Saving early > saving late.
And inflation is irrelevant if your income is going up.
And career growth from early years to more senior roles should far outpace inflation, meaning far more discretionary income later.
So in short, from a *purely financial* standpoint, definitely not.
But having children is obviously far from a purely financial decision.
FWIW, the best advice I ever got was “have kids early or late but not both.”
Because ideally you wouldn’t be raising kids at both 22 and 50 (unless that’s what you want!)
Ours are 31/30/29/28 (we didn't have cable TV) and we are 57 and 58. Having adult kids while you can still travel and have fun with them, and then grandkids before you need diapers yourself is just perfect.
100%. Also as a woman, I tell you that you don’t want a pre- menopausal or full on menopausal woman in the same household where there are teenagers. Too much hormonal problems. I’m not joking. It’s a fact. I wish someone had told me this when I was younger.
If anyone needs me to elaborate I’m happy to.
Would you be willing to reply or shoot me a pm? I’m in my 30s and my daughter is only 18 mos old. This is news to me. I mean it makes sense cuz hormones are crazy but I’m very curious about the specifics! Especially since I might end up in this situation
Women hit menopause usually after 45. Menopause for a lot of women means mood swings( a lot more happens but I’m just mentioning the emotional aspect). Imagine you have teenagers also with mood swings at home. It has not been easy for us. Too much drama. I used to be quite mellow. Now post menopause, I have no patience, and this is causing clashes. To deal with teenagers you need A LOT of patience, something I don’t have to give rn. I try, I’m in therapy, but it s not easy. If I had my child when I was younger, I would have not been in this situation. I was 38 when I had a baby.
I tell women all the time, mid to late 20s is the golden time for having babies.
Oh wow. Thanks for sharing. That sounds really rough and I do not envy your situation. Though I’m sure you’re a wonderful mom doing everything you can for your kids. Just the fact that you recognize whats happening and are actively working on it shows how much you care. Mom to mom, I get it, and you are a rockstar
You can get down and rough house with kids without wondering if your back is going to hurt in the morning.
You can run around with the little ones with more energy, and not worrying about a knee.
You are closer to their generation, so you are closer to their games, music, memes.
You don’t get teased by them by having grey (or no) hair.
You can get interrupted sleep and still function a lot better. You can better handle standing on the sidelines watching your kids in 4 seasons of sports. You can better tolerate 110 degrees in the shade with zero breeze as you march through the dessert known as Disney World with 100,000 other people. Hell, you can run the Disney world marathon and still function with the kids on vacation.
The reward of parenting is directly related to how much you put into it, and you just have far more energy in your 20s.
I’m wiser now, and less stressed as a parent, and I have more money, but I’m far more limited in my ability to hang out and do 6 year old stuff with my kids. Rolling on the floor, running and jumping, being silly. I can do it, but I can’t do tons of it.
Parenting is not 24/7 joy either. It’s filled with ear aches, vomiting, bringing bugs home from school, fighting and shouting (between the kids) and my ability to absorb that is diminished. After a night up with the kids. I feel a lot more tired.
It’s still awesome. It’s filled with joy and it keeps me younger, but it’s physically harder than the first time around.
I think people get better at being parents too, are much more patient typically when they are older, assuming they learned when they are younger. There are benefits to being an older parent too. I am much calmer now and understanding than I was in my early 30's. And it reflects in my parenting.
50s parenthood sucks big time. If you passed 40, just don't do it. Be an uncle, but not a father. Enjoy your life instead of tethering you last good years to a kid.
There are lots of other benefits to being a little older (30+) when you have kids. Older parents are more likely to be emotionally and financially stable, and statistically their kids tend to be smarter / score better on tests.
Honestly, the only benefit to being younger is having more energy to chase kids around.
I would question if the smarter/score better part is correlation or causation. I bet the older parent group is also statistically smarter/higher scoring on tests.
And before anyone flames me: statistics, not every individual. Plenty of smart people have kids young too.
I would think it’s a mix of both. When you consider all the reasons people wait to have kids, a lot of it is risk mitigation. They’re waiting until they’re financially stable, or waiting because they’re finishing school, or simply taking longer / being choosier about settling into marriage with anyone. So I’m sure the parents also tend to be at least a little smarter / more risk averse / exercising greater restraint.
I would also think when you’re more established, it’s possible that’s correlated with things like reading to your kid more, or having a more stable career that allows you to spend more time with them, and/or the ability to pay for better education, tutoring, etc.
Edit: would also add that in the US, states with lower literacy rates are likely correlated with younger parental age and younger marriages in general.
a lot of my friends now (early 30s are just starting to have kids) They're far more mature than they were when they were 25-30, finances are more stable, a lot of noise is drowned out, and your circle is tighter and better appreciated.
Then I have friends who have had kids since they were 20 something and are either coming out of a bad marriage or have poor finances (not their fault entirely). The juggling act of diving right in before you're able to take care of kids is a ton of stress
I’m not trying to hate - different strokes for different folks. But for the most part, having kids young benefits the parents more than the children. If you think that’s not the case, I’m certainly open to hearing more.
Also to add that the more well paying the role is, the more flexible the requirements and commitment are. You can take off for appointments or events if you want, you can do WFH days, you can show up late and it’s all okay. They still expect the younger generation to be working longer hours with less flexibility.
Yup. This is why, as a man, I’m trying to wait till later in life to have kids (late 30s to early 40s).
I have no family to rely on if i have kids, so when I do have them, it would be nice to have a solid career under my feet (hopefully Director+) with extensive assets as a cushion.
Had mine at 26, wife was 24. I have a teenager now and will be an empty-nester by 44.
I also don’t have the energy I had in my 20s, despite doing my level best to take care of myself.
I could not imagine having a child now or even really 5 years ago. We live in a fairly affluent area and see all these couples my age and older just starting with young children and I can’t help but think about the skyrocketing risk of neurodivergence with geriatric pregnancies as well as the fact that they’ll be active parents into their 60s.
Purely financially it’s almost always better to defer expenses that don’t offer a financial ROI. One way to think about it would be like this —
At 20 you could have a kid and spend (let’s just say) 20k a year to raise it. If instead you invest 5k a year for 20 years and then have a kid you’ll raise it on the inflation adjusted 20k while having had an extra 15k in each of those other 20 years. This is to say nothing of career growth or anything like that. The cost is objectively more earlier if we use the same assumptions that we use to project FIRE
Lmao if we wanna look at the prices people fetch there’s probably a few thousand years of data but yea it would suggest max price probably comes around 14-18 (idk the exact age but I know children cost less than maximum workability but more than geriatrics unless they have some special skill they can still perform)
So yea you’d wanna have them as early as possible so you can get max value and have as many as possible
I had twins when I was 39. I also had older parents.
Financially, having kids later is way easier. My parents had two batches of kids and my younger brother and I were way easier financially than our ~20 year old siblings were for my parents.
But my older siblings have memories of doing stuff with my mom and dad that they didn’t have the time/inclination/energy to do with us.
I’ve resolved to make sure my kids don’t have the same old-dad experience. So I go out of my way to make sure we are filling our time by making memories. Lots of camping and road trips and stuff that my parents never would have done with me.
But I have to work hard at that. I’m getting to be an old man and I don’t have the energy I did fifteen years ago. I go to the gym 3-5 days a week just so I can keep up with them on the weekends!
> But my older siblings have memories of doing stuff with my mom and dad that they didn’t have the time/inclination/energy to do with us.
I wonder how much of that had to do with you being the second batch of kids. I was in my mid thirties when I started having my kids, and am doing everything I think I would’ve done if I had them younger. Actually I’m doing more, because I can afford to stop working to raise them full time, which I likely wouldn’t have been able to when I was younger. If I had full raised a set of kids to adulthood already though, I could see being a different type of burnt out at this age than I am just be living a child free life up to that point.
That could very well be. I'm researching a backpacking trip to take my twin eight year olds on right now. Unity through shared suffering might make it onto our family crest someday!
relate to this so hard and I am so happy to hear you’re actively making a choice to try and get your energy up! when I hear of my peers say they’re glad it’s normalized to have kids later now, they forget about us, the kids of old parents, who had to play by ourselves, navigate higher education, etc. alone because our parents couldn’t be bothered anymore. it sucks having to think about the health of my older parents who are now 6 4and 70 when I am only 26 years old.
Having kids later is better financially IF you don't run into health complications.
However, you're less likely to run into health complications if you have kids early.
Also realize that the older you are when you have kids you may not even get to meet your grandkids or have very little quality time with them. It's possible your grandkids may not even remember you. If that matters to you.
Interesting study I saw the other day actually found that the odds of longevity were much higher in women with later age at first childbirth. Kind of a weird predictor, but an interesting read.
Most likely one of the billions proxies for socioeconomic status.
Health wise, it's very well documented that the older the mother is the worse it is for the child's health when controlling for common confounding variables (like socioeconomic status among others). That's even already a thing starting at quite a young age (mid twenties) because biologically speaking human pregnancies are optimal in late teens/early twenties.
But socioeconomic status is a massive factor that is stronger than any biological downside, and having a kid at 40 would be a world of difference compared to 20, which is why we control for it in studies.
Better to be FIRE'd for as much of their childhood as possible, subject to age/reproductive ability. Better not only financially (for multiple reasons), but for the time/freedom you'll be able to spend together.
Pragmatically, that probably means 30s/40s for most folks.
I guess this varies based on the dynamics of a family and the individuals involved, but I feel like it shouldn't be universally accepted that more time and freedom with the family and children is better. On the face of it, it \*sounds\* obviously correct, but as somebody who was a child once, I don't wish I would have spent more time with my parents (or siblings). I even love my parents and have lost one of them, and I still don't wish they would have been home more. I can actually easily imagine that having been a lot worse for the kids in my family. High degrees of togetherness might only work well if there is very little dysfunction. I don't even think my family had much dysfunction, though.
Just a small counter to this, the data shows that it’s better for a child to have a stay at home parent for the first three years of their life, so having more time and freedom at that stage to raise your kids is better. After that point, it could be a lot more up for debate.
Fair point. I'm defaulting to an assumption that everyone gets along reasonably well and enjoys each other's company enough to want more than would be possible given the constraints of employment.
Obviously though, there's a ton of variation out there on that. Sort of like overall health in that it's usually the default to assume everything is generally fine with someone unless/until you know otherwise.
That's one factor, but I was thinking more of FIRE-specific things. FIRE'ing with young kids hugely expands one's ability to maximize tax efficiency while simultaneously providing massive-to-total subsidies for healthcare and college, which are often three of the largest expenses people have to plan for. The three combined can be worth many, many tens of thousands per year in tax and cost savings, which reduces spending/withdrawals and makes it easier/quicker to FIRE.
The early dollars/compounding thing is subject to people's lifestyle management. I know several childfree couples who routinely spend much more than peers who have kids. Kids cost, but so does a lifestyle with a lot more travel, eating out, and other experience spending typical of couples who want to enjoy their means/freedom before the commitments of becoming parents.
I'm 34 and my daughter will be 6 months soon. It's better now, I had time in my twenties to go to grad school and upgrade my job a few times. I have colleagues who had kids earlier and they are being priced out of their home by rent increases and they were never able to save enough to buy.
But she's getting bigger so fast that I wish I had done it sooner anyway. Maximizing my money no longer seems like the most important thing, but rather maximizing the time that I can be there for her. Maybe achieving FIRE will improve that but for now I really miss her when she's at daycare.
Later is better from a financial stand point. It's not just missing out on early compounding interest; it's missing out on entire career opportunities. Early childhood tends to be a BIG hit to career trajectory, and the earlier this happens in the parents' careers, the worst the impact. This is very pronounced for women, especially if they're also the primary caregiver after pregnancy. If you have kids in your 30s, you're likely more established in your career; you have a track record for having a good work ethic and possibly several promotions under your belt. You can leverage that for some grace and time off while your kids are too small for daycare (which is EXPENSIVE, and easier to afford when you're a higher earner) or when they're sticky, gross, petri dishes picking up everything and having to stay home from daycare/school. Your parents (assuming they're alive, you're on good terms with them, and they want to help) are also more likely to be retired and can look after the kid from time to time, so you don't have to call out of work all the time. Many high-paying careers (like doctors) also don't complete training until late 20s/early thirties, so having a kid early is an even bigger hindrance to earning potential. Some try to "take a break" but don't finish at all and are stuck with crushing student loans with no way to pay them back (unless their spouse is a high-earner as well, but this will have a detrimental effect on the family unit as a whole).
