average around two kids, that means that I should be able to spend $30,000 on whatever I want every single year. To put that in context, that's almost $82 per day that for free, I am obligated to spend just because I don't have kids.

Kristen
Right. And I know, like a lot of financial advisors would say, well, you can invest that money. That's not money you have to throw away or you have to use, right? That's extra money in your pocket. Invest it, increase it in the stock market. But parents aren't investing that money. Your kids are not an investment. You're throwing it out the window.

So to be fair and equal, we have to also use it in very poor choice ways. So here are some practical DINK math applications we've come up with.

Erika
We came up with our top six. Number six is that owning a cat is only around only costs about $1,000 a year. Plus they have the added benefit of reducing blood pressure. In theory, I could adopt up to 30 cats for free and be healthier because of that.

Kristen
Per year.

Erika
Per year. That's a steal.

Kristen
That's amazing.

Dr. Jay
My wife and I have a two pet rule here. Okay, you're like freaking me out. Alright, so she actually listens to the podcast. I'm just saying not a choice. Okay, okay. Now we're not doing 30 cats. You have seven outdoor outside of our apartment. She's already trying to adopt them like, no, we will pay for them to get spayed or neutered and give them to someone else, but at least we can do that and still afford it, I guess.

Erika
Yes, that's what's important.

Kristen
That is what's important. Okay. Well, if the cat option doesn't work for you, don't worry. We got five other options because I'm adding I don't need to pay for a sitter when I go out. So let's imagine you have kids and you're going out on the town for 5 hours. You want to pay your sitter a decent wage.

So you're probably looking at like $25 an hour. That means, yeah, pending on where you live. I'm sure it changes, but at least $25 an hour and that means you have about $125 extra money to spend on top of what you would normally spend on a night out. If I don't use that $125 that night, it goes away.

It's lost money, so you've got to use it. So you definitely you got to get the guac, the extra guac. You got to get that third margarita and you got to Uber both ways because you got to be safe. So you got to put that money to use.

Dr. Jay
Okay. So here's one that is going to surprise you. I've actually had the discussion about the margarita and I had a client say, well, I'm worried I'm going to run out of money together. And I said, what do you cut back on? It's like, well, I always think before I get the second margarita. I’m like buy the damn margarita.

Kristen
What?! You're just getting started.

Erika
Yeah.

Kristen
Get the damn margarita.

Dr. Jay
And yeah, I guess I'm the serious one of the three of us. I guess here I actually spend more time talking about spending money than saving money because.

Kristen
Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Jay
Now I don’t go to the extreme that you two do, but I’m like buy the good blueberries, buy the margarita. Let's enjoy.

Kristen
I love that.

Erika
Okay. You're on board with math. I love this. Okay.

Dr. Jay
Well, more than the cats. Okay, like the 30 cat. There’s restrictions in an apartment like…

Erika
Well 30 cats isn't for everyone, but here we go. Let's try this one. Okay. For me personally, this is a personal example. So it costs me roughly $400 every time I get my hair touched up, which might seem like a big expense to some people at first. But here's the thing for listeners who don't have the access to the video, just an FYI I do currently have blue hair with blue hair, the benefit is that I get carded every time I order a drink now which let's be clear, if I was a mom with blue hair, I would have absolutely no friends at the PTA meeting.

As a DINK, I have the luxury of having the blue hair. I don't have moms giving me side-eye being like, “You're not responsible. You're not a respectable human being.” So now that I'm getting carded, that's an additional ego bump. That means I am avoiding an existential crisis. So you know what that means? Therapy. When you're spiraling out is easily $200 a week.

If I take that $200 per week for the eight weeks that I have between my hair appointments, that is actually $1,600. Now, if I'm subtracting that $400 from my hair costs, that means that I have now made $1,200 dollars from having blue hair.

Kristen
She's rich.

Erika
I'm rich.

Dr. Jay
I'm not complaining about this. I will tell I will one up you because for five bucks, I do my haircut every couple of days and I don't have to worry about it.

Erika
Are you getting carded, though? Is the therapy…

Dr. Jay
I don't drink so I don’t care.

