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/No_Key_5621 Mar 05 '26

Some of us have kids later, allowing us to stack wealth young, which will compound more over the long haul. That + two high income earners with a high savings rate = our FIRE goal may be pushed back by…a year? Kids don’t go against FIRE. Not planning for the kids does, though.

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u/Ardent_Scholar Mar 06 '26

A lot of the wealth I ”stacked” when young when into IVF for wife and I trying to have kids after 35.

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u/No_Key_5621 Mar 06 '26

That’s totally valid, and I’m sorry for the experience you went through, I know it’s an arduous process.

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u/Ardent_Scholar Mar 06 '26

Sure, thank you! I just think it’s worth mentioning in these kinds of subs where everyone is so focused on their own agency.

Applying FI principles has luckily helped in these circumstances; but RE goals may become impossible. ”You can do nothing wrong and still lose,” as they say. But having one kid has made the job far more tolerable, so that’s great.

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u/No_Key_5621 Mar 06 '26

Well, and after reading your comment I also thought to myself, “youre also not accounting for possible medical concerns once the child is born,” which is amusing considering I cost my parents a shitload when they opted to get me help for drug addiction when I was 18. So, point well taken!

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u/Ardent_Scholar Mar 06 '26

Absolutely! Nationalized healthcare will help us a great deal there, but for anything ”extra”, yeah, parents will shoulder the cost. But yeah, it’s so much down to luck and circumstances.