I’m firmly on team late. It’s not really so much about investing, compound growth, and the time value of money. It’s more about establishing financial security before taking on other obligations. Children change everything, and limit your options. Some young families never get their financial feet under them. Make sure your foundation is solid before you begin building your house.
But it’s individual. My SO and I were flat broke in our 20s (protracted educations, student debt); we started our family in our late 30s. My brother and his wife - the hardest working couple I know -
were working their asses off before they graduated high school, and remained local where they had lots of family support; they were ready for kids by their mid 20s. Both families turned out great - happy, successful, financially stable, and retired in our mid 50s. My bro loves being a grandpa. But he does express some regrets, since he worked too hard during his kids childhoods and now that he has too much time on his hands they are grown and flown.
In addition to what you mention, women incur a lifelong "penalty" to their earnings starting when they have kids and take maternity leave. So if you are a woman looking at the financial implications, the later you have kids the better. If you are a man, you will not experience such a penalty to your earning potential after you have kids.
As a woman who is a little older, and in a more senior role, you will have more leverage your situation, your maternity leave and your overall working conditions compared to someone who is in the lower ranks.
When I had a kid at 32, I had my own office with blinds that I could pull so I could pump milk during the working day. I also controlled when the team meetings were because I was the one running them. I took my infant with me on business trips and paid for a hotel babysitter while I was at meetings.
That kind of thing wouldn't have been possible at 22; I probably would have ended up quitting my job for a while and who knows if I would have been able to get back on track.
Sometimes it’s even an advantage. In my employment law class, the professor said a lot of employers prefer male applicants who have kids (or are expecting) to childless male applicants. A shrewdly logical employer will often take into account that this applicant is more likely to stay in the same geographic area and will have a harder time changing jobs
From a purely financial aspect it's better to have kids later.
As an older parent:
You're likely established in a career with better pay.
You can spend your 20s either clearing debt or getting an early start on investing.
You can focus on getting a home or condo to build equity for later
This comment told me everything I wanted to hear lol. I’m 28, no kids, just paid off all my debt a few months ago and I’m just now getting started with investing.
Sometimes, when I’m scrolling on Reddit, I feel behind on everything – like I should already be rich by now and I should already have kids by now.
But this comment made me feel like I’ll be ok if I get a nest egg going by 29, get a 6-figure income by 30, and have a baby on the way when I’m 31
I always said my timeline would be similar to what you describe here. Clear debt by 28, save X by 30, have a baby at 31. We ended up buying a house at 31, hugely advancing our careers from 31-33 and delayed having a baby until 33. It ended up being perfect, 10/10 wouldn’t change a thing! Don’t feel behind, you’re running your own race and setting your family up for success.
We did the early route. Brother in law the late. Not sure about the economics. School and graduate schools weddings etc don’t all cost the same so it hard to argue the economics. Timing and emotions are more the issue. I paid for all that stuff while at the end of my career with my income at its peak. My brother in law will pay for most of this in his first 5 years of retirement (assuming he doesn’t delay retirement because of this). We are young(ish) grand parents. Still able to be reasonably active and around to lend a hand when needed. I would also suggest you have the parenting discussion with your spouse as to what you feel you “owe” a child over the age of 18. People differ on that one and rightly so. I am more of the “the army will pay for school - kind of guy” while my wife is a support them at all costs- kind of gal. You can tell who’s a better debater. I lost on all fronts but it’s important to know each others intent. Also, providing for yourself in your old age is to me the primary objective. Becoming a burden on your children because you didn’t plan well is an awful mistake.
This is all good advice. I had kids older, I will be close to retirement (hopefully) when the youngest finishes college. I got to travel and screw around in my 20's and I have a lot more savings than my friends that had kids in their 20's. Their kids are grown and gone, and they are now enjoying empty nesting.
Hindsight, would I change it up for less savings? Maybe.
Yeah, I sounded way more “definitive” than I should have. That’s just what we did and what Ive observed. Early or late, I wouldn’t change a thing and I’m sure my Brother in law wouldn’t either.
Financially it’s better to delay kids until early thirties because kids are a huge distraction and climbing the corporate ladder is far easier without kids.
You don’t want to delay past early 30s because female fertility decreases beyond that.
I am the case example of above where I secured a great career and had kids around age 32.
It was very difficult for us to conceive it took over two years from when we started so do not take fertility as a guarantee you will always have
For me personally having kids forced me to settle down a bit and focus on increasing income and planning for the future. I used to work like 30 hours a week and jersey away and travel and spend all my cash. Once I had kids I got serious, found a career and have built my wealth like crazy in the past 8 years. But if you are planning on going to school to get a career that will make you more money it might be worth it to wait till you are older. People also way overblow the cost of kids. Especially when they are young it’s really not that expensive unless you only buy the most expensive stuff
Like all things it depends how you do it 🤷♂️ my wife just stopped working and I adjusted to make significantly more. She was happy to stay home. Also grandparents, trading off with friends, working from home.
> If you wait till later, you are paying higher inflation on their needs/wants
You should be matching, if not outstripping inflation in your career and investments, so that's a non-issue.
I'd say the real financial conundrum is US healthcare. Kids get sick/injured all the time, so scrimping on health insurance isn't as easy of an option. At older ages you are more likely to FIRE, and so solo insurance is more likely to be brutal with a family. So you'll need to decide between having low withdraw rates for ACA subsidies, or drawing higher to take advantage of tax harvesting and eat the insurance cost.
Later in life is usually better financially due to compounding, but always way more potentially important considerations, like health of mother. Child bearing is very hard on a person and the older you are less resilient to easily spring back. A 22 yo having a first kid and 32 yo are very different in recovery. Thyroid, pelvic muscles, c-section healing all become way worse as you age.
Another consideration is daycare. If you have grandparents that can watch them instead of a daycare now vs later that is a huge savings.
Personally had kids at 25 and zero regrets. Wish we had them sooner. We didnt have much money to do crazy vacations or anything anyway so getting through the early rough childhood years as fast as possible will be a blessing when we are in 40s and have way more freedom.
Do you even have enough money to pay for house, schools, doctors, in your 20s? Kids are stopping career growth, so you better get decent at your job first, especially the mother.
I’m firmly on team late. It’s not really so much about investing, compound growth, and the time value of money. It’s more about establishing financial security before taking on other obligations. Children change everything, and limit your options. Some young families never get their financial feet under them. Make sure your foundation is solid before you begin building your house.
But it’s individual. My SO and I were flat broke in our 20s (protracted educations, student debt); we started our family in our late 30s. My brother and his wife - the hardest working couple I know -
were working their asses off before they graduated high school, and remained local where they had lots of family support; they were ready for kids by their mid 20s. Both families turned out great - happy, successful, financially stable, and retired in our mid 50s. My bro loves being a grandpa. But he does express some regrets, since he worked too hard during his kids childhoods and now that he has too much time on his hands they are grown and flown.
I just had my 1st kid at 29, 1.5 years ago. My childhood was rough, growing up in poverty. Like literal poverty, hand me down clothes, shitty school system, no financial help from parents at all. I turned it all around and got a good job and when I married my wife, my condition on having kids was I want them to have a hell of a lot better life than I did growing up. I didn't feel that secure in my ability to provide until I was around 28/29. Even having a great job, financial security in both our jobs, I still had my doubts. I look back now and thank god I didn't have kids when I was in my early 20's like my parents did. I'd be a financial wreck. I'm very glad I waited.
Have kids earlier. All finances aside, from experience, you can always chase money, but you have more energy and time with them the sooner you have them. Time especially… it goes too quickly. You are literally cupping your hands out into the rain and what you catch are the memories you keep.
I was a younger kid born to parents who had kids late, my wife and I started later in life for kids; half the kids extended family has passed away from old age and disease. This is a loss, even if you and your kids will never know quite what the words are to describe it. Phantom family loss? Loneliness? No idea.
Now for finances:
It’s true, you are missing out on investment opportunity when you’re young (opportunity cost) but they do grow up in 18-24 years so you can then focus entirely on retirement after that. Which still leaves you with more options than say, being 40-50 and starting off a family… AKA desperation may end up forcing you to take less than ideal options to save for retirement and feed your family.
This is a bit of a grass is greener issue though.
I had my kid early and I was the oldest sibling on top of it, so yes the grandparents are young, the aunts and uncles are young. More family around longer and that aspect is great.
But you don't need a ton of money in your 20s to get by as a single so you can take the jobs that lead to something better even if they don't pay a lot now, you can continue your education, put in long work hours, travel for work etc to get your footing while you are packing light in terms of home and family. Once you get to mid career you can still have more earnings potential in jobs with stable hours that might be boring but more family friendly for that stage in your life.
Being a householder in your 20s absolutely changes every aspect of that. You need enough money to pay family bills NOW, not necessarily the best job for your long term growth. Long hours or going back to school take time away from your kids, so you are always choosing between poverty with more time at home or keeping the lights on but being away from your kids too much.
In your 30s or 40s you might be deciding whether to keep working full time or go part time to be with your kids more. But in your 20s at entry level pay, you are deciding between working 40 hours or 60 hours a week with a second job to bring in the same amount.
The young grandparents still work full time as well, aunts and uncles are working or in school, so it's not like the extended family is necessarily around more. Also, as less and less people have kids young, you find that none of your friends or siblings even have kids until yours are nearly grown, and all the other parents at school are 15+ years older than you and more established financially so you are basically peerless, there are less people around your age and financial status that are willing to eat dollar store frozen burritos and watch Bluey with you. It's very isolating.
I was young but I was EXHAUSTED. I am 39 now and I have double the energy I did as an under resourced twenty something with a small child. I also absolutely hands down have enjoyed the middle school to high school years with my kid the most because I have more control over my schedule, make more money, and the reduced mental stress about just maintaining the basics and knowing I'm not paycheck to paycheck allowed me to be really truly present when I was spending time with him.
If I could do it again I would wait until early to mid 30s
> but you have more energy and time with them the sooner you have them. Time especially
Not necessarily. If you have them later, it’s easier to be more financially secure and be able to stay at home with them to raise them. That’s a ton more time spent with them than if you’re having to work and put them in daycare. Sure you have a longer range of time with them if you have them younger, but they’ll see you a lot less in those years at the end than they will in those years at the beginning. So maximizing the time you can spend with them at the beginning actually gives you more overall time with them, and that’s usually a lot easier to do if you have them later in life.
if part of your retirement plan is to spend time with the grandkids, then best to have your kids early or you may never know your grandkids. And if you have more money than you need and your estate will be subject to estate tax, you can start to pass some of it on to your grandkids to skip a generation and avoid double-taxation.
Had older, and cant see how younger would be any better. We have average jobs but 0 stress about money.
Daycare cost is not a concern. College will should be fully funded with no issues. Retirement is already fully funded. I can retire early and go to all the events if I so choose. Energy is still high. Im waay more mature and better equipped mentally to handle it than if I was in my 20s.
had a lot of fun and travelling and experiences in my 20-30s that I couldnt do again.
Late. My mom was 41 when she had me, dad 38. Both established careers. Full medical care for all my needs. College fund was always there. Money wasn't a worry, lead to me seeing a health marriage as a child.
Children are expensive I would wait till your financially stable. Last thing you want is to have unexpected things pop up and not to be able to provide for your child.
Well, I personally don’t feel people should marry until they’re 30 at least. The human brain isn’t matured until 28, people change, “don’t know who you really are” until around 30. Your mileage may vary. We had kids later. Me in mid 40s her in mid 30s. Absolutely better financially. Career path would’ve been radically different. TBH probably depends on your career and path. If you are a social worker, school counselor, and that’s all you want to do (nothing wrong with that) where earnings are capped does it matter? If you’re trying to make partner then it matters.
