Hi, I’ve been noticing more people choosing to live childfree (myself included) and it got me thinking.
Since many people rely on their children later in life (emotionally, financially, or just for companionship), I wonder: if we’re not planning to have kids, what should we be doing now to ensure we have a stable, fulfilling, and secure life as we get older?
Any thoughts, advice, or personal plans are welcome.
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Stable, secure yes.. maybe not as fulfilling idk
Short version is I’m not worrying about that and I don’t intend to get that old. I do have nephews though so there is still a good reason to save up enough money to pass on.
Having children as a financial/social retirement plan is the most idiotic and selfish thing a parent can do.
You create stability by doing what everyone should do: create a retirement plan, invest into retirement/other investments for the long haul, and you keep active socially though hobbies/friends.
I think we’re heading into uncharted territory, but I don’t think our prep would look much different than folks who do have kids.
I always take issue with the notion that you can “rely” on your children emotionally (that’s actually a huge red flag, IMO) financially or for companionship. Your kids will have their own lives, priorities and opinions, which may or may not line up with yours. I would not count on them.
So, to keep it simple, plan for your financial future and ensure it aligns with your retirement goals. Eat well, lift, do cardio and find your hobbies. Volunteer, that will keep you social which is important for cognitive well being as you age.
Invest in your relationship with your wife/GF. That’s the main person in your life – so it has to be solid.
Contribute to a 401k and hope you live to collect social security
Recently I read a book that was written in 100 BC. It had the best advice. Exercise. Drink water daily. Eat healthy. I was surprised I never thought about those things. It was mind opening
Invest in your health(mental and physical) first and foremost, then invest in your relationship, your financial security, your friendships, and your spirituality (if you’re into that). There’s a lot of effort that can be put fourth to achieve richness in all these areas, which will provide what you seek. It will also ensure you’re always working toward something and not getting bored. It’s a journey; enjoy it 🙂
Honestly all of these are important for people with kids. But it just becomes a bit more important if that specific support system is not available. And even folks with kids should not put all of their eggs in one basket, that’s just risky.
I have children, and I don’t intend to rely on them to provide anything for me when I’m older
Find a decent paying career and set money aside for retirement. Never rely on kids as a plan because it’s never a guarantee that your relationship with them will be good enough to fall back on that.
Make your own Funeral Arrangement Now.. and Life live as it comes.. Your life will never be stable for as long as you live. Spend more of your time enjoy as it comes. LIfe is an experience. don’t look forward to anything that doesn’t serve you a good purpose to your peace or threaten your peace to enjoy life.
Wing it. No responsibilities
Same as anyone else, get the mortgage and debts paid off, retire and enjoy life with my wife. In end the she’ll get it all, or my nieces.
Enjoy your life OP 🙂
I’d imagine exercising in a way that would let you walk around, get off the floor, and wipe your own ass when you’re in your last couple years in life is a good goal as well.
I don’t really have advice here. I always just assume I’ll figure things out. The only thing I know for sure is we have a lot of money. My wife and I are cheap people. We try to spend more but it is hard. We obviously will need more money when we are older to pay someone to take care of ourselves.
However, I will say most financial advice is geared towards people with children. The idea is building generational wealth and having the extra money to to children when you die. The ideal solution is to spend your last penny as you die, but that is hard. So finding a good way to handle money is a bit difficult. You want to plan to have extra to take care of yourself but you also don’t want to die leaving millions behind to no one in particular.
Live now. You have no distractions and excuses not to travel and experience the world. Focus on hobbies that bring you joy gaming, cars, wood working, music, eat lavishly, hang out with friends and family.
Workout, look good and well put together. Go to musicals, sports games, and concerts.
Learn to love yourself and enjoy your own company
You should have power of attorney, trust, fiduciary etc who can help you manage your care when you are elderly. As to your resources, if you don’t have family you’d like to pass it on too, find good charities to donate to.
No one plans on having to rely on their children when they get older. It’s a fact that the need for family increases as a person ages and families tend to grow closer. The need is decidedly more familial than financial!
I didn’t have kids so that they could be responsible for taking care of me, but I do think it’s socially responsible to make sure there’s an educated and supported future generation to be doctors, nurses, various trades, service workers, etc., to take care of the future when we’re too old to do it ourselves.
