many reasons we didn't want kids.

And then at some point we heard the acronym DINK, and

I think just really fell in love with it.

There are more Americans that are deciding not to

have children, and it's purposeful.

This new trend has led to the rise of a new type of

household, more commonly referred to as DINKs.

Dual income, No kids.

Oh, yeah. Dual income, no kids.

That's perfect for us.

That's absolutely right.

Children are the death of net worth.

Pretty crude, but honestly.

Very true.

This household configuration of dual income partners

living alone without children is on the rise.

In 2022, is around 43% of households.

And that's about a 7% increase from a decade

previously.

In 2022, 43% of Americans surveyed said they'd want to

get married, but just a little more than a quarter

said they were sure about wanting children.

The term DINK is becoming more prominent now because

of financial challenges, and they see children as

just another financial challenge that maybe they

they don't want to take on.

So what's it like to live with a dual income and no

children? And will it be the future of American

households? According to a 2023 survey of DINKs,

finance played a major role in their decision to not

have children.

More than a quarter of respondents said they simply

aren't able to financially support a child at the

moment.

When we advise clients about having children, we honestly

don't even give them the full real details and the

real numbers. It's one of those things if you actually

see the math of it all, it might make you decide to not

have children.

It costs a family an estimated $310,605 to raise

a child born in 2015 to age 18.

Adjusted for higher future inflation.

And that doesn't even include the cost of college.

So if you look at inflation, it within the child care

market it surpasses general overall inflation within the

economy.

Some couples are contemplating having

children at the same time that they're still paying

off student loans that they incurred when they were 18

to 22 years old.

One of my very closest friends, uh, she's been

struggling with the reality that the take home pay she

makes is about equal to what child care would be.

That's a really hard position to be in.

Seeing our friends really struggle with that balancing

act has, I think, made me appreciate the flexibility

that we have financially because we don't have

children.

Besides saving on child care, DINKs can also fully

reap the benefits of combining their finances.

To look at both of our incomes coming in and see

how we're able to handle all of that.

Because we don't have extra finances with a child, it's

much more comfortable.

We get to focus more on the things that we want to do,

and saving a lot of that money for the future, and

worry less about the day to day finances of the house

and our bills.

Money isn't the only expense that DINKs can save on.

The free time is actually one of the biggest things

for me. So we built me a little office slash bedroom

out here. We definitely have some more expensive

hobbies. I, uh, build mechanical keyboards, like,

uh, computer keyboards in my spare time and just parts

and stuff for that can be very expensive.

Not having children has given us the freedom to

pursue other things.

Remodeling our home.

I'm a beekeeper.

I'm really handy and I like doing stuff around the

house. I wouldn't have the time to just do that after

work if I feel like it, if I had, you know, a child to

care for.

Fewer expenses leave DINKs with more disposable income

to play with.

Disposable income is power, it's stability.

And for many couples, it's security.

The security that having, you know, six months of

income saved for emergencies gives you that

security was so helpful to us during Covid when I was

out of work for six months.

I have like a smaller tractor style.

Next year we're gonna get a.

We have more tolerance for chaos, I think because of

our savings, our new savings goal, which is like

our shoot for the stars and hit the moon kind of is

saving four grand a month.

According to census data, DINKs can save 9% more for

retirement each year compared to dual income

couples with children.

Another 2021 study found that childless adults aged

55 and older had a personal median net worth of

$153,900, compared to $130,400 for biological

parents.

If you have a dollar and if you have to choose how to

use it, a DINK can prioritize savings,

retirements, investments both in the equities market

as well as things like real estate or second properties.

The hardest part of investing is just having the

cash to do it. And so when you don't have your cash

going to expenses that are related to children, that

cash can go into those investment goals.

We started investing in our early 20s.

I feel really safe because we have this strong nest egg

of ETFs that are accessible and fairly liquid, and then

we also have our long terme savings, which are, you

know, tied up in IRAs.

We can choose what our aging years look like

because we've saved to plan for that eventuality.

It is well documented that the younger you are when you

start your savings and your retirement portfolio, the

better off you are in the long run in terms of

aggregate savings and your ability to accrue savings

and wealth.

Just take the $310,605 it would take for a middle

income married family to raise a child.

While child expenses can vary significantly by age

and location, that could easily represent more than

$15,000 in otherwise investable funds per year.

Consider the power of annually compounding

interest, and that $15,000 per year can grow to more

than $500,000 in just 18 years, assuming 7% annual

returns. This nest egg could also help DINKs secure

more assets for themselves.

Dual earner adults living together who both have jobs

and have been saving are really able to put a

heftier, relatively large down payment on a home,

which then reduces their monthly mortgage and has all

of these other benefits. You're paying less interest

over the long run.

I was fortunate enough to have a good little nest egg

gifted to me by my grandparents, and that

helped us buy our first house, but then from there,

living in that house, living in a place with a

lower cost of living like Utah, having dual income

helped us build all this savings so that when we sold

that home and moved to Massachusetts, we had an

even larger nest egg that allowed us to buy a more

expensive home in a higher cost of living area.

I'm not totally sure where we would be if we had a

child as well.

That extends beyond just purchasing a home.

There are lots of big item, big ticket investments that

we tend to make earlier on in adulthood, to the extent

that we can pay as much of it as possible up front.

That does have a rippling benefit for us as we age.

But the rise of DINKs isn't such great news for the

economy as a whole.

Historically, lower birth rates have been associated

with slower economic growth, and critical social

programs such as Social Security depend heavily on

population growth.

We shouldn't strive to have a generation of young adults

that are not reproducing.

That would not be healthy for society.

It wouldn't be healthy for the economy.

It wouldn't be healthy for us as we age.

So there are a lot of reasons why we do want to

take investments in the next generation seriously.

For DINKs, the biggest challenges are often not

financial.

And I think we freaked a lot of people out when we were

just a young married couple, and that was all.

There was no baby afterwards.

I had family members asking if something was wrong

because it's been five years of a young, healthy

couple not producing a child.

I think that there is a self-care aspect that is

minimized when you're a DINK.

So there are many mom groups or, you know,

daddy-daughter dances.

There aren't groups for, hey, I'm a professional

woman, and I just want to go home and read a book and

take care of myself tonight.

I think on the other side of that, there can be times

where in certain circumstances and circles,

it's harder to make friends.

There is also the potential for more financial

responsibility from other family members.

There could be additional pressure as DINKs get older,

for people within their family to assume that they

can take care of certain obligations.

For example, if you have an aging parent.

DINKs might be the ones that are relied upon because

it's presumed you have disposable income or you

have disposable time to take on these

responsibilities.

According to experts, the number one advice for DINKs

is to prioritize savings and figure out clear goals

for the future.

If anybody is considering becoming a DINK as a

financial planner, I highly recommend that strategy.

I recommend it to my clients. When my clients

tell me that's an intentional choice they're

going to make, I am a big fan of it.

With that disposable income, make a budget.

How do you want to spend it?

Make sure you put aside some money for fun, but also

make sure you put aside some money for investments

and they can be traditional or nontraditional

investments, and then revisit it annually to make

sure it still makes sense.

I think if you're considering not having

children in your life, make sure your partner is on the

same page as you and that you have confidence in that

value in isolation without your partner too.

Yeah, don't go into the DINK lifestyle just like, oh, I

don't have kids, so I just have more money and can do

whatever it still takes the work of like planning for

your future, putting money away.

If you're not going to have kids, make sure you still

save money for your future, because the world is a weird

place right now, and who knows what it's going to be

like in another 3040 years when we go to retire.