MSN Article: "What Would You Sacrifice to Retire Early?"

[joeea]

kids deserve parents that actually want them.

I agree.

for us we don't particularly like kids and I was convinced that I would've been a terrible father. my wife was ready to have kids if I wanted them but otherwise felt like I do. no point in having children just to check off a spot on a list.

Sounds like you both made a wise decision.

 

[MarieIG]

My oldest son and his wife were just saying how glad they are that they decided not to have kids. While their friends have kid related bills and less freedom she is leaving for Poland for 2 weeks to visit her family and he is flying to Oregon to see a friend for 4 days. They are in their 40’s. When I was young Ann Landers asked her readers if they could start over would they have kids and 70% said no. It may be that the people that chose to write her were unhappy with their kids but I never forgot it.

Seems an easy topic for an anonymous poll here.

For those who have had children, would you do it again.

Yes

No

 

[DrRoy]

We had kids (2), pets, vacations, bought cars new, and still retired at 57. Won't give up the dog now, either.

 

[imoldernu]

83 for Jeanie and Me
four sons through college
very low net worth
retired @ 53 me cancer, she stroke... complete cure
lived within our means
never felt we sacrificed anything

Love every day, and don't feel like we missed anything important.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/sharing-23-years-of-frugal-retirement-62251.html

now 30

 

[MarieIG]

Life involves choices, but I don't see my life as a series of sacrifices. I worked hard, but I didn't work in a coal mine and wasn't facing enemy fire. We had a roof over our heads, food on the table, clothes on our backs, God and family. All-in-all, a good life.

 

[scrabbler1]

While I surely agree that forgoing kids is a good way to boost your chance of retiring early, that wasn't my thought process in my journey to ER 11 years ago.


I knew at age 20 that I would be childfree, that I had no interest whatsoever in having kids. I was still in college, 2 years away from working full-time. I was also 15 years away from seeing ER appear on my radar, when I paid off my mortgage at age 35. Even then, at 35, I was still nearly 10 years away from realizing that ER was a strong possibility by age 45.


For me, it wasn't, "I want to retire early, so what can I do to make that happen?" Instead, it was, "Wow, being childfree, a choice I made years ago because I had no interest whatsoever in being a parent, has been making me wealthy. I hate my commute and it is increasing the dislike of my job and need to do something big about it. Working part-time has been okay at times but it is not nearly enough. Let's marry these two things and see if I can parlay them into being able to retire early." And I did.

 

[MarieIG]

There is NOTHING about the commute that I will miss!

 

[Badger]

We got married at about 40. At that time I had no children but my wife had 2 who were grown. She raised them pretty much on her own by working in security and later as a secretary while serving in military reserves for 22 years after a couple of bad marriage experiences. I was teaching at a local college so income was not large. Yet between the 2 of us we succeeded in establishing a nest egg that would see us through our lifetime with plenty left for her son and daughter once we are gone.
I don't know of much more that we could have sacrificed to retire any earlier than we did at 64. Life is good and we are happy.


Cheers!

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We had a nice house, kids, pets, and vacations and retired early (early / mid fifties). Some of our neighbors, with probably similar household incomes, were really surprised. I have given it some thought as to what the differences were. Most of it is pretty much comes down to what is written up in The Millionaire Next Door books for us - frugal habits, good value cars, small business owners, etc. Nothing really sacrificial, just professional careers and small businesses that gave us the opportunity to save, plus a LBYMs lifestyle.

 

[Born2BRetd]

Anyone who would give up kids just so they could retire early didn't really want children in the first place. No one should have children if they don't want them.

Having a family brings me great joy even though there were difficult moments. I couldn't imagine my life any other way. Other people envision their lives in a different way and should feel free to do so.

 

[rk911]

I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

 

[GenXguy]

I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children was in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

Yeah, I totally don't get how "not" having kids would be considered selfish. Many of the people that have them shouldn't be for that matter.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Seems an easy topic for an anonymous poll here.

For those who have had children, would you do it again.