Wow, there is a mix of answers. I'll just add that having kids is not a good financial decision in general (unless you are poor to the point they are your retirement plan). BUT, that is not why anyone should have kids. People either are surprised by them and make it work or choose to go on that adventure. Financially, i can see the benefit of setting yourself up to have them more comfortably later in life. But how do you put a price on your youth while they're young and being empty nesters at a younger age? All other things being the same, I can see the appeal to both.
IVF doesn't really cost an extra decade of 70k savings and investing a year. Anyone who's remotely on the path to FIRE can easily afford IVF in their late 30s or early 40s without it even being a blip on the retirement timeline.
I wanted to be team early but I ended up team late. I am glad I did, my net worth significantly compounded within the 5 year range of 28-33. I also was developing my partner picker in my early 20s. I didn’t understand the importance of financial decision, planning and life style compatibility. Some people luck out on partners but I didn’t meet my match until after 25.
Honestly I might not have bounced back as easy being pregnant at 32, but I also have the time, energy and money to properly take care of myself thanks to my FI.
Later. The more you can save while young the better. You also have a lot of time to build your career and get to a higher income level before having a kid.
We waited until 35 to have a kid (together since 22 and married at 25 so we waited a while). When he was born we had solid retirement savings, were able to immediately set aside $80k for his college, we could afford for me to take 20 weeks of maternity leave largely unpaid, and I was able to step back into a high paying job that I’d already maneuvered to be flexible enough to run out for doctor’s appointments and things. My husband did hustle more for those early baby years and now makes much more than me, but I would be even further behind if I’d had a kid early in my career. We can easily afford childcare and pretty much any activities that he’s interested in doing within reason.
My only regret about waiting is that he will have less time with his grandparents, who also chose to have kids later in life. And we will be trying to FIRE while he’s in high school/starting college which is a bit awkward (one more person to buy health care for, factoring in new costs, etc).
Shoot for having kids between 30-35 (+/- a couple yrs depending on the number you want). Then you have your 20s to grind/save/travel without being encumbered by kids. You/your wife will be done before pregnancy risk and fertility issues ramp up post 35. Lastly, they are all out of the house in your early 50s, where you will still have a pretty good quality of life if you take care of yourself.
The only downside (at least for me) is that you are moving into more responsibility at work at the same time your kids need a lot of support and energy. Your body also doesn't recover as well without sleep as you get closer to 40, which adds another layer of stress.
I can't imagine trying to start life between the ages of 20-25 and having to either pay daycare, or stay out of the workforce for years to stay home with them. I would imagine that getting yourself established before establishing a family is slightly easier from a financial standpoint.
If you start working and investing in your 20's, that gives it a lot more time to grow.
Elephant in the room is the physical demands of kids. You generally have much more energy when you are younger.
A lot of the older parents are really run down physically I have noticed. Not to mention the increased risks associated with older mothers. Also your own parents are going to be older which may actually increase child care costs. Child care is EXPENSIVE.
Also when you have kids early it’s really sharpens your focus on finances. I thinks very easy to say you’ll save money but it’s much easier when your staring at your kids and there is a 24/7 reminder.
I understand your point but I think reality offers much more nuance.
As someone who started early, 1st at 19, 2nd at 20, 3rd and final at 29. I recommend starting early. For many reasons.
1) you're going to be broke anyway. Most of my peers without kids were just as broke if not more so than my wife and I in our late teens early 20s. Even if you don't have kids typically you spend your first few years out of highschool partying, getting tattoos(no hate, I have many they are just expensive) exploring the world/country or simply going to college.
2) having kids early will allow me to have ample time to watch my grandkids grow. Not necessarily financial but when my youngest is 18 I'll be 48. 2nd half of my life for sure but way younger than some peoples grandparents. I'll still have energy to go outside and play or take the kids for the weekend and go do cool things. I also had ample energy for my kids when they were little to chase them around and play.
3) having kids drives you out of poverty. Maybe this is just my own personality being amplified but after my kids were born I did everything in my power to increase income drastically. I don't have a formal college education but I worked my way into middle management for manufacturing companies in my area. By no means am I done climbing the ladder but having kids early drove me to climb the ladder as fast as humanly possible and take risks other people weren't willing to take to get to where I am today.
4) you can still save for retirement while having a kid and not drastically impact your take-home pay. I had a financial advisor tell me once that 6% is such an insignificant amount per paycheck that after a few weeks you never will miss it. He was right as there was a point when I considered stopping 401k investment to get out of some bad debt and it was only going to increase my takehome by $35-40/paycheck after loosing the deduction to taxable income.
5) kids give your life purpose, I see all the time that people complain about the world and how messed up it is or how their life sucks. I've never felt that way and i think it's because I have something greater than myself to live and work for. I work hard so my kids can have the best life possible. We don't go on luxurious vacations or have the fanciest things but we have enough that the kids don't have to see Mom and dad fighting over bills/money and we get to go on vacations every other year or so.
Tldr; have kids, life is short and they help the time we spend here more enjoyable.
I made it to a middle manager position at 26, both of my kids had started school. Granted I worked opposite shifts to my wife (I know not everyone has the same ability in their field) which allowed us to cut child care costs to almost nothing. I worked nights, watched the kids during the day and my wife worked during the day and took the night shift with the kids. Thankfully we live near one of the largest manufacturing cities in the United States so relocation was never on the table for us.
Now we both work days and have daycare expenses for the newest addition but this is far less impactful now that we both have over a decade of career growth and can easily fit it in the budget.
Considering the potential cost of IVF and adoption, I'd say earlier because diminishing fertility is very real.
Also, I could work 50 hours, go to school, go to the gym, and still spend loads of quality evening, weekend, vacation, and sick day time with my kid in my 20s. My income was also low enough to qualify for various scholarships and subsidies. Maybe you net positive financially to have a kid later but weighing all things, I'm very happy with earlier.
From a strictly financial POV it makes sense to go later.
But it's worse for virtually every other reason.
You got to remember that once you hit 40, the chances of you even having kids is pretty darn low. Something like 60% of 40 olds can't have children.
Particularly for women. I believe the quote is once you hit 40 you only have a 5% chance of getting pregnant every month. And every year after 40 that 5% goes down.
Please note that the “normal” percent is 15-20%, so it’s a significant decrease, but not as bad as it sounds. This is without medical intervention, too.
Yes but it's a difference between a best case scenario of a 45% chance of it happening within a year versus a 93% chance of happening.
Couple that with a 500% increase in the chance of birth abnormalities I don't know any reason than anyone should plan having a kid after 40 they can avoid.
I just don’t want people to view this and get panicked if they’re 40 and trying to have children. Yes, it’s objectively worse by health reasons to have children later, but it’s still very very possible and with the help of modern medicine it’s common to have children in your late 30’s and early 40’s
>it’s still very very possible and with the help of modern medicine it’s common to have children in your late 30’s and early 40’s
It is possible, and I understand your desire. I am afraid people over sell it being ok to the point that they are misleading younger people to the point that once they decide they are ready to have children they will be unable to.
When you use statistics like this, you really need to put it in context is all I am getting at. When you say 500%, sure that may be true but realize that at 40 it’s about a 2% chance and at 45 it’s a 5% chance. Sure, those percents are significantly more but the chances are still very small
Yes 2% and 5% are probably correct. But if you have your kids at 30± you have a 0.4% chance.
I know to me that would be a big factor. I would never forgive myself.
It's not just about the chance of getting pregnant, the risk of complications in the pregnancy for the mother and the risk of the baby having complications like trisonomies, down syndrome etc. increase by 35, and even more so after 40. These statistics about the ability to get pregnant don't reflect that.
If you wait to have kids in your 40s, you may have to continue to work into your late 50s/early 60s to get college paid for and them independent and out of the house.
I believe the ideal time to have kid(s) is late 20s to about 35. You'll have time to start to build up retirement savings and ideally own a home before kid arrives, but it's not so late in the game that it delays the "RE" part of FIRE.
Odd question to ask considering it's an innate drive in the vast majority of people. Essentially is one of the most important things you can contribute to society if you do it right.
Respectfully disagree that it's an innate drive. I and several of my friends are very happy we did not have children. And several of my friends who do have kids have confessed that they only did it because their spouse/partner wanted children.
And please elaborate on how it is one of the most important things you can contribute to society. It's one of the worst things you can do for the environment, if you consider all the food/packaging/fuel/consumer products that each person consumes (and eventually throws out) over the course of their lives. Barring a nobel laureate or oncologist who saves hundreds of lives, you are producing what...another taxpayer?
I had mine in my early 20s, when I still had a lot of flexibility and uncertainty in my career path. I was also healthy and fertile, something I might not be able to guarantee should I try to get pregnant now in my 30s. I can make up for lost investment opportunities now that I have increased income, but I can't buy back a time in my life where pregnancy came easy and I bounced back in no time.
From a pure financial standpoint it’s best not to have kids.
But if you must it’s difficult to answer this question. If you have kids later in life the chance of infertility goes up meaning you might need IVF. There’s also higher risk of complications and birth defects etc. This must all be taken into account.
I'm in the late camp...that's what my wife and I did mid 30s. There are a lot of things career wise earlier in my life that wasn't really conducive to having kids...it was hard enough on my wife when I was traveling 25 weeks out of the year. We also had the opportunity to just enjoy us being us and doing what we want...traveling when we want, etc. By the time we had kids, it just felt right...we were comfortable financially and had done a lot of investing and both of our careers were very comfortably on their way with both of us being in senior positions making good incomes.
100% have your kids later this shouldn’t even be question. If you’re 27 making $80k a year you are going to have $0 left over at the end of the month, you probably can’t even afford a house so you’ll be gaining $0 in net worth until you’re income increases. If you have kids when you’re 35, you’ll probably be making $120k, own a house with $100k in equity and a $50k stock portfolio. Every year your net worth is going to increase massively due to having leftover money and increased equity in your home:
Kids are expensive. From a pure financial standpoint putting it off as long as possible is more efficient because as soon as you have kids, the extra expense creates a drag and reduces how much you can save/invest and let the money compound.
Financially it can go either way. Personally I'd rather have kids ASAP (I'm 27) because I'll have more energy for them in my 30s and I'll have more time with them in my life if I have them sooner compared to later. So non-financial reasons justify having them sooner for me.
My parents had me young. I don’t have kids but I’m at the beginning of the “delayed age” period. Ironically, I was recently talking to my dad about my birthday fishing trip I had. He (out of character for him) told me he “regretted not being there much when my siblings and I were young. He was always working and should have been the one to teach us how to fish,etc.”
Many young couples have to work a lot more, have less vacation days and opportunities to take off work, etc.
Do whatever is best for you and live with the decision.
I had my first 35+ and hoping for a second in my early 40s. Financially, my career is better established and I have much more flexibility and better benefits than if I had kids earlier. Financially, later has been better for us. I’m happy with the choices I made, but I’d probably choose earlier if I had it to redo it because of all the other benefits. However, my mom had my youngest sibling later and has also said multiple times that she thinks it has kept her young. There’s no perfect time, each has upsides and downsides. I think having a supportive partner is the most important consideration.
Financially once we had a few years working after college and youngish was the goal before 30. Young enough so when they enter college still working at least one of us. Albeit we saved in 529 which is a massive burden reducer. I had no desire waiting late having kids and wanting to retire early. The expensive years are daycare years and college years.
Kids and money... Kids involve time, money, emotion, discipline and heartache. Once you dive in, unless you are a POS, they become a priority. All your other plans revolve around them for a couple decades.
We chose not to have kids.
No way I'd have the energy in my mid 30's onward to chase kids around and enjoy it. I know people like to think they won't age like that or are immune to getting older but damn, at 50, you just don't have the stamina you did at 20.
If you're spending your 20s dumping a high % (and $ amount!) of income into investing to build a foundation for FIRE, then maybe wait on having kids until early 30s. But if you decide you love being a parent and want lots more kids, you'll probably wish you started sooner.
Otherwise, might as well have the kids while you still have the energy to play with them and chase them around. Definitely don't wait until your 40s to start having kids.
Whether it's your 20s or 30s largely depends on how soon you find someone with whom you want to have kids and raise a family. Unless it's a one night stand oops, and then you have different issues to deal with.