I’ve helped raised my nephew and two nieces, both financially and psychosocially. I’m done. So done. Turning 50 this year with a solid pension, savings and a stable remote career. The other half and I plan to retire (early) to Thailand in about five years. I plan to live like a king and then say bye bye with five fentanyl patches at about 70 years old.
Find a purpose for living and find a passion for things you like and wanna do. In invest financially for your future.
Planning on having children shouldn’t be about how you can use them to take care of you. I think that’s the wrong reason to have children.
You should be making and establishing relationships with people right now. Family isn’t always blood related.
Family are the people who you love and who reciprocate that love. Money wise, what have you done to financially secure your future?
That shouldn’t be on any children you have or want to have. That’s about you and your responsibility or the lack there of to do something about your financial future.
Live your life and enjoy the freedom while also saving for retirement. Same plan really, just easier to do without the expense of raising kids.
Everyone is sticking to the financial part and ignoring the other more important parts.
Emotional stability and companionship.
There’s nothing that replaces children for those. Raising a boy or girl into a full grown adult and teaching them. They’ll remember you throughout your years and you’ll always have that connection.
Emotional stability, it changes your outlook on life. They change everything, usually for the better.
The only thing I can think of is a pet, be a cat or dog lady and just have animals that sorta keeps that same connection.
And invest in yourself. By not having children, you can financially afford to be more frivolous is the short life you have.
Unless your friends also plan on not having kids, friendships tend to be harder to maintain as responsibilities switch to family mode.
Tbh, the fabric of society probably can’t survive with such low birthrates, but if you don’t value children, why would you care about that to begin with?
It’s not like society and social order hasn’t collapsed before. Cultures and political/economic systems have a long history of collapsing and being replaced by something else when they become untenable. And people in those circumstances have always had the feeling that they were living in the end times. They weren’t. Something different will emerge. The basis for whatever comes next are the people who for whatever reason, biological, ideological, religious or some combination of those, do have children.
Invest. Retirement plans.
Live your life.
Maybe buy a gravesite.
47% of adults (in the US) don’t have children. That number keeps growing.
There is nothing worse or more Boomer attitude than to assume your kids will take care of you. That’s not their job.
Make your peace with God and be comfortable with experiencing the Day of the Pillow or being eaten by your cat.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on raising a kid to adulthood makes for a great retirement fund.
If you’re d3ad set on not having children, then you can adopt (if you are stable enough to handle it). That way, you can raise a child who needs parenting. As for preparing for the future, that is a bigger question.
What future do you mean? Your retirement? Old age, when you can’t care for yourself? Or after the grave?
Your kids would ideally live a good parent who cared for them throughout their lives. So, having someone to talk to who cares back and returns to visit would be nice. That’s a lot less likely when you are in elder-care, if you don’t have your own family.
After the grave, I’d be happy to tell you about why it is written to go forth and multiply. It also tells a great reason to adopt.
That’s why the government is pushing the refugee agenda.
Those people DO make many children.
Also in the hope they get integrated decently enough to function as providing members of society.
The government has been working on it for years because they have the actual number.
Get a job with a pension and retiree health plan. I usually go into more detail when recommending this, but fuck it: those who dismiss it out of hand can eat defeatism, those with an open mind can do a little research (meaning look for actual opportunities, not just dig up stories about pensions being unfunded).
Build your village. Find peer support groups, hobbies and volunteer organizations. Find ways to give (support others) and receive (friends who are willing and able to help when you need it.)
Note: just because you don’t have kids doesn’t mean there aren’t kids out there that couldn’t benefit from you spending some time in their lives. Doesn’t mean you have to but be aware it is a possibility.
I don’t have kids, and am now in my 50s. I fully expect to go it alone through my senior years till I finally exit stage right.
What I have been doing is regularly contributing to my retirement accounts, so financially I should be okay to cover my living expenses.
To safeguard my health I make sure to stay fit, and eat a (mostly) sensible diet.
For my sanity I have several hobbies and meet up with friends as often as I can.
We can’t guarantee anything in this life, all we can do is nudge the odds in our favour by our choices and behaviour.