Erika
Okay. Alright, there we go. There we go.

Dr. Jay
I don't know. Maybe it's just different guys versus gals, you know?

Erika
There we go.

Dr. Jay
Carding me. Who cares? But I'm just going to give you a little money saving tip.

Erika
Okay, maybe that’s the next thing.

Dr. Jay
One razor a week, you know.

Erika
Next time we're on this podcast, we'll both be bald.

Dr. Jay
I think I just assured they'll never come back on the podcast.

Kristen
Well, that one is one of my personal favorites of DINK math, because you're actually making money. You're earning money when you spend it. This one is one of my personal favorites because I do this one a lot. I think number three for DINK math for us is upgrading your flight. If you upgrade your flight to the better seats.

And in this case, let's say you're going on an international trip, you're going on that once every couple of years trip, that big trip, and you are spending that extra $800 per person to get the laydown seats. If you can't sleep on that plane, you're going to arrive unrested. You're going to waste a full day because you're out of it, you're confused.

You're not enjoying your time. You're concerned about getting like a migraine. And time is money, baby. Time is money. So if you spend an extra 12 hours at your hotel when you could have been enjoying vacation, you are losing memory dividends and those are priceless. Upgraded flight is actually free if not giving you money back.

Erika
Easily, easily.

Dr. Jay
And if you're smart and you have the mileage programs, you get extra bonus points for those upgrade. Don't forget that.

Erika
We're going to get to that. Don't you worry.

Kristen
We’re gonna get to that, too. Right? We've thought of it all.

Erika
So I think we need to take a different direction for one second just to talk about long term investments, because this is a financial podcast. We've got to be taking that seriously. Naturally, as a DINK, I need to think about my long term health because I won't have someone to look after me. But since massages lower your blood pressure and boost your immune system, I'm preventing health care costs that may have impacted me in my seventies, eighties, & nineties.

So the massage is not only free, it is actually a long term investment.

Kristen
Yeah. Reducing your costs over time for all the health you would need to do and all of the aid assistance you would need if you didn't get the massages.

Erika
Exactly.

Dr. Jay
I'm with you. I call that investing in your health. And actually the actual like if you want to get all fancy when you get all fancy, you get concierge medicine where you actually pay your own doctor. You have like on speed dial essentially, but they’re doing all the tests. Great investment massages. Alright, I'm with you. Let's invest in what matters.

Erika
Yeah, that's right. Spa day everybody here’s how to do it. Your health comes first.

Kristen
Alright last but certainly not least, getting the best credit card with the best point system. Coming back to Dr. Jay's thoughts on using mileage. Your Chase Sapphire Reserve might be $550 a year, but you get free travel credits that automatically give you back $300 that you're going to spend.

It's actually only $250, and then you get up to ten times the points with travel. So even more reason to take vacations to make those memory dividends that are priceless. So not only are you getting a free credit card after points, but your vacations are permanently on sale. That is a two for one special. DINK math.

Erika
Unbeatable.

Dr. Jay
I'm with you as long as you pay off that credit card every month. We're not keeping a balance on a credit card. You know, we're not going to, you know, no interest on the credit card. Come on.

Kristen
That's right.

Erika
And I never do that.

Kristen
No, never.

Dr. Jay
We won't actually talk about the reactions, but if you see it on the TV… On YouTube, on the video, uh huh.

Erika
We're very responsible fiscally.

Kristen
Yes, we don't... We never YOLO.

Dr. Jay
Yeah. Just saying, by the way, I'm looking for volunteers or people that want to do financial planning live on our podcast. So maybe we should schedule you individually to uh…

Kristen
Ohhhhhh…

Erika
Maybe… we, we might be booked for some time.

Dr. Jay
We’ll see how your DINK math does. Alright, let me go with your DINK math. But I'm going to go a little differently and you'll have to figure out the math on this one afterwards. Let's have this discussion with a couple. Two professionals. They're busting their but they're doing great at their job and they're struggling to kind of keep the house clean and the food and the groceries.

