Benefits package of religious life

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

In this episode, Bri Conn CFP® sits down with Sister Monica Clare, Episcopal nun and author of A Change of Habit, for a conversation about what it actually takes to stop living for other people's expectations and start designing a life around who you actually are.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why the pressure to marry and have children has always been more economic than emotional.
• How the Episcopal Church differs from Roman Catholicism and other denominations, and why its LGBTQ-affirming, progressive theology surprised even Bri
• What it costs to become a nun, financially and otherwise, and how Sister Monica Clare paid off $150,000 in debt before she could answer her calling.
• How communal living under a vow of poverty actually works, what $50 a month in allowance looks like in practice.
• Why the doors that close are just as important as the doors that open, and how Sister Monica Clare learned to read the difference between a path that is hard and one that is wrong

Episode Host:

Bri Conn, CFP® is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER®, Childfree Wealth Specialist® at Childfree Wealth®, and Customer Experience Manager at Childfree Trust®.

Episode Guest:

Sister Monica Clare is a nun at the Community of St. John Baptist, an Episcopal religious order based in Mendham, New Jersey. She is the Superior of the convent and will soon be an ordained priest. She is a trained spiritual counselor specializing in religious trauma, mental illness, and addiction.

Her forthcoming memoir, A Change of Habit, was released on April 29, 2025 by Crown and Sugar23 Books at Penguin Random House. 

Before becoming a nun in 2012, she worked as a photo editor in Los Angeles and was a member of the Groundlings Sunday Company. She started her TikTok account, @nunsenseforthepeople, in June 2021, to make people laugh and to demystify life as an Episcopal nun. To her great surprise, the popularity of her TikTok channel has continued to grow and she now has over 227K followers and 2.9M likes.

Follow her on Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nunsenseforthepeople

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.

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