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

[Teacher Terry]

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.

 

[joeea]

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.

Fewer bills and the freedom to travel more often? Is that why they are glad they decided not to have kids?

 

[Aerides]

We all make our own choices for our own reasons.

It's sad that more people would forgo children than pets.

It's a one percent difference on a clickbait poll, hardly a scientific "more people" conclusion...

But many people have many reasons, and we're not going to go into them here. It's an entirely personal choice (sometimes a painful one) and likely almost never for simple pragmatic reasons like money, retirement, and freedom.

 

[Teacher Terry]

They love not having extra responsibilities. After work they can do whatever they want. My sister never wanted kids and at 73 is not sorry. I don’t know what’s so hard to understand that not everyone wants children. What I find sad is grandparents raising their grandchildren because the parents are irresponsible. More people should put serious thought into what having children involves instead of kids being abused and neglected.

 

[scrabbler1]

We all make our own choices for our own reasons.

It's sad that more people would forgo children than pets.

You still haven't said why you think it is sad that people would forgo children, that is, assuming they haven't had any yet and choose to be childfree. I don't have any pets, either, due to my co-op's bylaws. But I would surely consider having a pet if I lived in a larger environment (i.e. a house), as that would not have any financial impact on my ability to remain retired.

I think it is terrific that people have chosen to buck society's "life script" and become childfree, instead of caving to those pressures and had kids they didn't really want. Why do you think people freely making their own life's choices is so sad?

 

[MichaelB]

.
.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

When we decided not to have kids we took flack from all angles, family was the worst, quite insensitive actually.

Our reasons were simple, not in order and not limited to:

1) I was traveling for a living, we had already moved 3 times and did not want to have to spend so much time moving around and not being able to spend time with a potential offspring. I did not stop traveling until we retired and would have missed most of it anyway.

2) We have experienced how some folks children regard and treated their parents, we did not like that. DW was not keen anyway. Probably what attracted us to each other as we knew what each other thought very early.

3) We did not like the direction the world was seemingly going, and with all the poverty and strife around, along with the amount of unwanted children about, we figure if we changed out minds we could always adopt.

4)To us having our own or bringing up another's is much of a muchness. We had no burning desire to have our own. We never did adopt either as we simply did not see any advantages.

There are so many reasons I cannot mention them all. We still are more than happy with our decision and never feel otherwise. In fact it is reinforced on a pretty much a daily basis, when we see others with their children giving them grief we look at each other and smile. (Not the folks we know, but those we stumble across in everyday life).

What we also notice is that we really do not have any long time friends that have children other than family. It is moot now as with most of the folks we meet, their kids have fled the coupe long ago.

 

[Which Roger]

I truly believe that this advise is due to the fact that vast majority (80%) of population can't save much AND don't know how much they spend. The income gauge is useful to those 80% because everyone knows their income. This advise also assumes that you will retire at FRA with just enough savings rate to cross the FRA line. The rest of 20% understand that expanses are key to the retirement and you don't need to preach to that crowd since they are already saving way more than the rest.

Agreed. The 80% rule is way too simplistic and misleading and inappropriate for members of our group, but it serves as a "sound bite wakeup call" to hopefully get the attention of the masses. It''s reminding them that they need to save a lot of money if they want to have a comfortable retirement. The hope then is that a person who receives this wakeup call will want to learn more and dig deeper, rather than taking it as gospel and simply continuing to work until the 80% milestone is reached.

 

[GenXguy]

Every time I see an article that claims you should estimate your retirement income needs based on your pre-retirement income, it makes me absolutely crazy.

"If you hope to enjoy a lifestyle similar to the one you currently have, experts at T. Rowe Price suggest this rule of thumb: In order to maintain their current lifestyle during retirement, people should strive for an income replacement rate of 75% of their gross pre-retirement income."

...

" Fidelity recommends saving 10X your income by age 67 and offers these guidelines to help you set savings milestones"

UGH! This is some of THE ABSOLUTE WORST "advice" people can be given. You need to save based on EXPENSES (which in some cases may even increase in retirement due to HC costs), not income (as most of us here already know).

No wonder people who do not follow sites like ours are so confused about retirement.

That's true. I've seen this point raised elsewhere as well. I guess they assume most people are basically living paycheck to paycheck. The calculation is worse when they are basing it on "gross" income since you're likely going to pay less taxes in retirement (like no payroll tax).

But I calculate my stash requirement based on my required living expenses PLUS my desired discretionary spending using a 3.4% WR, which means having a stash close to 30X total yearly spending until additional retirement income kicks in another decade out, when I can drop to a 2.1% WR to sustain the same standard of living (Medicare costs factored in as well).

 

[joeea]

They love not having extra responsibilities. After work they can do whatever they want.

If that was their reasoning, then I applaud them. Not everyone is cut out to be a good parent. And there's nothing worse than a parent who would rather not be one.