And I said, hire a nanny and they're like, what are you talking about? I said, Listen, you're couple of mid-thirties doing well career wise. If you had kids, you would hire a nanny who would help with the clothing and the cooking and the cleaning and the all that. And nobody would think twice about it. Yeah. So hire yourself a nanny and it like blew up their brain.

Dr. Jay
But, yeah think about it.

Kristen
I'm obsessed with that. That's a great idea.

Erika
I love that. I didn’t even know that I was allowed to do that. I mean, we have a cleaning person, but I've never thought about having someone come help with other things.

Dr. Jay
Well, that's what a nanny would do. Like, seriously don't actually, you know, advertise for a nanny figure. The technical term house managers. You know, there's different people that do this that would have been normal for somebody with kids to have totally. But we forget that we could do that.

Erika
Right? I love that.

Kristen
I can't wait to have that much money so that I can get a nanny for no kids. That's going to be my future aspiration.

Erika
Goals for sure.

Kristen
That’s gonna be 2024, here I come.

Dr. Jay
Hold on, you just did DINK math and you said we are saving this money by not having a kids. So you have the money.

Kristen
Oh, you're right.

Erika
You're right.

Dr. Jay
I just mean that's part of that 17,000 each year. I mean, if I'm going to follow… 

You know.

Kristen
Wait. What if we take a loan out to pay for the nanny, that is a long term investment. Is that acceptable?

Dr. Jay
Yeah we’re not gonna do that. We're in a no debt world over here, but I don't want to press you on that one because you both hang up pretty quick.

Kristen
Now, we're big fans of the credit card. You know, we're big fans of taking out a loan.

Dr. Jay
Yeah, I'm a big fan of credit card & you pay it off. I pay my off every week. I'm a little crazy about that.

Kristen
Oh, that's good.

Dr. Jay
Alright, so the nanny's one, so you can add that in. I’ll give that one free of charge. You can do a meme on that, and you'll get 40,000 likes. And I'll get nothing.

Kristen
We'll tag you. You'll get some dividends.

Erika
Yeah.

Dr. Jay
Alright. Other one and this is related.. somewhat. Do you two like dining out a lot?

Erika
Oh, my God. Guilt as charged.

Kristen
Too much.

Dr. Jay
Okay, I've done this with people and it's kind of… it's actually cheaper to pay a professional chef to come do it in your house. So they do meal prep for the week. So like they make all the meals based on your thing and the way to do this, you find your favorite restaurant, you know, whatever, whatever your favorite is, you'll find their sous chef.

That's the number two person. And you say, hey, I'll pay you per hour to do all my grocery shopping for you and do meal prep, put it on the fridge with notes and kind of, what do I do and when I do it, it's actually cheaper than dining out and you get exactly what you want. Made your way in your house.

Erika
Do you do that?

Kristen
Amazing.

Dr. Jay
I've looked at it. We don't dine out that much. Okay. But I did it with a couple of clients and we did the math on it. Remarkably cheap. It's not cheap because you're dining out. Yeah, right now you two probably spend approximately $1,000 a month on dining out anyway.

Kristen
Right.

Dr. Jay
Probably more on that when I’m looking at your faces.

Erika
But we live in Portland. It's like the best food city in America.

Kristen
It's a good food city. Yeah.

Dr. Jay
The other way it happens is like if you have very common like if you're like, I like Nextdoor or like any of those apps, there's moms who are home that will do meal prep for other moms because they're like, they want to make money while their kids are sleeping, whatever. So they make all like casseroles and dishes and they just drop it off.

Kristen
Wow. That's smart. That's really smart. Is that our next business idea, Erika? We've had so many.

Erika
Oh, no.

Kristen
No. Okay.

Dr. Jay
But if you think about it, you know, if you're going to your DINK math, you know, we would be paying for that support anyway.

Erika
Yeah, right.

Dr. Jay
So it's free according to you two.

Kristen
It is free to us. Yes. And we are smart.

Dr. Jay
Okay. And then you wonder why people say, well, there's this assumption that all DINKs have money and they're all rich.

Erika
Yeah.

Dr. Jay
I mean, you read it and you literally just play in the stereotype.

Erika
Well, we also admitted that we may or may not have debt.

