No children - rethinking finances and work?

[Jellyfishjellyfish]

Has anyone who has ended up not having children for any reason made any more drastic changes to their financial planning? E.g. planning an earlier retirement age, working less? FIRE? Planning to downsize if you have a house? Taking sabbaticals from work?

It seems too easy to carry on with the typical work and pension planning but we surely have room for more freedom of we don't need to build up an inheritance to pass on. Interested to hear if people have made any changes.

I wouldn't let it change your pension planning too much. You can't rely on kids helping you out, but they do provide a limited safety net. Without kids you will definitely have to pay for help so so you need to make sure that's an option.

If your pension is healthy, I would keep working but drop a few days and save up for regular sabbaticals. Then again, I like working and think FIRE sounds boring because you have to be tight in advance then stop early! I'd rather be frugal/stable so that I can take the risk to become an entrepreneur or change careers a few more times, but that still counts as working.

Yes, taking the chance to try out different ways of working makes sense. Allowing ourselves a bit more flexibility to take some level of risk rather than being tied to one stable job maybe. Sabbaticals - either need an employer who allows unpaid periods off, or to take a risk of leaving a job and planning to get further work later.

I think spending my accrued wealth would certainly form part of my future planning. Smaller lock up and leave home for easy travelling, foreign adventures. Retirement really depends on what you want to do, some people seem to age when they retire. There’s an element of if you don’t need to do things anymore then the less you seem to do.

You still need to build up a good amount though? The funds we’re building up could be a decent I inheritance for our DC, but could also be used to fund care if we need it when older. If you don’t have DCs then presumably you still need that unless you want to rely on state care, and you won’t have DCs to help out a bit.

We were actually talking about this yesterday and are considering a lifestyle change of buying 2 smaller properties so we get a break from the city.

Yes we still need decent enough pensions. But having a fairly high value house might bit make sense. Trying to allow ourselves to make the most of life and the situation a bit more rather than being too cautious!

I love having a small flat, although I do have a garden. Most of my neighbours are child free. We all keep an eye on each other's flats if we go travelling so leaving it empty is no problem. They're modern enough there'slittle risk they'll flood or burn down. It's minimal cleaning and I just got the whole lot done with solid parquet because at only 55m², I can afford it! My neighbours have fancy sports cars and camper vans instead of parquet. I prefer to pay for nice dinners, posh gym and holidays than a large mortgage and cleaner, but appreciate that that's just one lifestyle choice. There are a few pianos and violins, but we all work part time so only practise during day light hours.

No, because not having children doesn’t mean I’m wealthy enough for any of this. I can’t even afford a holiday these days, let alone early retirement or an unpaid sabbatical. My colleagues on dual incomes are all better off than me despite having additional family members to pay for and childcare costs.

Pains of being single - the DINK lifestyle can be ££££ but the SINK one? Not so much in this economy!

I am absolutely determined to move to a retirement village with different levels of care to try to secure a decent old age for myself. It costs a fortune, so if anything I am looking to increase my income / work more!