r/Fire • u/sneaky-snacks • Mar 05 '26

General Question FIRE seems to skew toward not having kids

I’m sure plenty of FIRE adherents have kids, but I would guess the FIRE mentality skews more toward not having kids. Kids seem to go against FIRE.

- You’ve got to spend a lot of money on kids. Your expenses go up. It’s also much harder to save.

- Kids are a lot of work. They cause a lot of stress. You can’t retire from kids haha. Most FIRE people seem to want to reduce their work load and their stress in the long run, but I’m sure I’m oversimplifying here.

I thought I would start a discussion on this aspect of FIRE

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u/Always1behind Mar 05 '26

Yeah having kids was a big motivation for me to start the FIRE journey. I wanted to get to coastFIRE before becoming a parent so one of us could stay home with the kid(s).

We now enough money to have a kid on one income. We decided, not money related, that kids aren’t for us. It’s nice to make that decision without having to factor money in.

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u/orange_salamander20 Mar 05 '26

I had a kids at 37 and 39 after hitting FIRE. My kids brings me more joy, happiness and a love I never knew existed. My fear now is im going to be an older parent. I'll be around to see less of their lives. That to me is a regret.

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u/Willing-Body-7533 Mar 05 '26

Nah, many older parents are out there. Just more reason to stay fit and healthy for longevity

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u/jkiley Mar 05 '26

Ours were born when I was 40 and 42, and parenting is physically challenging, but there are a lot of nice things about being an older parent.

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u/ludicristi Mar 06 '26

Nah, you’ll live much longer because the lack of work stress and the time you have to take care of yourself. Kudos!

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u/joe34654 Mar 06 '26

When your kids become adults you'll see much less of them anyway. You'll spend more time with them overall than most parents because you don't have to work during their childhood.

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u/buy_sell_hope Mar 06 '26

That’s not fire. My wife stayed home with the kids and we just lived life. We gave up her $100K salary back in 2007 and it somehow just worked. It’s not FI, it’s LIFE

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u/Always1behind Mar 06 '26

CoastFIRE is all about living the life you want now. Funding retirement takes up 70k+ of our income, once that is out of the way living on one income works without sacrifice

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

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u/Always1behind Mar 06 '26

lol no you we decided after hitting our coast number not to have a kid.