Dr. Jay
Well, after seeing your DINK math, I’m not surprised you’ve got debt. You’re like justifying it based on what we might have spent if we happened to have kids, not what we actually make.

Kristen
Right? Erika on a scale from 1 to 10, how happy is your life?

Erika
15.

Kristen
Right, exactly. 15. If I wasn't DINK mathing, I think I'd be out like a five.

Erika
Oh, I'd be depressed.

Kristen
Yeah, I'd be depressed.

Dr. Jay
So we'll see. I'd argue you made a five for a little bit, but then once you're doing it all with cash, it's so much better because you know what happens? We need a new couch for apartment. They're carrying it in right now. I don't have to. I could pay for it. No problem. Cash. It's my couch. I don't owe the credit card company or pay a percentage. I get whatever I want.

Kristen
Right.

Dr. Jay
You’ve got to do the hard work upfront.

Kristen
I love looking at Erika's face in particular. She's just like, “That's nice. That's not gonna happen.”

Erika
I'm happy for you, Dr. Jay. I might just go drink three Panera Lemonades & be done with it. And then it's on Chase Sapphire's…

Kristen
Dime.

Erika
…on their tab. Yeah, it’s on their dime.

Dr. Jay
Okay, so you two are probably somewhere along this. I saw some the other day they did a buy now pay later pay for their groceries.

Erika
Oh no, no.

Dr. Jay
I’m like…

Erika
Those I don't do any of that. That's… I get very nervous about that. I work with… to get serious for us. I work with a lot of gen-z ers and I'll hear them talk about like, what's that little. It's one of those buy now, pay later klarna Afterpay. Yes, for like small things. And I'm like, you guys know, we have to limit some things. That gets really dangerous.

Kristen
Yeah. I mean, we joke a lot about spending money on the credit card and like, taking out loans, which we're guilty of. Okay, let's be honest. We do have a little bit of that and I do leverage that. But I don't go insane the way I've seen people on the internet go insane.

Erika
I feel like I'm in a safeish zone.

Kristen
Right, right. Safeish. Living on the edge.

Erika
Dr. Jay is never going to talk to us again.

Dr. Jay
I'm going to laugh because like, you know, now I need to like to hunt down and be like, all right, we do a six month financial planning program. We're going to get you on. We're going to do six months with you. Well, we caught it publicly. What will share your dirt and get you in a better place? And you'll be happier at the end and you'll be kicking and screaming the entire time.

Kristen
Right. Definitely. So here's the thing I do of us, too. I love financial planning. I like…

Erika
Kristen always say this to me. I love financial planning.

Kristen
I do. I really love it. I enjoy it.

Erika
I know. But you say it like I don't.

Kristen
Oh, but you don't. You gave me like all that. You're like you, you handle all the taxes and the business stuff.

Erika
Well the taxes and stuff for the business. I don't like doing it. For my personal self I'm fine. For the record. I invest. So I like financial stuff.

Kristen
Okay. Okay, okay. I mean, we don't have to fight about this like you can do you.

Dr. Jay
We’re fighting over who likes finances more.

Erika
You're right. I'll let Kristen own this.

Kristen
Okay, I'm going to own this one. I do enjoy it. I also feel like we're in a place where our DINKY is kind of our mini business right now. And there are investments that we are making into the business that definitely are not paying anything and we're justifying it for no major reason other than we enjoy doing it and maybe it'll pay us back.

So it's not like a solid business plan and we recognize that, but we're having a good time doing it. And on the 1 to 10 scale we are 15 currently. So bam DINK math.

Dr. Jay
So what I just heard is you spend way too much time trying to justify your credit card debt.

Kristen
Yeah, probably.

Dr. Jay
Which you’re paying the interest on. I'm all for investing your business best in your life investing what you joy. You know, my goal is always to get you more of what you enjoy and less of what you don't.

Kristen
Right.

Dr. Jay
But what happens is people doing mindless spending miss their bigger goals.

Kristen
Right? Erika gave a face. Erika, do you do mindless spending?

Erika
Absolutely not.

Dr. Jay
I’m waiting for a lightning bolt to hit you.

Erika
I don't know what that term even means.