I know several people my age who have had kids, and they’ve half-jokingly said their kids will take care of them. But their kids live in two different parts of the country from their parents now, and hardly see them, plus they’ve got their own kids to consider now. I’d rather be in my situation than theirs, in terms of security.
Live fast die young. I’m here for a good time not a long time.
Studies show that couples without kids are overall happier than people with kids. They have better marriages, better sex lives, and are more well off financially.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/complete-without-kids/201103/fact-or-fiction-childfree-couples-are-happier-couples-kids
https://www.businessinsider.com/parents-are-less-happy-than-child-free-people-2023-9
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/02/money-marriage-kids/
Do not assume that your adult children will take care of you in your old age. Times are changing. And young people today are not nearly as financially stable as past generations so they may not even have the resources to do so.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/02/money-marriage-kids/
The best plan is to be financially prepared to hire in home health care assistance in your elder years. Assisted living facilities are also a viable option.
Personally, I also have cultivated wonderful relationships with nieces and nephews and have mentor relationships with younger people. I hope this results in people being invested in being part of my life when I am old. Not to mention they better if they hope to be mentioned in my Will…
The trend of populations ageing looks likely to accelerate. As the ratio of older people to working age people increases, costs like pensions and care of the elderly are going to be a bigger burden on those in work => pension ages will continue to rise. The problem with this is that the jobs that older folk can do are limited. Most older people are unable to take on physically demanding jobs. Many organisations dislike having older employees, encouraging older workers to leave and not interviewing older folk.
For people without children to rely on, it may be important to have sufficient funds to cover ever pricier elderly care. It may be useful to have secondary income streams (e.g. rental income), to mitigate the risk of being unemployed prior to retirement.
A walk-in wine cellar in that extra “kid’s room”.
Contribute to superannuation.
I have no intention of ever relying on my kids, that sounds like a plan doomed to fail.
I really don’t expect to be around long enough to worry about “later in life” but if I am I fully expect my wife will be there so nothing to worry about either way
Let’s unpack the data to see what the future holds as humanity continues down its current path. The systems we’ve built, the resources we’ve drained, and the irreversible damage we’ve caused are all propelling us toward a future you may want to reconsider bringing children into. The momentum behind our choices is too great to stop. What awaits is a world shaped by the unsustainable actions of today, and the worst is yet to come.
1. Environmental Degradation
Current status:
Consequences:
Result:
2. Resource Depletion
Key trends:
Energy outlook:
Result:
3. Economic Inequality
Data:
Implications:
Result:
4. Energy Availability & Infrastructure Fragility
Electricity demand is expected to rise by 50% by 2050, largely due to digital tech, EVs, and urban growth.
Data centers and AI could use up to 4,500 TWh by 2050 — more than India’s current energy consumption.
Many grids (e.g. Texas, Pakistan, South Africa) are already buckling under climate and demand shocks.
Key weakness:
Result:
5. Technological Disruption & Labor Displacement
By 2030, AI and automation will displace up to 800 million workers globally (McKinsey).
Digital economies reward capital over labor; jobs created are often fewer and lower-paying than those lost.
Without universal safety nets, social fragmentation accelerates.
AI impact:
Result:
6. Migration & Conflict Pressure
Climate refugees:
Conflict risk:
Result:
Cumulative Projection: 2025–2100+
Collapse Timeline (if unmitigated):
Likely Outcomes:
The reality is we are going to have a massive bloat of elderly people living longer than ever with low quality of life.
The result with be a combination of public outcry, complaints, rich people whining of peasants attitude while the other 90 percent will have a s***fit to address the matter.
I will be curious to see what happens. Likely people accepting bare minimum care and quietly suffering until other issues damage the younger generations in other ways with possible bounce back like karma.
The difference compared to previous generations is the silent misery that has always been now has internet access and can voice and or find top leadership failing to do their jobs and seek resolve.
Buy long term care insurance and keep it. Stay active working out as late in life as possible. It will keep you enjoying life longer and help you stay out of nursing facilities.
Never ever buy a recliner.
Establish strong bonds with siblings. Develop your own additional family of strong friendships. Make younger folks in either of those groups the beneficiaries of your assets. Live, love, laugh within your financial means and still save every smart way you can for your later years. Protect yourself from both you and others. Yada yada