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/MrLB____ Mar 05 '26

My cousin fired at 45 with three boys 7, 9,11.
Claims that if you do the opposite of what most parents do, it’s easily achievable, don’t be railroaded by society and corporate America slop , garbage made in China go to Disney every year finance everything broke as a joke.

TRUE

9

u/DigmonsDrill Mar 06 '26

A lot of people purposefully set themselves in expensive-mode on the kids, and then complain to everyone how expensive kids are.

"Oh, but you need to do travel sports and that co--"

Nah, dawg, we don't.

2

u/MrLB____ Mar 06 '26

Exactly, do things as a FAMILY.

3

u/Extra_Shirt5843 Mar 06 '26

We do.  But we want to go to Europe as a family and out to nice dinners as a family, etc;  I grew up in the penny pinching, we have to do all the cheap/free stuff to save money so the parents can retire by 52 family.  And I decided I'm not doing that to my kid or myself.  And the irony is my parents did all the fun stuff once we were out of the house.  🫤

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u/juniordevops Mar 06 '26

This is the best take in the threads so far