Dr. Jay
So watch this. Let's just we're not going to go to deep into your finances because then you'll like yell at me. But let's just say the two of you, your goal was to create a business that was going to outlast you and needs money to grow. The question is, would you rather have money to invest in your business or would you rather buy that Panera Lemonade?

Erika
Panera Lemonade is going to send me to the afterlife. Umm…

Dr. Jay
I don't care if you spend money on Panera Lemonade or, you know, avocado toast or whatever you do. I don't… I'm not in school, but where I’m more at is like, are you spending money on the things that are your goals? Like, for example, you want to travel to Paris, do you want to travel to Paris or do you want to order DoorDash, DoorDash, Craigslist, DoorDash.

You pay the delivery fee and the temp and the blah, blah, blah, and you're paying double for that Panera Lemonade now.

Kristen
Right? But you're also with your Chase Sapphire Reserve getting a year free of that service.

Dr. Jay
Can you tell Kristen likes her credit card? Alright.

Kristen
I should be sponsored by Chase Sapphire.

Erika
We really should. Actually, Kristen, we should add that to the list of people we should reach out to.

Kristen
That’s a good idea.

Dr. Jay
The affiliate links. We’ll ignore that I asked to sponsor them like three months ago and they never got back to me, but you know.

Erika
Oh, yeah.

Kristen
Wait, you did?

Erika
I forgot about that. See this is why our business is not profitable.

Dr. Jay
This is my whole point. You need to have a plan.

Erika
Yeah, we need a nanny for the podcast who can do these little tasks for us.

Dr. Jay
Let's go a little more on this DINK math, I guess you call it.

Kristen
Yeah.

Dr. Jay
The other one there would be a personal assistant.

Erika
Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jay
Which actually would be great for you too, because somebody's got to keep you in control. I mean, like, man, yeah, yeah, I may be ADD some days, but, like, you two got me beat. I'm not judging. I'm not. We're we're the same space.

Kristen
We're all in the same space.

Erika
We're all on the same boat.

Kristen
Yeah.

Dr. Jay
But, you two are doing things you enjoy, but there's not necessarily a plan. That's the difference, right?

Kristen
We come up with a lot of ideas. We're ideas people right now, and we're waiting for our big break. We're waiting for those MTV producers to give us a shout, you know?

Dr. Jay
Okay, I don’t know if you saw like about a year ago, there was like a call for people for my best childfree life reality show. Did you see that?

Kristen & Erika (in unison)
No.

Erika
We would be great for that.

Kristen
Really.

Dr. Jay
It was in one of the Childfree Facebook groups. And I don't know if it died or not, but like, it's a year later, I haven't seen it. But you know, who knows? With TV it could come out like tomorrow. But the debate was. So you go on there, you know, it’s kind of like lifestyles of the rich and famous but for childfree people essentially kind of where they pitched us.

Is that a good or bad picture of childfree or DINK life of like hey, I'm rich and jetting the world and doing my thing versus like there are a lot of people that have no kids and are still struggling.

Erika
Oh yeah.

Kristen
Totally.

Dr. Jay
So what do you think? First of all, sounds like you should be on the show, but like, you know.

Kristen
Mean, I think I think just like any other group, there's a array of people who fall into certain camps, like there are the DINKs who are very superfluous with their money and they're spending it on everything and they're going on vacations and they're upgrading to first class every time there are people who can't afford… I mean, we see that all the time on our social media content.

There's like people who are just like, I'm a DINK, but I literally can barely, like, afford my day to day finances. So I think there's a spectrum and I think what are like philosophy has been it's just like try to enjoy your life while being and maintaining like being a good person. Be ethical. We promote like ethical things.

Like think about where you're sourcing your food from, like childfree people we know donate their time more than like any other population. Like we are all about like helping kids. Like just because we're childfree doesn't mean that we don't like kids. Helping kids, helping families like be a good person and also know that you're all going to die and enjoy your life a little bit while you're here, right, Erika? What do you think?