Yes

No

We asked friends and coworkers that same question when we were deciding whether or not to have kids. The parents with young and grown children mainly said yes, and the ones with teenagers almost all kind of hesitated and said things like I"m not sure or maybe not.

 

[Lurking]

At the risk of beating a dead horse (clearly not a scientific survey), I find the word choice fascinating.

Calling a choice to have children/pets or not have children/pets as “giving up” children or pets makes the strong implication that having both is normal and lacking either is abnormal.

I think this is one of those cases where the opinions of the survey writers end up there in the results. It’s a pretty common bias (so much so that some/many people don’t recognize it) but I sympathize with anyone who decided kids weren’t for them only to face constant comments from family or friends who are really trying to justify their own decisions.

And I say this as a parent, with pets!

 

[rk911]

while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife.

say hi to Maggie!

 

[ncbill]

Got married a year out of college, started having kids ~5 years later.

If I could change anything I would have gotten married immediately after graduation & started having the kids right away.

Mostly because the non-Alzheimer's dementia that killed my mom strikes very young (as early as one's mid-40s) so my kids never got to know my mother.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Bill, that’s so sad about your mom.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife.

say hi to Maggie!

Maggie is a cutie! Our kids are grown so now we baby our dog.

 

[msanniee]

I retired in order to be home enough to get my 3 French Bulldogs. No way would I traded my dogs for an earlier retirement, which was 59.5 anyway.

 

[MarieIG]

while we decided to not have kids we've had pets virtually all of our married life (50-yrs in March!). all cats until 5-yrs ago we we rescued "Maggie the Wonder Beagle". my cat lovin' wife is now my dog lovin' wife.

say hi to Maggie!

Hi Maggie. You sure are a cutie!

 

[FIREflower]

DH and I both strongly desire to have kids, which is much of our impetus behind shooting for RE. We want to have the most quality family time available as possible.

I think it's awesome when people know themselves and know that they don't want children. I've always wanted kids, and DH feels the same.

 

[HI Bill]

I made a conscious decision in high school that I'd have no kids, or 1, but not more. Because I was single and working with many remote assignments and travel, I've never had a dog because I didn't want to put the dog through the trauma of being left in a kennel or alone all day while I was at work. I would have loved to have had a dog, had I had a proper yard, and a partner to help care for it, and had I not needed to travel so much for work.

 

[Gallaher]

Five kids! Horses, dogs, beautiful home in the country, wife was stay at home mom. We always gave over ten percent, gross, a year to charity (church). Child rearing was/is crazy hard. Would do it all again.
Was “asked” to retire early at 57. I earned stupid money.

All of the secrets are in the “Millionaire Next Door”.... live below your means, save hard and invest aggressively.
If you are disciplined, you may be able to have it all.
I feel like I got my fair share of everything.

 

[cyber888]

What would I sacrifice ?

1) Kids .. yup no kids.
2) The Playboy life .. stick to one woman (now)
3) Eating out often ... we're not a fan of eating out anyway, we like to prepare our own organic food. We try to eat out once a week.
4) Clothing .. too many clothes to wear .. not buying in the next 3 years at least.

 

[audreyh1]

I recall a co-worker calling my wife and I "selfish" for not wanting kids. my response to her was that having unwanted children in order to put a checkmark on a list or to gain approval from others was the epitome of selfishness. she didn't get it. thankfully neither of our families ever raised the issue.

That is bizarre. I can only think of the old church mandate to “go forth and multiply” as being behind such an attitude. And it’s not as if the human population is shrinking!

Personally we would only choose to have kids if we really wanted them, and we didn’t have a strong feeling maternal or paternal urge, so we didn’t. I’ve had to explain this a few times, plus that we thus didn’t see the point of adding to the human population.

I have also never criticized someone who chose differently.

We also have no pets. We chose not to have pets after we started traveling a lot. I did have a cat who lived to 21. That was enough. We are surrounded by pet crazy retired neighbors who probably think we are oddballs for not having pets. Pets are constantly discussed on our neighborhood Facebook page and people are constantly out walking them. That latter is obviously a good thing as it’s a good motivator for seniors to get out and walk multiple times daily.