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Comment by tiagobraw | Hacker News Reader

> but as someone without children

this is a huge factor that influences almost every other decision he listed there: - living with roommates or renting a cheap apartment - not wanting to buy an apartment - having the time to do side hustles - even changing career paths is challenging when you have a family to take care of - saving the majority of his annual compensation

I don’t want to say his advices are bad, just keep in mind that it’s not applicable to everyone

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This is the fallacy with this approach IMHO. Yes you can save a ton my living on minimal spend with no kids. That’s also not a life many/most people desire to live.

I’ll all for saving and do broadly follow a similar approach. With kids I won’t be retiring in my 30s or 40s but I’m investing in life now so that when I do retire it’s a much more well rounded and wholesome experience.

To each their own, but most of the “I’m not gonna have kids and just save all my money” types I know say later they made a poor life choice that’s hard to fix once that realization is made.

The main advice I do agree with is just because you start earning more doesn’t mean you should start spending more. Living comfortably below one’s means is a good way to build wealth over time. I just don’t recommend the “extreme” version of this.

I think you are right except for calling it a fallacy. It's a choice that most people don't take.

To each their own, but most of the “I’m not gonna have kids and just save all my money” types I know say later they made a poor life choice that’s hard to fix once that realization is made.

You can make the same sweeping generalization with parents who raise kids that are ungrateful and/or complete disappointments.

I know plenty of parents that feel abandoned by their children, who only get a courtesy call once or twice a year. Or worst, children who are continuing to be a financial burden in their 20s/30s/etc.

Very few parents will admit to the fact they regret having children. But the regret is there.

The difference is that those parents are usually assholes and deserve everything they got (or don’t get). People who chose to not have kids and just Scrooge their way to FIRE aren’t necessarily going to be the same people.

By all accounts - if you are certain that you don’t want kids, you’re not going to be a decent parent, or you have some severe issues then yeah maybe don’t do kids. But often what I see is a deeper issue of cheapness/scarcity/whatever that could be addressed with therapy and then happy children with happy parents could emerge from that.

Truth is - if you’re in SV and under 35 - you’ve likely had incredible parents. The overwhelming majority of my younger colleagues in SV love their family and were raised somewhat decently. They’re not the meth heads you’ll find scattered throughout rural America.

With that income? Sure, if kids came into the picture during the last day 3-4 years it would increase his expenses, but he’d presumably also have another income, at least for a few years?

I don’t disagree that for middle income earners kids are a huge expense, but when you’re making $350,000+ each year, $30,000 for childcare isn’t a dramatic expense. Same with all the incidentals.

The biggest expense is college, at least in the U.S. If you retire before they apply, you may want to be conservative and set aside the cost of the most expensive college. MIT is $77k/year [1]. For two kids, that's $616k. And it increases faster than inflation, estimate 6%/yr. If you have enough money in the bank that you're financially independent, they won't qualify for need based aid, you'll have to pay the sticker price.

Columbia is more expensive.

And if one of them wants to become a doctor or lawyer, now you need to pay for grad school too.

[1] https://sfs.mit.edu/billing-repayment/undergraduate-tuition-...

Not going to lie, but Americans paying 100% of their kids college is kinda weird as an immigrant.

My kid can take out loans and sure I’ll help, but hell no I’m not bank rolling multiple kids at full private school tuition.

At least where I grew up a solid public school college was not an impediment to a good career.

I’ve notice Americans tend to hyper-optimize - I love it when parents tell me they bought in Palo Alto because the public school was rated a 9.3/10 versus San Mateo at 9.1/10.

“ Americans paying 100% of their kids college is kinda”. As a non immigrant it’s weird to me too.

There are a class of parents who obsess about “the best”. Best schools, best tutors, best nutrition, best ‘experiences’, best neighborhood. It’s a hedonistic treadmill in the making.

Exactly. Saving $200k per kid for private college is not a “need” its a luxury. But a lot of upper class Americans see it as the “baseline”.

Using numbers from only top private schools makes your point fall a bit flat.

Seriously. I went to public school, and the 2022 estimated cost of attendance, including tuition, room, food, books, transportation and personal expenses is around $30k/year. Certainly not cheap, but over $20k of that is just the living expenses. Tuition is relatively affordable.

Every time I see things like this it makes me so grateful that we have a state scholarship (HOPE). I pay like $200 a semester on tuition, then around $1000 on other school fees.

If I don't have to relocate for job opportunities (currently in Atlanta), I plan to stay here and encourage any future children to stay in-state. That's of course assuming that the state doesn't kill off HOPE by then.

I'm living with my son and girlfriend with a roommate. It's doable if you are open minded, know open minded people and don't care too much what society thinks a family should look like. An honestly, it's great to have a buddy right at home in these social isolation times.

Whenever anyone offers any advice on any subject at all, I find it essential to determine whether they have kids or not, because the with-kids solution set seems to be entirely different to the without-kids solution set.

Also, advice depends on the generation the author is part of. Millennials have more difficulty getting to financial independence than, say, baby boomers or Gen-Xers had.

It’s also worth noting that the OP did most of these things at a young age, when most people don’t have kids anyway. Though they may find that that $2.4m won’t generate sufficient income if they do have kids, but then I think they could probably just go back to work if necessary.

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