Erika
Yeah. No, I agree. I think that that's… jokes aside, like we on our podcast, we have a segment called DINK Yourself, which is all about the frivolous or ridiculous things that we do as things that we couldn't do otherwise. But we do try to like as much as we talk about like the frivolous purchases we made, we also like to talk about the time invested in things that we wouldn't be able to do, like, you know, being involved in your neighborhood association or doing things for community giving back. Because I think that DINKs have an unfair stereotype for being, like Kristin says, superfluous with money being irresponsible, not even irresponsible, just being like wasteful.

And I think that that sometimes can speak more loudly to the general population as like these people don't care about the planet, they don't care about the future, they don't care about social causes which is like absolutely untrue. Like fundamentally, I think that like we have more time and energy than anyone to be stressing and concerned about, like everything that's happening in the world.

And I think arguably, like a lot of people are DINKs because they don't want to inflict all of these social issues to a child. So yeah, I mean, we have fun with like being DINKs and being ridiculous with our time and money, but I think when it comes down to like brass taxes, you know, like the reason that we're childfree, the reason that we're doing this very much because we care about community and and the future that we're building for, for everybody.

Kristen
My gosh. Well said Erica. Well said. Claps to that. That was great.

Erika
Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Jay
If you want to see the data, the philanthropic people, these are the people that beg for money from nonprofits. They will tell you 100% that childfree folks donate a lot more.

Erika
Oh, yeah.

Dr. Jay
Because they target us like, you know, they're like…

Erika
Oh, totally.

Dr. Jay
So where are you putting your estate? Like, I mean, that is.

Erika
Yeah.

Dr. Jay
Which by the way, they would not target us if they thought they were going to take the money and spend it.

Kristen
Right.

Dr. Jay
They've done the research. If you want sponsors, maybe you should, you know, beg for money for nonprofits and make it sponsored.

Kristen
Add it to the list.

Dr. Jay
That and your Chase Sapphire referred, preferred or whatever, you know.

Erika
We're going to be loaded.

Dr. Jay
I, I have the cheaper Chase Sapphire because I can't justify the 500 bucks a year. I just can't in my head. But I got you. I get where you're going.

Kristen
The $300 travel credit. Dr. Jay.

Erika
No. Dr. Jay Come on, come on.

Dr. Jay
I'm one of those where most of my money, frankly, is going into this enterprise and building Childfree Wealth and building structures and trying to I'm trying to build something doesn't exist.

Kristen
What about your wife? What where she what she where she put her money?

Dr. Jay
Luckily, she doesn't spend much. Her, let's call it habit is what I call fruit dresses. So she works in food insecurity. That's actually her research. So she's got like fruit and vegetable dresses like, like Erika's flowers. But yeah it’s fruit & vegetables.

Kristen
Yeah!

Erika
How cute!

Dr. Jay
She's like, I found another fruit dress. I'm like, cool.

Erika
I have some fruit sweaters that I could send to her.

Dr. Jay
Birthday I had to buy, I had to get it special or because it wasn't very… Kate Spade put out a tomato purse, so I had to search that to find the tomato purse because it matched the rest of her stuff.

Erika
Oh my gosh, I love that.

Kristen
That's so cute!

Dr. Jay
We all have our things where they find you like they want more of this unhinged stuff, let's call it that I think is your word. Where are you?

Erika
Yeah, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok at Dinky Pod.

Kristen
And we have all the links to our actual podcast through those accounts. But start there and yeah, watch. Come for the childfree memes and stay for the unhinged podcast.

Dr. Jay
Is there a line in between those two or just like, you know, what do you mean? Well, I mean, you're separating out the memes from the unhinged. I mean, I think everything is unhinged.

Erika
Oh, it's all unhinged.

Kristen
That’s fair. Yeah, I think we're more unhinged on podcasts because there's no editing or vetting, like Erica & I sent every meme back and forth and work on it, every single thing that goes on our social media we collaborate on. Whereas Erica can't stop me right now. You don't know what I'm going to say next. It could be crazy and you can't stop me.

Erika
True!

Kristen
So a little bit more unhinged on podcast.

Dr. Jay
We’ll add all that in the show notes. So thank you for coming on.

Kristen
Awesome. Thank you.

Erika
Yeah, thanks for having us.