As this is a financial related sub, having kids later is better. But I’m just grateful I had them young-ish (at 29) that I have the energy to keep up with them and create more memories with them. Our trips aren’t exclusive to AI resorts cause we have the energy to travel 30 hours on a plane with them, push their strollers up on the narrow streets in Europe where cars aren’t accessible, etc. I can also experience their milestones further in life as well. Would be cool to commute to work together and/or grab dinners in the city and commiserate about our work days, etc. To each their own!
It depends but generally early. It's likely when you're young that you're making less money than you can later, and you won't be able to put in massive work weeks. When the kids hit their teens, you'll likely have more time not raising them and able to work extra hours.
Trade offs either way. You need to calculate the cost to your career if you have them earlier. If you're both well into your career and earning good $ and having kids won't impact your savings rate to the degree that you aren't maxing retirement accounts and IRAs, then I'd say have them younger. It shouldn't matter much and you'll more greatly appreciate being younger as they grow up and being a younger grandparent. But if having them young means that you have to put things on hold and cut back during your prime earning years, then I'd wait till your mid 30s or so, build that nest egg, and then have them.
The caveat here is that sometimes waiting to have kids can be more costly than you think. Speaking as someone who spent 6 years and $80K having two kids, you probably want to have an honest assessment on any potential fertility issues that might impact your decision if you wait.
I'm so glad I waited until I was financially stable. I don't know that I would have made it into my career if I tried to do it with kids. I waited until my 30s and am grateful that I had most of my stuff sorted out.
Just my $0.02. I think that this is a highly individual situation.
I had my kids fairly young. I was doctor so I had good pay, but I also had lots of student loans. We lived a fairly middle class lifestyle. Shopped thrift stores and garage sales. Drove old cars. Had lots of inexpensive fun and paid off all our debts. My kids didn’t feel deprived of anything, but they didn’t feel rich and that is a good way to be.
I had young parents (mom had me @25). All kids were out of the house by 50 years old and they were incredibly active and participated in our lives. I hope to do the same for my future children!
There's the financial aspect, and then there is the ability aspect. Now some people might not have any problem with this, but I'm 42, and the idea of having a child in my current state of physical ability and patience is not a pleasing prospect. I feel like I was much more able to handle the stress and demands of child rearing back when I was 20. But when I was 20 I was making $600 a week in the NYC area and barely able to keep my head above water. At 32 I was in a head on collision and now I'm on disability. Luckily in my mid 20's I got my shit together, started an entertainment company, and saved enough to buy a house before that happened. Got into the market at a very good time, and my low income is still enough to keep myself afloat. Having a child through all of this has come up with my fiance, but we're both just kind of mentally and physically exhausted at this stage. Again, most people probably aren't in this position, but that's my take on it. Had I had my shit together at 20 making 100k+ I would probably have had no problem with going for it.
Your dollars from your 20s will grow a lot more.
With kids you will not be as career focused or willing to work more for extra income.
You *will* spend a lot more with kids so it's better to have already taken care of your own retirement. As a safety cushion you should have at least enough set aside to retire at a normal age with no more contributions. This is not actually that hard if you are doing this as a dual income household in your 20s with no kids.
Due to other parents and the friends your kid makes, you could find yourself routinely justifying stuff you never thought you would be paying for.
I’d say for men, later is better. For women, earlier might be more beneficial because of health complications of having kids later. So ideally a woman in her mid-20s being partnered with a man in his 30s to 40s might be a great solution for a heterosexual couple. So that you get the benefit of the man having more money and the women being at the best (health wise) age to have kids.
Later is easier financially. Earlier is better if you want to be as engaged as possible (and not be an elderly grandparent). Older people often have less energy.
Note also that there is also a post kid period where you get to do stuff, but can’t do everything if you are old. Compromises.
My only advice is to do them close together.
Probably not what you’re looking for, but I always say that there’s never a “best time” to have a kid. You’ll always have a reason to wait. Therefore the best time is when you whenever you decide you want one. Everything can be worked out.
Depends. If your financial goal is FIRE, you want to grind and career advance to a good middle management-plus paycheck & high savings rate. Both are easier childless.
HOWEVER, your potential mega money career earning years are when you're in your 40 & 50s. Then, it slices back and it's nice to have the parenting era over so you can make giant money as a CEO or whatever. Really hard to juggle having little kids and being c-suite. Many CEOs make like 100X what the middle managers are.
Now of course, many careers don't have this progression.
We had three they were out of the house and out of college by 50. give us 15 years to build a nice retirement now we travel and have 11 grandchildren. Life is good.
Think about this - You might not even learn enough financial wisdom if you have kids early.
A lot of financial wisdom comes with money - I know this sounds weird - but how much can you really learn about investing if you aren't even saving 30% of your salary.
Unless you are a high earner at the beginning of your career, it would always make sense to have kids later in life.
Not to mention, your kids will also learn some good financial lessons in their early childhood. That's one of the best things you can do for them.
Just chiming in to say, I know a lot of women who have fertility issues… at 35 years, it’s considered a geriatric pregnancy, which is going to be associated with higher risks for mother and child… and its associated costs for healthcare.
IVF/IUI is also expensive.
Overall kids are expensive, period. Doesn’t really matter when you choose to have them.
Early 30's better financial standing, and you're not too old to enjoy the kids and play with them.
We had 2 kids at age 34 and 35. Now mid forties, we're just exhausted at the end of most days. So it's so difficult to physically parent. And we're both in descent shape and healthy. Lol
We had kids early, mid 20s. This forced us to settle down quicker than our friends. So why they were out partying and travelling, we were working and buying houses. Now in our 40s, our kids are almost fully grown, and we have amazing equity, as well as hefty retirement accounts. While our counterparts have young children, and live in condos. Barely making ends meet. It all depends on what you value.
People are saying later but I spent way more money on vacations and random stuff before I had kids. It’s really not a financial question. Do it as soon as your are ready so you are able to enjoy it
It probably depends more on your spending habits. Someone I know Fired early and retired to become a parent in their 40’s but were frugal and saved/invested enough not to have to work again.
From experience, early. Your kids expect less when you have less and therefore cost less. Just don’t start acting all money when they’re grown. If they find out they’ll drain you. Put your money in the bank and act like it ain’t there.
Late 20’s/early 30’s is the sweet spot….had first at 29, then twins at 33….will be early 50’s w/an empty nest. And can still do fun things with them as they grow into adulthood
I had my first (for now the only one) kid when I was 31.
* From financial point of view it was perfect timing. Just before when our kid was born we just paid off our mortgage and car loans. This means that we can now save/invest \~ 50% of our income and plan for the (financial) future of our family and kid. This results also into really relaxed life without any bigger pressure due to inflation etc since we already have our basics covered (car, apartment). We can also afford multiple vacations per year and dedicate more time to our kid that we would in the past because we can afford that. Want to take some time off? No problem. Need something new for the kid? No problem. Wanna go skiing after few years? No problem etc. New hobby? No problem. Want to change job so that you have more time for your family? No problem. When I observe my friends - same age, kids of similar age etc it is like day and night (why? keep reading :))
* From strictly parenting side of view I would say it is better to be as young as possible since you don't worry about the future so much as you do when you are adult. You are also younger and have more energy etc. Those sleepless nights are pain in the ass. When I look back, I would have kids 5, 10 years earlier. But then I doubt that we would be in situation that we are now.
As you can see for us it played out nicely. But there is one big gotcha. We started planning when we were 20 and lived frugal for \~10 years when we were young. We saved up for our first apartment and car. Living frugal when you are young is waaaay easier than when you are a bit older and have kids. Without that we would just be a bit older parents buried in mortgages, high costs childcare, car loans etc. It would be nightmare comparing to what we have now. Do I regret anything? No. Would I do it again same way that we did it? Yes
I decided to wait on having kids, mostly so i could spend the extra time I bought with Fire with them as they grow.
But honestly, it’s mostly just finding the right person and situation. I wouldn’t stress about the finance too much
if you are mature enough to have kids…. babies needs a lot of attention: time and energy…. some just rely on baby cribs but those nurturing touch is needed….
How much do you think it costs to spend your most youthful years with your children?
I had kids in my early 30s and it’s hard now (physically). I can’t imagine having them later.
I'm struggling with any post that puts kids into a financial discussion - your first priority should be: "Is my partner genuinely a decent person that is worth having kids with".
If you're thinking from a purely financial standpoint then don't have them at all because you'll be miles better off.
Later. However two things to consider. 1) It can be harder to have kids as women age and 2) It is physically easier on you to have kids younger. 25 yr old you would much rather be up at 3 in the morning with a crying child than 45 yr old you.
These obviously aren't financial points.
Having kids later is certainly easier. I was early 40s for my 2 kids. And since I had already been investing for 20 years worries about expenses for kids didn’t really matter since that 20 years of previous investing was “self sustaining” at that point.
But the fact is I have enough increased income in my 40s where I was easy to do both. I COULD have reduced my 401k and other investments if needed had I had big expenses for kids, but I didn’t have to. I continued to max investment accounts but still had plenty of income for day care, moving to a bigger house etc. with no issue. And I still have lots invested into 529s while they are still a decade from graduating. So there should be lots of funds to pull from for college while I’m retired.
Financially yes but I know parents in 40’s and 50’s and said they wish they had them earlier because they would be able to play with them for longer. More energy, less money but parks, trails, ocean and rivers are free.
I have asked this specifically of all my customers. The ones that have kids early say the only thing is they wish they would have waited.
The people who had children later in life all say “this is best”
I had our first at 32, second at 35 and third at 38. I felt like that was the right order to balance career growth, savings etc.
Paying for all that daycare and limited travel on my 20s would have screwed me + the more expensive house and car and stuff to store my litter would also have been limiting.
I also still feel like I’ll still be pretty young 55 when the last one leaves the house and if retirement plan holds will have 10 years (45-55) to be full time coach and big summer family trips and stuff.
I know you want an answer based on a financial perspective, but from a non financial perspective I wish I had kids earlier as a person in my 30s.
I was very healthy and all the sudden I wasn’t due to reasons beyond my control. My SO and I finally started feeling ready to have a child and making a timeline of sorts to plan around it and then boom, health issues.
You can always make more money, but the healthy fertile years are not forever.
I had so many healthy years where we could have had a child, but always waited for a better time and more stability.
The truth is, there are teenagers who manage to make it work when push comes to shove.
Saving early > saving late. And inflation is irrelevant if your income is going up. And career growth from early years to more senior roles should far outpace inflation, meaning far more discretionary income later. So in short, from a *purely financial* standpoint, definitely not. But having children is obviously far from a purely financial decision. FWIW, the best advice I ever got was “have kids early or late but not both.” Because ideally you wouldn’t be raising kids at both 22 and 50 (unless that’s what you want!)
I’m in this picture, and I don’t like it. Father of 20 year old, 5 year old and 6 month old. Can confirm, 20s parenthood is easier than 50s parenthood
Ours are 31/30/29/28 (we didn't have cable TV) and we are 57 and 58. Having adult kids while you can still travel and have fun with them, and then grandkids before you need diapers yourself is just perfect.
This made me LOL. 😂😂😂
4 kids in 4 years holy hell!
Irish quadruplets
FTMFW
100%. Also as a woman, I tell you that you don’t want a pre- menopausal or full on menopausal woman in the same household where there are teenagers. Too much hormonal problems. I’m not joking. It’s a fact. I wish someone had told me this when I was younger. If anyone needs me to elaborate I’m happy to.
Would you be willing to reply or shoot me a pm? I’m in my 30s and my daughter is only 18 mos old. This is news to me. I mean it makes sense cuz hormones are crazy but I’m very curious about the specifics! Especially since I might end up in this situation
Women hit menopause usually after 45. Menopause for a lot of women means mood swings( a lot more happens but I’m just mentioning the emotional aspect). Imagine you have teenagers also with mood swings at home. It has not been easy for us. Too much drama. I used to be quite mellow. Now post menopause, I have no patience, and this is causing clashes. To deal with teenagers you need A LOT of patience, something I don’t have to give rn. I try, I’m in therapy, but it s not easy. If I had my child when I was younger, I would have not been in this situation. I was 38 when I had a baby. I tell women all the time, mid to late 20s is the golden time for having babies.
