A TIME magazine cover story, “The Childfree Life,” came with an image of an attractive (and color-coordinated) couple lounging on a tropical, white sand beach, seemingly without a care in the world, resplendent in their designer sunglasses. That image prompted this week’s Whiny Wednesday topic:
The assumption that if you don’t have kids you have money to burn
Whine away, my friends.
dont be fooled. Because we are older and have no children to help out, we are spending more money on medical devices, medical aids, medical help because there are only two of us and no one except church to help and excuse me I cant call on church to help all the time it is not fair to them yes I understand not everyone with children has them to help but 90% of them do.
So no we did not have to spend money on the children but it comes around in the process.
Plus when we were working we had to spend our time & money on chores that the children help out with…lawn services for example…two people cannot do it all
Still recovering financially from failed fertility treatments.
I could have a house at the shore and a new car for what I spent on failed fertility treatments!!! – I hear you Jennifer!
It bugs me to no end. And my family was the worst at it. My sister has knocked if off but sometimes my mom says stuff…and stuff on social media no less. Sometimes I just want to tell my mom that I want to grow up (I’m 36) and not be in the financial situation that she is in. And to do that I don’t spend EVERY DIME in my bank account!
Totally annoys me when people think we’re millionaires without kids. We get less back in taxes then those with kids and miss out on getting checks when they do them in our state if our school taxes stay below a certain amount because we don’t have kids, but we pay the same school taxes or more (if people rent and don’t have to pay property taxes). We save whatever we can to hopefully early retire somewhere warm year round, but aren’t millionaires.
This one often boggles my mind, as childlessness isn’t exclusive to rich people. Money to burn isn’t an option for a great many people, with or without children.
I can see where my husband and I do have a bit more disposable income to spend on ourselves than some of our friends with the same family income as they spend a good majority of their money providing things for their children.
In my experience, the judgement about how much extra money we have has nothing to do with the actual amount of money spent though. We could buy a fifty cent coffee and it’s still going to be categorised differently than a parents fifty cent coffee by a great many people. I get that if my husband and I are shopping for a hot tub, and our friends are barely able to put groceries on the table…we have more disposable income than they do, but this isn’t the case with most of the people making comments and accusations towards us.
I’ve noticed within my own peer group that even when parents have more disposable income than I do though, I’m still seen as the one with buckets of money to throw around. I was recently shopping with a few girlfriends at a department store. I bought a set of throw pillows that were 60% off. They bought toys for their children. There were multiple comments made on how it ‘must be nice to have all this extra money to waste’ and how ‘they wouldn’t dream of putting out that amount of money for a pillow that would be covered with sticky finger prints and puke in a month’. They all spent double what I spent on those pillows on plastic toys their children will grow out of and stop playing within a few months, these pillows would probably last for years, but my purchase was seen as frivolous and extravagant because it wasn’t for ‘the children’.
If a family spends ten thousand on a luxurious vacation they are making memories. If we spend fifteen hundred on a discount vacation away we are flaunting our free time and extra cash.
Foxglove, you make some really excellent points here! 🙂 Thank you for this food for thought!
Yes I’m 41 and have no children. So I guess I must have “no worries” huh? Well its just me and my income. I do have a decent paying job but that job has to pay the mortgage and all the other bills. Debt and anything else I’m trying to pay off. Not that I would expect kids to handle any of that. I do have certain amounts of freedom which I enjoy but its not exactly “carefree”. I work hard at my job…it can be an exhausting one..in particular the shift I work and where I work. For the first time in years this year I am going on a long vacation with some friends. I really hate the assumptions that are made. I’m working hard and doing the best I can buts not all sunshine and roses just because I’m single and have no kids.
I am divorced (12 years), immigrated to the USA when I was 35 years old, woman living alone, my sole provider; and by the grace of God and only by His grace, who provides all my needs…. I survive every single day.
I am not crying this time, I am telling my truth.