What I find sad is grandparents raising their grandchildren because the parents are irresponsible. More people should put serious thought into what having children involves instead of kids being abused and neglected.

Yup, that's sad too.

 

[joeea]

I think it is terrific that people have chosen to buck society's "life script" and become childfree, instead of caving to those pressures and had kids they didn't really want.

I think it's terrific that people who don't really want kids choose not to be parents.

Why do you think people freely making their own life's choices is so sad?

I think it's sad when I see evidence that children are valued less than pets. It tells me something about society that I'd rather not believe.

 

[joeea]

To us having our own or bringing up another's is much of a muchness.

No idea what that means.

We still are more than happy with our decision and never feel otherwise.

Terrific. Most people tend to be happy with their decisions, once they are made. That's true for most of life's decisions.

What we also notice is that we really do not have any long time friends that have children other than family.

Children other than family

 

[Teacher Terry]

I never bugged my kids about having children because it’s none of my business. Heck they don’t even want pets. It ended up being a good thing because 18 months ago she had a tennis ball size tumor removed from her brain stem and is still recovering. She can only work 3-4 days a week and is exhausted most of the time. I let my 3 kids know as teenagers that I wasn’t raising grandchildren so they had better be responsible. I always knew I wanted kids and my sister knew the opposite.

 

[scrabbler1]

I think it's terrific that people who don't really want kids choose not to be parents.


I think it's sad when I see evidence that children are valued less than pets. It tells me something about society that I'd rather not believe.

You are making a common mistake when it comes to describing childfree people. Many of us do value kids even though we don't want to have any of our own. Many of us (like me) do volunteer work with kids and are loving and generous aunts and uncles. Just because we would rather have pets than kids doesn't mean we value kids less than pets.

 

[joeea]

18 months ago she had a tennis ball size tumor removed from her brain stem and is still recovering. She can only work 3-4 days a week and is exhausted most of the time.

Yikes, hope her recovery goes well.

 

[joeea]

Just because we would rather have pets than kids doesn't mean we value kids less than pets.

Okay. That's not the case with everyone.

 

[Teacher Terry]

She was very lucky that she had one of the best surgeons for this tumor. It was a 14 hour operation. They had to leave some of it in because of the location. They do a yearly MRI. It wasn’t cancerous which is unusual. She did lose her hearing in one ear. Many people end up disabled from the surgery so we feel blessed.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I don’t think anyone values pets more than kids. When my dogs die I get another one. There is no replacing a child. A few of my friends have lost children and they are never the same.

 

[GenXguy]

I don’t think anyone values pets more than kids. When my dogs die I get another one.

When my dog died, I didn't get another one. He was not replaceable. I'm very thankful that I never had kids.

 

[candrew]

I don’t know what’s so hard to understand that not everyone wants children. What I find sad is grandparents raising their grandchildren because the parents are irresponsible. More people should put serious thought into what having children involves instead of kids being abused and neglected.

All things considered - even under the most ideal of circumstances - parenting is a difficult and expensive undertaking.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

LOL (BTW this is a joke for those who cannot seem to grasp at my British sense of humour).

You are making a common mistake when it comes to describing childfree people. Many of us do value kids even though we don't want to have any of our own.

Sorry but I cannot resist:

Speak for yourself, we find smaller kids very, very annoying, especially those little ones that you find in restaurants.

However we have looked after some of our friends kids in the past, we just make sure to take the muzzle and handcuffs off before they pick them up.

Pets are actually much easier to look after for friends and we do that a lot. We tend to shy away from the baby sitting requests though. Funny how it is always great to give the kids back to their owners, but one always wants to keep the pets...

 

[Teacher Terry]

When one of our dogs die we honor it in the best way possible by rescuing another. Every animal is different just like people. But just like kids not everyone wants pets. It would be boring if we were all the same.

 

[rk911]

We all make our own choices for our own reasons.

It's sad that more people would forgo children than pets.

why is it sad? kids deserve parents that actually want them. there are too many kids with parents that don't give a you-know-what. 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.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

We raised children. We had one, we adopted one, and we foster-parented a bunch.

I do not see how that 'delayed' my retirement at all. I still retired at 42.

 

[Red Badger]

LOL (BTW this is a joke for those who cannot seem to grasp at my British sense of humour).



Sorry but I cannot resist:

Speak for yourself, we find smaller kids very, very annoying, especially those little ones that you find in restaurants.

However we have looked after some of our friends kids in the past, we just make sure to take the muzzle and handcuffs off before they pick them up.

Pets are actually much easier to look after for friends and we do that a lot. We tend to shy away from the baby sitting requests though. Funny how it is always great to give the kids back to their owners, but one always wants to keep the pets...

As a proud and happy parent, this is Spot On!

Besides, kids are naturally good. But not upon puberty or after medium rare.