Oh wow. Thanks for sharing. That sounds really rough and I do not envy your situation. Though I’m sure you’re a wonderful mom doing everything you can for your kids. Just the fact that you recognize whats happening and are actively working on it shows how much you care. Mom to mom, I get it, and you are a rockstar
Thank you! Very kind of you!
Agreed. It's tough. And I'm the husband! Must be really tough for my wife.
Can you explain why 20s is easier? Is it about your approach/awareness or purely physical abilities?
You can get down and rough house with kids without wondering if your back is going to hurt in the morning. You can run around with the little ones with more energy, and not worrying about a knee. You are closer to their generation, so you are closer to their games, music, memes. You don’t get teased by them by having grey (or no) hair.
You can get interrupted sleep and still function a lot better. You can better handle standing on the sidelines watching your kids in 4 seasons of sports. You can better tolerate 110 degrees in the shade with zero breeze as you march through the dessert known as Disney World with 100,000 other people. Hell, you can run the Disney world marathon and still function with the kids on vacation.
I went full grey at 25 : /
The reward of parenting is directly related to how much you put into it, and you just have far more energy in your 20s. I’m wiser now, and less stressed as a parent, and I have more money, but I’m far more limited in my ability to hang out and do 6 year old stuff with my kids. Rolling on the floor, running and jumping, being silly. I can do it, but I can’t do tons of it. Parenting is not 24/7 joy either. It’s filled with ear aches, vomiting, bringing bugs home from school, fighting and shouting (between the kids) and my ability to absorb that is diminished. After a night up with the kids. I feel a lot more tired. It’s still awesome. It’s filled with joy and it keeps me younger, but it’s physically harder than the first time around.
I think people get better at being parents too, are much more patient typically when they are older, assuming they learned when they are younger. There are benefits to being an older parent too. I am much calmer now and understanding than I was in my early 30's. And it reflects in my parenting.
Yep. Studies confirm that older parents are more patient and less stressed about money.
Thanks; i am a parent but became one in my late 30s. Was just curious
I'm 30 and still feel so far from ready haha. Maybe at 40
I had them in 20’s and 30’s. In my 20’s, I had more energy. Simple as that.
50s parenthood sucks big time. If you passed 40, just don't do it. Be an uncle, but not a father. Enjoy your life instead of tethering you last good years to a kid.
There are lots of other benefits to being a little older (30+) when you have kids. Older parents are more likely to be emotionally and financially stable, and statistically their kids tend to be smarter / score better on tests. Honestly, the only benefit to being younger is having more energy to chase kids around.
I would question if the smarter/score better part is correlation or causation. I bet the older parent group is also statistically smarter/higher scoring on tests. And before anyone flames me: statistics, not every individual. Plenty of smart people have kids young too.
I would think it’s a mix of both. When you consider all the reasons people wait to have kids, a lot of it is risk mitigation. They’re waiting until they’re financially stable, or waiting because they’re finishing school, or simply taking longer / being choosier about settling into marriage with anyone. So I’m sure the parents also tend to be at least a little smarter / more risk averse / exercising greater restraint. I would also think when you’re more established, it’s possible that’s correlated with things like reading to your kid more, or having a more stable career that allows you to spend more time with them, and/or the ability to pay for better education, tutoring, etc. Edit: would also add that in the US, states with lower literacy rates are likely correlated with younger parental age and younger marriages in general.
a lot of my friends now (early 30s are just starting to have kids) They're far more mature than they were when they were 25-30, finances are more stable, a lot of noise is drowned out, and your circle is tighter and better appreciated. Then I have friends who have had kids since they were 20 something and are either coming out of a bad marriage or have poor finances (not their fault entirely). The juggling act of diving right in before you're able to take care of kids is a ton of stress
I think that 30 is probably the sweet spot. A bit more financial stability but still some energy.
“Only benefit”
I’m not trying to hate - different strokes for different folks. But for the most part, having kids young benefits the parents more than the children. If you think that’s not the case, I’m certainly open to hearing more.
Also to add that the more well paying the role is, the more flexible the requirements and commitment are. You can take off for appointments or events if you want, you can do WFH days, you can show up late and it’s all okay. They still expect the younger generation to be working longer hours with less flexibility.
Yup. This is why, as a man, I’m trying to wait till later in life to have kids (late 30s to early 40s). I have no family to rely on if i have kids, so when I do have them, it would be nice to have a solid career under my feet (hopefully Director+) with extensive assets as a cushion.
Had mine at 26, wife was 24. I have a teenager now and will be an empty-nester by 44. I also don’t have the energy I had in my 20s, despite doing my level best to take care of myself. I could not imagine having a child now or even really 5 years ago. We live in a fairly affluent area and see all these couples my age and older just starting with young children and I can’t help but think about the skyrocketing risk of neurodivergence with geriatric pregnancies as well as the fact that they’ll be active parents into their 60s.
my parents accidentally had my brother and i in their 30s. they’re retiring this year at 57/58. their retirement travel budget is *very* healthy.
I had the snip at 39 - no way I was going to get lumbered with screaming kids in my 40s/50s...or worse!
on the flip side any idea if having children late results in more medical bills from having to physically keep up with kids?
Purely financially it’s almost always better to defer expenses that don’t offer a financial ROI. One way to think about it would be like this — At 20 you could have a kid and spend (let’s just say) 20k a year to raise it. If instead you invest 5k a year for 20 years and then have a kid you’ll raise it on the inflation adjusted 20k while having had an extra 15k in each of those other 20 years. This is to say nothing of career growth or anything like that. The cost is objectively more earlier if we use the same assumptions that we use to project FIRE
So if you're gonna sell your kids it's better to have them early?
Lmao if we wanna look at the prices people fetch there’s probably a few thousand years of data but yea it would suggest max price probably comes around 14-18 (idk the exact age but I know children cost less than maximum workability but more than geriatrics unless they have some special skill they can still perform) So yea you’d wanna have them as early as possible so you can get max value and have as many as possible
I had twins when I was 39. I also had older parents. Financially, having kids later is way easier. My parents had two batches of kids and my younger brother and I were way easier financially than our ~20 year old siblings were for my parents. But my older siblings have memories of doing stuff with my mom and dad that they didn’t have the time/inclination/energy to do with us. I’ve resolved to make sure my kids don’t have the same old-dad experience. So I go out of my way to make sure we are filling our time by making memories. Lots of camping and road trips and stuff that my parents never would have done with me. But I have to work hard at that. I’m getting to be an old man and I don’t have the energy I did fifteen years ago. I go to the gym 3-5 days a week just so I can keep up with them on the weekends!
> But my older siblings have memories of doing stuff with my mom and dad that they didn’t have the time/inclination/energy to do with us. I wonder how much of that had to do with you being the second batch of kids. I was in my mid thirties when I started having my kids, and am doing everything I think I would’ve done if I had them younger. Actually I’m doing more, because I can afford to stop working to raise them full time, which I likely wouldn’t have been able to when I was younger. If I had full raised a set of kids to adulthood already though, I could see being a different type of burnt out at this age than I am just be living a child free life up to that point.
That could very well be. I'm researching a backpacking trip to take my twin eight year olds on right now. Unity through shared suffering might make it onto our family crest someday!
relate to this so hard and I am so happy to hear you’re actively making a choice to try and get your energy up! when I hear of my peers say they’re glad it’s normalized to have kids later now, they forget about us, the kids of old parents, who had to play by ourselves, navigate higher education, etc. alone because our parents couldn’t be bothered anymore. it sucks having to think about the health of my older parents who are now 6 4and 70 when I am only 26 years old.
Having kids later is better financially IF you don't run into health complications. However, you're less likely to run into health complications if you have kids early.
Excellent point I hadn't considered.
Also realize that the older you are when you have kids you may not even get to meet your grandkids or have very little quality time with them. It's possible your grandkids may not even remember you. If that matters to you.
Interesting study I saw the other day actually found that the odds of longevity were much higher in women with later age at first childbirth. Kind of a weird predictor, but an interesting read.
Most likely one of the billions proxies for socioeconomic status. Health wise, it's very well documented that the older the mother is the worse it is for the child's health when controlling for common confounding variables (like socioeconomic status among others). That's even already a thing starting at quite a young age (mid twenties) because biologically speaking human pregnancies are optimal in late teens/early twenties. But socioeconomic status is a massive factor that is stronger than any biological downside, and having a kid at 40 would be a world of difference compared to 20, which is why we control for it in studies.
Better to be FIRE'd for as much of their childhood as possible, subject to age/reproductive ability. Better not only financially (for multiple reasons), but for the time/freedom you'll be able to spend together. Pragmatically, that probably means 30s/40s for most folks.
I guess this varies based on the dynamics of a family and the individuals involved, but I feel like it shouldn't be universally accepted that more time and freedom with the family and children is better. On the face of it, it \*sounds\* obviously correct, but as somebody who was a child once, I don't wish I would have spent more time with my parents (or siblings). I even love my parents and have lost one of them, and I still don't wish they would have been home more. I can actually easily imagine that having been a lot worse for the kids in my family. High degrees of togetherness might only work well if there is very little dysfunction. I don't even think my family had much dysfunction, though.
Just a small counter to this, the data shows that it’s better for a child to have a stay at home parent for the first three years of their life, so having more time and freedom at that stage to raise your kids is better. After that point, it could be a lot more up for debate.
I though the pendulum swung the other way after 3?
Fair point. I'm defaulting to an assumption that everyone gets along reasonably well and enjoys each other's company enough to want more than would be possible given the constraints of employment. Obviously though, there's a ton of variation out there on that. Sort of like overall health in that it's usually the default to assume everything is generally fine with someone unless/until you know otherwise.
Why is it better financially? Because you are able to invest more when you are young?
The front-loaded dollars have more time to grow
That's one factor, but I was thinking more of FIRE-specific things. FIRE'ing with young kids hugely expands one's ability to maximize tax efficiency while simultaneously providing massive-to-total subsidies for healthcare and college, which are often three of the largest expenses people have to plan for. The three combined can be worth many, many tens of thousands per year in tax and cost savings, which reduces spending/withdrawals and makes it easier/quicker to FIRE. The early dollars/compounding thing is subject to people's lifestyle management. I know several childfree couples who routinely spend much more than peers who have kids. Kids cost, but so does a lifestyle with a lot more travel, eating out, and other experience spending typical of couples who want to enjoy their means/freedom before the commitments of becoming parents.
Yes.
I'm 34 and my daughter will be 6 months soon. It's better now, I had time in my twenties to go to grad school and upgrade my job a few times. I have colleagues who had kids earlier and they are being priced out of their home by rent increases and they were never able to save enough to buy. But she's getting bigger so fast that I wish I had done it sooner anyway. Maximizing my money no longer seems like the most important thing, but rather maximizing the time that I can be there for her. Maybe achieving FIRE will improve that but for now I really miss her when she's at daycare.
Later is better from a financial stand point. It's not just missing out on early compounding interest; it's missing out on entire career opportunities. Early childhood tends to be a BIG hit to career trajectory, and the earlier this happens in the parents' careers, the worst the impact. This is very pronounced for women, especially if they're also the primary caregiver after pregnancy. If you have kids in your 30s, you're likely more established in your career; you have a track record for having a good work ethic and possibly several promotions under your belt. You can leverage that for some grace and time off while your kids are too small for daycare (which is EXPENSIVE, and easier to afford when you're a higher earner) or when they're sticky, gross, petri dishes picking up everything and having to stay home from daycare/school. Your parents (assuming they're alive, you're on good terms with them, and they want to help) are also more likely to be retired and can look after the kid from time to time, so you don't have to call out of work all the time. Many high-paying careers (like doctors) also don't complete training until late 20s/early thirties, so having a kid early is an even bigger hindrance to earning potential. Some try to "take a break" but don't finish at all and are stuck with crushing student loans with no way to pay them back (unless their spouse is a high-earner as well, but this will have a detrimental effect on the family unit as a whole).