My husband and I are late bloomers in many ways – got married later in life, achieved financial stability later in life, bought our first house later in life, etc. So we are in no position to live some luxurious lifestyle living either with or without children. I lived my earlier years not worrying about money for the future, so now that I have money, I’d like to keep it!
In the short term future, during my grieving phase, I do tend to think about what I can buy/spend my money on if I don’t have children, but it’s more of a mental consolation prize than actually wanting to spend the money. I fantasize about taking fun trips, buying awesome things for my house, etc. But I know it’s not going to replace the loss I feel, so I won’t be going on a shopping spree any time soon. Maybe a splurge or two here and there, but then it’s back to my usual attempting to save for our future.
It was BECAUSE I was poor I didn’t have children back when my body [maybe] could have! and guess what, I’m still poor.
I was born poor, and sadly, the only thing I’m good at doesn’t pay well. I’ve observed, as a generalization, families with money tend to have money (they can afford the healthcare, educations, safety nets and connections to decent homes, well paying jobs and quality lifestyles) – whether they have children or not, and families without money tend to not have money (they CAN’T afford the healthcare, educations, safety nets and connections to decent homes, well paying jobs and quality lifestyles), whether they have children or not. It’s a very simple generalization, but I see it over and over and over.
Oh yes .. people assumed, just because we don’t have a kid(s) that we have all this money .. little do they know we may have other responsibilities such as my husband is kinda supporting his parents who are out of jobs due to medical conditions and just a lot lot to deal with .. sigh
Unfortunately just because we don’t have children, people don’t get that we don’t have money growing off trees. And assume that we don’t have any other responsibilities .. my husband has to support his parents who are out of jobs because of their medical issues. Also like someone said .. in the future it will be much tougher for us to take care of ourselves if we are alone without kids .. I seriously cry inside when someone says “you should travel a lot before having kids” I think to myself .. i’ve already done that .. and it still doesn’t fill the emptiness i have inside.
Even if it’s true, it doesn’t mean people with more money are happier. My husband and I are financially fortunate, but it doesn’t make up for the emptiness. It would be so much more fun,if we could share our fortune with our children.
My husband and I can’t move for employment purposes, because his elderly (93 and 87 yrs old) parents live here, and all his brothers (with kids) live overseas earning lucrative salaries, focused only on their families not on their parents. So don’t get me started!
Meanwhile, we travel to have something exciting and new in our lives, and so everyone thinks we’re well off. We’re not. We’re frugal over other things (clothes, cars, etc). We are fortunate to be able to travel, but we’d be doing that if we had children too.
(Long time reader, first time poster. Thank you all for your input!) My husband is sick and cannot work full time so I’m the breadwinner. I also work to help care for my elderly Mom and in-laws. I’m sadly childless by circumstance. If by some glorious miracle I carried a healthy baby to term or could afford adoption, we could not afford day care and even more health insurance cost and diapers and all other things babies need to be nurtured. I get really angry when my boss (2 kids and makes 3X my salary) insinuates I have $$$ to burn. Since we won’t have kids to care for us in our senior years (and having kids don’t guarantee this) we now have to save for Long Term Care. I completely empathize!
While my friends with kids are going on cruises or camping trips to Yellowstone “with the family”, my husband and I are sitting at home–ALONE–trying to pay off the absurdly high expenses we accumulated from failed IVF and adoption. Sorry but this one bugs me too. (May not be Whiny Wednesday but it’s Moody Monday instead)
Maybe we do have relatively more in the bank than some of our parenting friends & relatives (or maybe we don’t??), and more discretion in how we spend it. And not having children certainly made it easier for us to make the decision to take early (reduced) retirement after we both lost our jobs a few years ago. But we won’t have children to look out for us in our old age, so we have to be careful in managing our money for the future. And I don’t think most people realize what a big price we have paid in other ways — the fertility treatments, the stress, the alienation from parenting friends & relatives, the grief, the loss. I would happily have kept working, even at a minimum wage job, if it brought me my daughter back.