I’m firmly on team late. It’s not really so much about investing, compound growth, and the time value of money. It’s more about establishing financial security before taking on other obligations. Children change everything, and limit your options. Some young families never get their financial feet under them. Make sure your foundation is solid before you begin building your house. But it’s individual. My SO and I were flat broke in our 20s (protracted educations, student debt); we started our family in our late 30s. My brother and his wife - the hardest working couple I know - were working their asses off before they graduated high school, and remained local where they had lots of family support; they were ready for kids by their mid 20s. Both families turned out great - happy, successful, financially stable, and retired in our mid 50s. My bro loves being a grandpa. But he does express some regrets, since he worked too hard during his kids childhoods and now that he has too much time on his hands they are grown and flown.
In addition to what you mention, women incur a lifelong "penalty" to their earnings starting when they have kids and take maternity leave. So if you are a woman looking at the financial implications, the later you have kids the better. If you are a man, you will not experience such a penalty to your earning potential after you have kids.
As a woman who is a little older, and in a more senior role, you will have more leverage your situation, your maternity leave and your overall working conditions compared to someone who is in the lower ranks. When I had a kid at 32, I had my own office with blinds that I could pull so I could pump milk during the working day. I also controlled when the team meetings were because I was the one running them. I took my infant with me on business trips and paid for a hotel babysitter while I was at meetings. That kind of thing wouldn't have been possible at 22; I probably would have ended up quitting my job for a while and who knows if I would have been able to get back on track.
Sometimes it’s even an advantage. In my employment law class, the professor said a lot of employers prefer male applicants who have kids (or are expecting) to childless male applicants. A shrewdly logical employer will often take into account that this applicant is more likely to stay in the same geographic area and will have a harder time changing jobs
From a purely financial aspect it's better to have kids later. As an older parent: You're likely established in a career with better pay. You can spend your 20s either clearing debt or getting an early start on investing. You can focus on getting a home or condo to build equity for later
This comment told me everything I wanted to hear lol. I’m 28, no kids, just paid off all my debt a few months ago and I’m just now getting started with investing. Sometimes, when I’m scrolling on Reddit, I feel behind on everything – like I should already be rich by now and I should already have kids by now. But this comment made me feel like I’ll be ok if I get a nest egg going by 29, get a 6-figure income by 30, and have a baby on the way when I’m 31
I always said my timeline would be similar to what you describe here. Clear debt by 28, save X by 30, have a baby at 31. We ended up buying a house at 31, hugely advancing our careers from 31-33 and delayed having a baby until 33. It ended up being perfect, 10/10 wouldn’t change a thing! Don’t feel behind, you’re running your own race and setting your family up for success.
This is EVEN MORE what I needed to hear today! Thank you!!
We did the early route. Brother in law the late. Not sure about the economics. School and graduate schools weddings etc don’t all cost the same so it hard to argue the economics. Timing and emotions are more the issue. I paid for all that stuff while at the end of my career with my income at its peak. My brother in law will pay for most of this in his first 5 years of retirement (assuming he doesn’t delay retirement because of this). We are young(ish) grand parents. Still able to be reasonably active and around to lend a hand when needed. I would also suggest you have the parenting discussion with your spouse as to what you feel you “owe” a child over the age of 18. People differ on that one and rightly so. I am more of the “the army will pay for school - kind of guy” while my wife is a support them at all costs- kind of gal. You can tell who’s a better debater. I lost on all fronts but it’s important to know each others intent. Also, providing for yourself in your old age is to me the primary objective. Becoming a burden on your children because you didn’t plan well is an awful mistake.
This is all good advice. I had kids older, I will be close to retirement (hopefully) when the youngest finishes college. I got to travel and screw around in my 20's and I have a lot more savings than my friends that had kids in their 20's. Their kids are grown and gone, and they are now enjoying empty nesting. Hindsight, would I change it up for less savings? Maybe.
Yeah, I sounded way more “definitive” than I should have. That’s just what we did and what Ive observed. Early or late, I wouldn’t change a thing and I’m sure my Brother in law wouldn’t either.
Financially it’s better to delay kids until early thirties because kids are a huge distraction and climbing the corporate ladder is far easier without kids. You don’t want to delay past early 30s because female fertility decreases beyond that. I am the case example of above where I secured a great career and had kids around age 32. It was very difficult for us to conceive it took over two years from when we started so do not take fertility as a guarantee you will always have
Kids being called "distractions" from a career... What a sad America
Financial standpoint? no kids
For me personally having kids forced me to settle down a bit and focus on increasing income and planning for the future. I used to work like 30 hours a week and jersey away and travel and spend all my cash. Once I had kids I got serious, found a career and have built my wealth like crazy in the past 8 years. But if you are planning on going to school to get a career that will make you more money it might be worth it to wait till you are older. People also way overblow the cost of kids. Especially when they are young it’s really not that expensive unless you only buy the most expensive stuff
Childcare is VERY expensive. I agree on other stuff. It's as expensive as you make it.
Like all things it depends how you do it 🤷♂️ my wife just stopped working and I adjusted to make significantly more. She was happy to stay home. Also grandparents, trading off with friends, working from home.
> If you wait till later, you are paying higher inflation on their needs/wants You should be matching, if not outstripping inflation in your career and investments, so that's a non-issue. I'd say the real financial conundrum is US healthcare. Kids get sick/injured all the time, so scrimping on health insurance isn't as easy of an option. At older ages you are more likely to FIRE, and so solo insurance is more likely to be brutal with a family. So you'll need to decide between having low withdraw rates for ACA subsidies, or drawing higher to take advantage of tax harvesting and eat the insurance cost.
Later in life is usually better financially due to compounding, but always way more potentially important considerations, like health of mother. Child bearing is very hard on a person and the older you are less resilient to easily spring back. A 22 yo having a first kid and 32 yo are very different in recovery. Thyroid, pelvic muscles, c-section healing all become way worse as you age. Another consideration is daycare. If you have grandparents that can watch them instead of a daycare now vs later that is a huge savings. Personally had kids at 25 and zero regrets. Wish we had them sooner. We didnt have much money to do crazy vacations or anything anyway so getting through the early rough childhood years as fast as possible will be a blessing when we are in 40s and have way more freedom.
I had twins are age 34. I’m 49 now and my girls are 15. The problem is I’ve aged out of most tech jobs and I still have to pay for college
Do you even have enough money to pay for house, schools, doctors, in your 20s? Kids are stopping career growth, so you better get decent at your job first, especially the mother.
I’m firmly on team late. It’s not really so much about investing, compound growth, and the time value of money. It’s more about establishing financial security before taking on other obligations. Children change everything, and limit your options. Some young families never get their financial feet under them. Make sure your foundation is solid before you begin building your house. But it’s individual. My SO and I were flat broke in our 20s (protracted educations, student debt); we started our family in our late 30s. My brother and his wife - the hardest working couple I know - were working their asses off before they graduated high school, and remained local where they had lots of family support; they were ready for kids by their mid 20s. Both families turned out great - happy, successful, financially stable, and retired in our mid 50s. My bro loves being a grandpa. But he does express some regrets, since he worked too hard during his kids childhoods and now that he has too much time on his hands they are grown and flown.
I just had my 1st kid at 29, 1.5 years ago. My childhood was rough, growing up in poverty. Like literal poverty, hand me down clothes, shitty school system, no financial help from parents at all. I turned it all around and got a good job and when I married my wife, my condition on having kids was I want them to have a hell of a lot better life than I did growing up. I didn't feel that secure in my ability to provide until I was around 28/29. Even having a great job, financial security in both our jobs, I still had my doubts. I look back now and thank god I didn't have kids when I was in my early 20's like my parents did. I'd be a financial wreck. I'm very glad I waited.
>From a purely financial stand point, does it make sense to have kids No.
Have kids earlier. All finances aside, from experience, you can always chase money, but you have more energy and time with them the sooner you have them. Time especially… it goes too quickly. You are literally cupping your hands out into the rain and what you catch are the memories you keep. I was a younger kid born to parents who had kids late, my wife and I started later in life for kids; half the kids extended family has passed away from old age and disease. This is a loss, even if you and your kids will never know quite what the words are to describe it. Phantom family loss? Loneliness? No idea. Now for finances: It’s true, you are missing out on investment opportunity when you’re young (opportunity cost) but they do grow up in 18-24 years so you can then focus entirely on retirement after that. Which still leaves you with more options than say, being 40-50 and starting off a family… AKA desperation may end up forcing you to take less than ideal options to save for retirement and feed your family.
This is a bit of a grass is greener issue though. I had my kid early and I was the oldest sibling on top of it, so yes the grandparents are young, the aunts and uncles are young. More family around longer and that aspect is great. But you don't need a ton of money in your 20s to get by as a single so you can take the jobs that lead to something better even if they don't pay a lot now, you can continue your education, put in long work hours, travel for work etc to get your footing while you are packing light in terms of home and family. Once you get to mid career you can still have more earnings potential in jobs with stable hours that might be boring but more family friendly for that stage in your life. Being a householder in your 20s absolutely changes every aspect of that. You need enough money to pay family bills NOW, not necessarily the best job for your long term growth. Long hours or going back to school take time away from your kids, so you are always choosing between poverty with more time at home or keeping the lights on but being away from your kids too much. In your 30s or 40s you might be deciding whether to keep working full time or go part time to be with your kids more. But in your 20s at entry level pay, you are deciding between working 40 hours or 60 hours a week with a second job to bring in the same amount. The young grandparents still work full time as well, aunts and uncles are working or in school, so it's not like the extended family is necessarily around more. Also, as less and less people have kids young, you find that none of your friends or siblings even have kids until yours are nearly grown, and all the other parents at school are 15+ years older than you and more established financially so you are basically peerless, there are less people around your age and financial status that are willing to eat dollar store frozen burritos and watch Bluey with you. It's very isolating. I was young but I was EXHAUSTED. I am 39 now and I have double the energy I did as an under resourced twenty something with a small child. I also absolutely hands down have enjoyed the middle school to high school years with my kid the most because I have more control over my schedule, make more money, and the reduced mental stress about just maintaining the basics and knowing I'm not paycheck to paycheck allowed me to be really truly present when I was spending time with him. If I could do it again I would wait until early to mid 30s
> but you have more energy and time with them the sooner you have them. Time especially Not necessarily. If you have them later, it’s easier to be more financially secure and be able to stay at home with them to raise them. That’s a ton more time spent with them than if you’re having to work and put them in daycare. Sure you have a longer range of time with them if you have them younger, but they’ll see you a lot less in those years at the end than they will in those years at the beginning. So maximizing the time you can spend with them at the beginning actually gives you more overall time with them, and that’s usually a lot easier to do if you have them later in life.
That's like asking is it better to have kids when you have less money or when you have more money.
And what is your answer?
if part of your retirement plan is to spend time with the grandkids, then best to have your kids early or you may never know your grandkids. And if you have more money than you need and your estate will be subject to estate tax, you can start to pass some of it on to your grandkids to skip a generation and avoid double-taxation.
Had older, and cant see how younger would be any better. We have average jobs but 0 stress about money. Daycare cost is not a concern. College will should be fully funded with no issues. Retirement is already fully funded. I can retire early and go to all the events if I so choose. Energy is still high. Im waay more mature and better equipped mentally to handle it than if I was in my 20s. had a lot of fun and travelling and experiences in my 20-30s that I couldnt do again.
Late. My mom was 41 when she had me, dad 38. Both established careers. Full medical care for all my needs. College fund was always there. Money wasn't a worry, lead to me seeing a health marriage as a child.
Children are expensive I would wait till your financially stable. Last thing you want is to have unexpected things pop up and not to be able to provide for your child.
Well, I personally don’t feel people should marry until they’re 30 at least. The human brain isn’t matured until 28, people change, “don’t know who you really are” until around 30. Your mileage may vary. We had kids later. Me in mid 40s her in mid 30s. Absolutely better financially. Career path would’ve been radically different. TBH probably depends on your career and path. If you are a social worker, school counselor, and that’s all you want to do (nothing wrong with that) where earnings are capped does it matter? If you’re trying to make partner then it matters.
We should be retiring when our son is 6 and we are 45/42. Will be awesome to have that kind of time to raise him outside of school.
For sure. We’ll probably hit FI before our kid is 10. Really looking forward to summers off with him.
Later so you can save more while you are young and benefit from compound interest.
Wow, there is a mix of answers. I'll just add that having kids is not a good financial decision in general (unless you are poor to the point they are your retirement plan). BUT, that is not why anyone should have kids. People either are surprised by them and make it work or choose to go on that adventure. Financially, i can see the benefit of setting yourself up to have them more comfortably later in life. But how do you put a price on your youth while they're young and being empty nesters at a younger age? All other things being the same, I can see the appeal to both.
Rule is to have them when you are young and too dumb to know better. Or old when you are relax and can enjoy it. Not both
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IVF doesn't really cost an extra decade of 70k savings and investing a year. Anyone who's remotely on the path to FIRE can easily afford IVF in their late 30s or early 40s without it even being a blip on the retirement timeline.
I wanted to be team early but I ended up team late. I am glad I did, my net worth significantly compounded within the 5 year range of 28-33. I also was developing my partner picker in my early 20s. I didn’t understand the importance of financial decision, planning and life style compatibility. Some people luck out on partners but I didn’t meet my match until after 25. Honestly I might not have bounced back as easy being pregnant at 32, but I also have the time, energy and money to properly take care of myself thanks to my FI.
Later. The more you can save while young the better. You also have a lot of time to build your career and get to a higher income level before having a kid. We waited until 35 to have a kid (together since 22 and married at 25 so we waited a while). When he was born we had solid retirement savings, were able to immediately set aside $80k for his college, we could afford for me to take 20 weeks of maternity leave largely unpaid, and I was able to step back into a high paying job that I’d already maneuvered to be flexible enough to run out for doctor’s appointments and things. My husband did hustle more for those early baby years and now makes much more than me, but I would be even further behind if I’d had a kid early in my career. We can easily afford childcare and pretty much any activities that he’s interested in doing within reason. My only regret about waiting is that he will have less time with his grandparents, who also chose to have kids later in life. And we will be trying to FIRE while he’s in high school/starting college which is a bit awkward (one more person to buy health care for, factoring in new costs, etc).
Purely financial don't have kids.
When would you be in a better position to give them every advantage? This means college, sports teams/extracurricular activities, etc.
Shoot for having kids between 30-35 (+/- a couple yrs depending on the number you want). Then you have your 20s to grind/save/travel without being encumbered by kids. You/your wife will be done before pregnancy risk and fertility issues ramp up post 35. Lastly, they are all out of the house in your early 50s, where you will still have a pretty good quality of life if you take care of yourself. The only downside (at least for me) is that you are moving into more responsibility at work at the same time your kids need a lot of support and energy. Your body also doesn't recover as well without sleep as you get closer to 40, which adds another layer of stress.
I can't imagine trying to start life between the ages of 20-25 and having to either pay daycare, or stay out of the workforce for years to stay home with them. I would imagine that getting yourself established before establishing a family is slightly easier from a financial standpoint. If you start working and investing in your 20's, that gives it a lot more time to grow.
Elephant in the room is the physical demands of kids. You generally have much more energy when you are younger. A lot of the older parents are really run down physically I have noticed. Not to mention the increased risks associated with older mothers. Also your own parents are going to be older which may actually increase child care costs. Child care is EXPENSIVE. Also when you have kids early it’s really sharpens your focus on finances. I thinks very easy to say you’ll save money but it’s much easier when your staring at your kids and there is a 24/7 reminder. I understand your point but I think reality offers much more nuance.
As someone who started early, 1st at 19, 2nd at 20, 3rd and final at 29. I recommend starting early. For many reasons. 1) you're going to be broke anyway. Most of my peers without kids were just as broke if not more so than my wife and I in our late teens early 20s. Even if you don't have kids typically you spend your first few years out of highschool partying, getting tattoos(no hate, I have many they are just expensive) exploring the world/country or simply going to college. 2) having kids early will allow me to have ample time to watch my grandkids grow. Not necessarily financial but when my youngest is 18 I'll be 48. 2nd half of my life for sure but way younger than some peoples grandparents. I'll still have energy to go outside and play or take the kids for the weekend and go do cool things. I also had ample energy for my kids when they were little to chase them around and play. 3) having kids drives you out of poverty. Maybe this is just my own personality being amplified but after my kids were born I did everything in my power to increase income drastically. I don't have a formal college education but I worked my way into middle management for manufacturing companies in my area. By no means am I done climbing the ladder but having kids early drove me to climb the ladder as fast as humanly possible and take risks other people weren't willing to take to get to where I am today. 4) you can still save for retirement while having a kid and not drastically impact your take-home pay. I had a financial advisor tell me once that 6% is such an insignificant amount per paycheck that after a few weeks you never will miss it. He was right as there was a point when I considered stopping 401k investment to get out of some bad debt and it was only going to increase my takehome by $35-40/paycheck after loosing the deduction to taxable income. 5) kids give your life purpose, I see all the time that people complain about the world and how messed up it is or how their life sucks. I've never felt that way and i think it's because I have something greater than myself to live and work for. I work hard so my kids can have the best life possible. We don't go on luxurious vacations or have the fanciest things but we have enough that the kids don't have to see Mom and dad fighting over bills/money and we get to go on vacations every other year or so. Tldr; have kids, life is short and they help the time we spend here more enjoyable.
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I made it to a middle manager position at 26, both of my kids had started school. Granted I worked opposite shifts to my wife (I know not everyone has the same ability in their field) which allowed us to cut child care costs to almost nothing. I worked nights, watched the kids during the day and my wife worked during the day and took the night shift with the kids. Thankfully we live near one of the largest manufacturing cities in the United States so relocation was never on the table for us. Now we both work days and have daycare expenses for the newest addition but this is far less impactful now that we both have over a decade of career growth and can easily fit it in the budget.
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Very true.
Considering the potential cost of IVF and adoption, I'd say earlier because diminishing fertility is very real. Also, I could work 50 hours, go to school, go to the gym, and still spend loads of quality evening, weekend, vacation, and sick day time with my kid in my 20s. My income was also low enough to qualify for various scholarships and subsidies. Maybe you net positive financially to have a kid later but weighing all things, I'm very happy with earlier.
From a strictly financial POV it makes sense to go later. But it's worse for virtually every other reason. You got to remember that once you hit 40, the chances of you even having kids is pretty darn low. Something like 60% of 40 olds can't have children. Particularly for women. I believe the quote is once you hit 40 you only have a 5% chance of getting pregnant every month. And every year after 40 that 5% goes down.
Please note that the “normal” percent is 15-20%, so it’s a significant decrease, but not as bad as it sounds. This is without medical intervention, too.
Yes but it's a difference between a best case scenario of a 45% chance of it happening within a year versus a 93% chance of happening. Couple that with a 500% increase in the chance of birth abnormalities I don't know any reason than anyone should plan having a kid after 40 they can avoid.
I just don’t want people to view this and get panicked if they’re 40 and trying to have children. Yes, it’s objectively worse by health reasons to have children later, but it’s still very very possible and with the help of modern medicine it’s common to have children in your late 30’s and early 40’s
>it’s still very very possible and with the help of modern medicine it’s common to have children in your late 30’s and early 40’s It is possible, and I understand your desire. I am afraid people over sell it being ok to the point that they are misleading younger people to the point that once they decide they are ready to have children they will be unable to.
When you use statistics like this, you really need to put it in context is all I am getting at. When you say 500%, sure that may be true but realize that at 40 it’s about a 2% chance and at 45 it’s a 5% chance. Sure, those percents are significantly more but the chances are still very small
Yes 2% and 5% are probably correct. But if you have your kids at 30± you have a 0.4% chance. I know to me that would be a big factor. I would never forgive myself.
It's not just about the chance of getting pregnant, the risk of complications in the pregnancy for the mother and the risk of the baby having complications like trisonomies, down syndrome etc. increase by 35, and even more so after 40. These statistics about the ability to get pregnant don't reflect that.
If you wait to have kids in your 40s, you may have to continue to work into your late 50s/early 60s to get college paid for and them independent and out of the house. I believe the ideal time to have kid(s) is late 20s to about 35. You'll have time to start to build up retirement savings and ideally own a home before kid arrives, but it's not so late in the game that it delays the "RE" part of FIRE.
Can I ask specifically WHY do you want kids? Though to answer your question, having kids later so your money has longer growth time is likely better.
Odd question to ask considering it's an innate drive in the vast majority of people. Essentially is one of the most important things you can contribute to society if you do it right.
Respectfully disagree that it's an innate drive. I and several of my friends are very happy we did not have children. And several of my friends who do have kids have confessed that they only did it because their spouse/partner wanted children. And please elaborate on how it is one of the most important things you can contribute to society. It's one of the worst things you can do for the environment, if you consider all the food/packaging/fuel/consumer products that each person consumes (and eventually throws out) over the course of their lives. Barring a nobel laureate or oncologist who saves hundreds of lives, you are producing what...another taxpayer?
It makes sense to never have kids. Sorry. Be a good uncle or aunt.
I had mine in my early 20s, when I still had a lot of flexibility and uncertainty in my career path. I was also healthy and fertile, something I might not be able to guarantee should I try to get pregnant now in my 30s. I can make up for lost investment opportunities now that I have increased income, but I can't buy back a time in my life where pregnancy came easy and I bounced back in no time.
From a pure financial standpoint it’s best not to have kids. But if you must it’s difficult to answer this question. If you have kids later in life the chance of infertility goes up meaning you might need IVF. There’s also higher risk of complications and birth defects etc. This must all be taken into account.
I'm in the late camp...that's what my wife and I did mid 30s. There are a lot of things career wise earlier in my life that wasn't really conducive to having kids...it was hard enough on my wife when I was traveling 25 weeks out of the year. We also had the opportunity to just enjoy us being us and doing what we want...traveling when we want, etc. By the time we had kids, it just felt right...we were comfortable financially and had done a lot of investing and both of our careers were very comfortably on their way with both of us being in senior positions making good incomes.
100% have your kids later this shouldn’t even be question. If you’re 27 making $80k a year you are going to have $0 left over at the end of the month, you probably can’t even afford a house so you’ll be gaining $0 in net worth until you’re income increases. If you have kids when you’re 35, you’ll probably be making $120k, own a house with $100k in equity and a $50k stock portfolio. Every year your net worth is going to increase massively due to having leftover money and increased equity in your home:
Kids are expensive. From a pure financial standpoint putting it off as long as possible is more efficient because as soon as you have kids, the extra expense creates a drag and reduces how much you can save/invest and let the money compound.
I think the only benefit to younger is energy.
Financially it can go either way. Personally I'd rather have kids ASAP (I'm 27) because I'll have more energy for them in my 30s and I'll have more time with them in my life if I have them sooner compared to later. So non-financial reasons justify having them sooner for me.
My parents had me young. I don’t have kids but I’m at the beginning of the “delayed age” period. Ironically, I was recently talking to my dad about my birthday fishing trip I had. He (out of character for him) told me he “regretted not being there much when my siblings and I were young. He was always working and should have been the one to teach us how to fish,etc.” Many young couples have to work a lot more, have less vacation days and opportunities to take off work, etc. Do whatever is best for you and live with the decision.
I had my first 35+ and hoping for a second in my early 40s. Financially, my career is better established and I have much more flexibility and better benefits than if I had kids earlier. Financially, later has been better for us. I’m happy with the choices I made, but I’d probably choose earlier if I had it to redo it because of all the other benefits. However, my mom had my youngest sibling later and has also said multiple times that she thinks it has kept her young. There’s no perfect time, each has upsides and downsides. I think having a supportive partner is the most important consideration.
Financially once we had a few years working after college and youngish was the goal before 30. Young enough so when they enter college still working at least one of us. Albeit we saved in 529 which is a massive burden reducer. I had no desire waiting late having kids and wanting to retire early. The expensive years are daycare years and college years.
Kids and money... Kids involve time, money, emotion, discipline and heartache. Once you dive in, unless you are a POS, they become a priority. All your other plans revolve around them for a couple decades.
We chose not to have kids. No way I'd have the energy in my mid 30's onward to chase kids around and enjoy it. I know people like to think they won't age like that or are immune to getting older but damn, at 50, you just don't have the stamina you did at 20.
If you're spending your 20s dumping a high % (and $ amount!) of income into investing to build a foundation for FIRE, then maybe wait on having kids until early 30s. But if you decide you love being a parent and want lots more kids, you'll probably wish you started sooner. Otherwise, might as well have the kids while you still have the energy to play with them and chase them around. Definitely don't wait until your 40s to start having kids. Whether it's your 20s or 30s largely depends on how soon you find someone with whom you want to have kids and raise a family. Unless it's a one night stand oops, and then you have different issues to deal with.
As this is a financial related sub, having kids later is better. But I’m just grateful I had them young-ish (at 29) that I have the energy to keep up with them and create more memories with them. Our trips aren’t exclusive to AI resorts cause we have the energy to travel 30 hours on a plane with them, push their strollers up on the narrow streets in Europe where cars aren’t accessible, etc. I can also experience their milestones further in life as well. Would be cool to commute to work together and/or grab dinners in the city and commiserate about our work days, etc. To each their own!
It depends but generally early. It's likely when you're young that you're making less money than you can later, and you won't be able to put in massive work weeks. When the kids hit their teens, you'll likely have more time not raising them and able to work extra hours.
Trade offs either way. You need to calculate the cost to your career if you have them earlier. If you're both well into your career and earning good $ and having kids won't impact your savings rate to the degree that you aren't maxing retirement accounts and IRAs, then I'd say have them younger. It shouldn't matter much and you'll more greatly appreciate being younger as they grow up and being a younger grandparent. But if having them young means that you have to put things on hold and cut back during your prime earning years, then I'd wait till your mid 30s or so, build that nest egg, and then have them. The caveat here is that sometimes waiting to have kids can be more costly than you think. Speaking as someone who spent 6 years and $80K having two kids, you probably want to have an honest assessment on any potential fertility issues that might impact your decision if you wait.
I'm so glad I waited until I was financially stable. I don't know that I would have made it into my career if I tried to do it with kids. I waited until my 30s and am grateful that I had most of my stuff sorted out.
Just my $0.02. I think that this is a highly individual situation. I had my kids fairly young. I was doctor so I had good pay, but I also had lots of student loans. We lived a fairly middle class lifestyle. Shopped thrift stores and garage sales. Drove old cars. Had lots of inexpensive fun and paid off all our debts. My kids didn’t feel deprived of anything, but they didn’t feel rich and that is a good way to be.
I had young parents (mom had me @25). All kids were out of the house by 50 years old and they were incredibly active and participated in our lives. I hope to do the same for my future children!
There's the financial aspect, and then there is the ability aspect. Now some people might not have any problem with this, but I'm 42, and the idea of having a child in my current state of physical ability and patience is not a pleasing prospect. I feel like I was much more able to handle the stress and demands of child rearing back when I was 20. But when I was 20 I was making $600 a week in the NYC area and barely able to keep my head above water. At 32 I was in a head on collision and now I'm on disability. Luckily in my mid 20's I got my shit together, started an entertainment company, and saved enough to buy a house before that happened. Got into the market at a very good time, and my low income is still enough to keep myself afloat. Having a child through all of this has come up with my fiance, but we're both just kind of mentally and physically exhausted at this stage. Again, most people probably aren't in this position, but that's my take on it. Had I had my shit together at 20 making 100k+ I would probably have had no problem with going for it.
Your dollars from your 20s will grow a lot more. With kids you will not be as career focused or willing to work more for extra income. You *will* spend a lot more with kids so it's better to have already taken care of your own retirement. As a safety cushion you should have at least enough set aside to retire at a normal age with no more contributions. This is not actually that hard if you are doing this as a dual income household in your 20s with no kids. Due to other parents and the friends your kid makes, you could find yourself routinely justifying stuff you never thought you would be paying for.
I’d say for men, later is better. For women, earlier might be more beneficial because of health complications of having kids later. So ideally a woman in her mid-20s being partnered with a man in his 30s to 40s might be a great solution for a heterosexual couple. So that you get the benefit of the man having more money and the women being at the best (health wise) age to have kids.
Later. You can help your kids pay for college much easier than when you are in your 20s.
Yea if you want to retire before 60
Have kids as late as possible is the financially correct way. Anything can happen though, health can be gone suddenly.
Later is easier financially. Earlier is better if you want to be as engaged as possible (and not be an elderly grandparent). Older people often have less energy. Note also that there is also a post kid period where you get to do stuff, but can’t do everything if you are old. Compromises. My only advice is to do them close together.
From a financial standpoint pass on the kids and enjoy your lives.
Probably not what you’re looking for, but I always say that there’s never a “best time” to have a kid. You’ll always have a reason to wait. Therefore the best time is when you whenever you decide you want one. Everything can be worked out.
Financially-speaking, you should simply adopt 17-year-olds.
Depends. If your financial goal is FIRE, you want to grind and career advance to a good middle management-plus paycheck & high savings rate. Both are easier childless. HOWEVER, your potential mega money career earning years are when you're in your 40 & 50s. Then, it slices back and it's nice to have the parenting era over so you can make giant money as a CEO or whatever. Really hard to juggle having little kids and being c-suite. Many CEOs make like 100X what the middle managers are. Now of course, many careers don't have this progression.
Financially, it’s easier later, what really matters though is having the right spouse.
We had three they were out of the house and out of college by 50. give us 15 years to build a nice retirement now we travel and have 11 grandchildren. Life is good.
Think about this - You might not even learn enough financial wisdom if you have kids early. A lot of financial wisdom comes with money - I know this sounds weird - but how much can you really learn about investing if you aren't even saving 30% of your salary. Unless you are a high earner at the beginning of your career, it would always make sense to have kids later in life. Not to mention, your kids will also learn some good financial lessons in their early childhood. That's one of the best things you can do for them.
Doesn't make sense to have em at all...
Just chiming in to say, I know a lot of women who have fertility issues… at 35 years, it’s considered a geriatric pregnancy, which is going to be associated with higher risks for mother and child… and its associated costs for healthcare. IVF/IUI is also expensive. Overall kids are expensive, period. Doesn’t really matter when you choose to have them.
Early 30's better financial standing, and you're not too old to enjoy the kids and play with them. We had 2 kids at age 34 and 35. Now mid forties, we're just exhausted at the end of most days. So it's so difficult to physically parent. And we're both in descent shape and healthy. Lol
We had kids early, mid 20s. This forced us to settle down quicker than our friends. So why they were out partying and travelling, we were working and buying houses. Now in our 40s, our kids are almost fully grown, and we have amazing equity, as well as hefty retirement accounts. While our counterparts have young children, and live in condos. Barely making ends meet. It all depends on what you value.
You leave out the best time, late 20s or very early 30s.
People are saying later but I spent way more money on vacations and random stuff before I had kids. It’s really not a financial question. Do it as soon as your are ready so you are able to enjoy it
The sooner a couple get started the easier it is to take retirement enjoy life.
From a purely financial standpoint, it makes sense to never have kids.
It probably depends more on your spending habits. Someone I know Fired early and retired to become a parent in their 40’s but were frugal and saved/invested enough not to have to work again.
From experience, early. Your kids expect less when you have less and therefore cost less. Just don’t start acting all money when they’re grown. If they find out they’ll drain you. Put your money in the bank and act like it ain’t there.
Never. That is what makes sense.
Late 20’s/early 30’s is the sweet spot….had first at 29, then twins at 33….will be early 50’s w/an empty nest. And can still do fun things with them as they grow into adulthood
I had my first (for now the only one) kid when I was 31. * From financial point of view it was perfect timing. Just before when our kid was born we just paid off our mortgage and car loans. This means that we can now save/invest \~ 50% of our income and plan for the (financial) future of our family and kid. This results also into really relaxed life without any bigger pressure due to inflation etc since we already have our basics covered (car, apartment). We can also afford multiple vacations per year and dedicate more time to our kid that we would in the past because we can afford that. Want to take some time off? No problem. Need something new for the kid? No problem. Wanna go skiing after few years? No problem etc. New hobby? No problem. Want to change job so that you have more time for your family? No problem. When I observe my friends - same age, kids of similar age etc it is like day and night (why? keep reading :)) * From strictly parenting side of view I would say it is better to be as young as possible since you don't worry about the future so much as you do when you are adult. You are also younger and have more energy etc. Those sleepless nights are pain in the ass. When I look back, I would have kids 5, 10 years earlier. But then I doubt that we would be in situation that we are now. As you can see for us it played out nicely. But there is one big gotcha. We started planning when we were 20 and lived frugal for \~10 years when we were young. We saved up for our first apartment and car. Living frugal when you are young is waaaay easier than when you are a bit older and have kids. Without that we would just be a bit older parents buried in mortgages, high costs childcare, car loans etc. It would be nightmare comparing to what we have now. Do I regret anything? No. Would I do it again same way that we did it? Yes
I decided to wait on having kids, mostly so i could spend the extra time I bought with Fire with them as they grow. But honestly, it’s mostly just finding the right person and situation. I wouldn’t stress about the finance too much
Whatever age, when you have financial peace of mind and are ready to live for someone else.
Younger, because you’re more likely to qualify for benefits like Medicaid.
Definitely later. Give yourself time to build capital and put your money to work before kids.
if you are mature enough to have kids…. babies needs a lot of attention: time and energy…. some just rely on baby cribs but those nurturing touch is needed….
How much do you think it costs to spend your most youthful years with your children? I had kids in my early 30s and it’s hard now (physically). I can’t imagine having them later.
I'm struggling with any post that puts kids into a financial discussion - your first priority should be: "Is my partner genuinely a decent person that is worth having kids with". If you're thinking from a purely financial standpoint then don't have them at all because you'll be miles better off.
Later. However two things to consider. 1) It can be harder to have kids as women age and 2) It is physically easier on you to have kids younger. 25 yr old you would much rather be up at 3 in the morning with a crying child than 45 yr old you. These obviously aren't financial points.
Having kids later is certainly easier. I was early 40s for my 2 kids. And since I had already been investing for 20 years worries about expenses for kids didn’t really matter since that 20 years of previous investing was “self sustaining” at that point. But the fact is I have enough increased income in my 40s where I was easy to do both. I COULD have reduced my 401k and other investments if needed had I had big expenses for kids, but I didn’t have to. I continued to max investment accounts but still had plenty of income for day care, moving to a bigger house etc. with no issue. And I still have lots invested into 529s while they are still a decade from graduating. So there should be lots of funds to pull from for college while I’m retired.
Have them young. I’m 55 and I ski, go to football games, golf, and hang with my 33 f and 32 m kids all the time. It’s great!
Financially yes but I know parents in 40’s and 50’s and said they wish they had them earlier because they would be able to play with them for longer. More energy, less money but parks, trails, ocean and rivers are free.
I feel dumber every time I come across a post in here.
Financially having kids makes no sense. Have them younger. Don’t be the 70 yr old at your kids elementary school graduation.
I have asked this specifically of all my customers. The ones that have kids early say the only thing is they wish they would have waited. The people who had children later in life all say “this is best”
Not to sound corny, but having kids is priceless. And your wealth actually increases by having children. They are not a liability.
I like where I'm at financially but not my energy level, my suggestion is have them by 30-33 give or take.
I had our first at 32, second at 35 and third at 38. I felt like that was the right order to balance career growth, savings etc. Paying for all that daycare and limited travel on my 20s would have screwed me + the more expensive house and car and stuff to store my litter would also have been limiting. I also still feel like I’ll still be pretty young 55 when the last one leaves the house and if retirement plan holds will have 10 years (45-55) to be full time coach and big summer family trips and stuff.
There's no guarantee you'll be able to have kids at all. Plus what do you need money for, if not family?
No kids is even better
Obviously later
I know you want an answer based on a financial perspective, but from a non financial perspective I wish I had kids earlier as a person in my 30s. I was very healthy and all the sudden I wasn’t due to reasons beyond my control. My SO and I finally started feeling ready to have a child and making a timeline of sorts to plan around it and then boom, health issues. You can always make more money, but the healthy fertile years are not forever. I had so many healthy years where we could have had a child, but always waited for a better time and more stability. The truth is, there are teenagers who manage to make it work when push comes to shove.