I have a few questions for you and don’t want to sound naive, but I’m not financially savvy.

1) I own a house which I plan to have paid off by the time I’m 41 and then sell when I retire. I got the place cheap because of the recession, but my question is, when I sell it, how much do I get to keep? I understand there are capital gains taxes, closing costs, paying a realtor, and all that, but let’s say I sell the place for 250K. I don’t need exact figures, but would most of that end up in my savings?

2) Is it really stupid to think that I could just save a massive amount of money and then live off of it for 30-40 years if I live somewhere really cheap? I don’t care if the capital is all gone by the time I die cause I have no one to pass it on to.

These may be the two stupidest or most naive questions I’ve ever asked, thus I’m asking them anonymously on the internet.

One thing that struck me is the poster’s defensiveness.

I think at one point you have to stop caring about what others think. So you retired without children, you do not have to convince everybody that it is the sole way of doing it.

If you are happy with your choice, that is all that matters.

Being bingoed can go both ways…

I share your approach to the low-cost/free hobbies and activities. I don’t smoke and I rarely drink, which are both fairly expensive activities. I have co-workers that have monthly bar tabs that exceed my food costs.

I also do not plan on having children or getting married. That’s just a personal choice. More power to those who choose to have children. I realized early on that I have little desire to have children, which I feel wouldn’t make me an appropriate parent. I only wish more people who aren’t appropriate for parenthood would have realized that before making their decision to have children.

Enjoy your early retirement. I’m hoping to become FI by 40 years old, which is in 11 years. I have a road map put together, which I feel (outside a major setback or catastrophe) will put me there at or before 40 years old.

Continued success for you. Thanks again for sharing.

Thank you for a thoughtful response. The whole process is unfair, especially to women who don’t want kids. Having seen the result of incredibly poor or non-existent parenting in my job I wish more people were this mature.

When people ask me when I’m having them and I tell them I don’t want them myself, I spend years defending that decision to those same people. That’s just the way it is for people that choose not to have them.

I would never say to one of my happily pregnant friends, “Are you sure that’s the right decision? Have you really thought this through? Why do you want them?” I believe that even though they aren’t parents yet (and therefore according to some commenters above, unqualified to even make that decision because they aren’t parents yet–see how silly that argument is?) they know what the right decision is for them.

We are all qualified to make that decision for ourselves, obviously before we’ve ever experienced the ramifications of that decision. How else could it work?

Hopefully this stream of comments sheds some light for people on why those of us without kids have become defensive over the years–’cause everyone else is asking us to defend our decision! (The Psychology 101 comment, I admit, is first–that if we say we’re happy without kids we couldn’t possibly be. I really can’t follow that one.)

You either want them or you don’t it’s as simple as that.

When I retired at 44, many of my friends said, “Well, yeah, you can do that, you don’t have kids!” Which was exactly deegee’s point. It certainly has an impact on that decision to retire early. I don’t see why that’s such a controversial point.

I surely know the difference between being childfee and being retired. I was childfree long before I was retired. I knew when I was 20 years old that I would be childfree. I have always been happy that I am childfree. Being childfree and retired is even better!

Your Psychology 101 is still bullshit no matter how true you think it is. It is simply a “bingo,” one of the many tired, overused phrases the childed throw at us childfree to belittle our lifestyle choice.

Those mommy message boards are not a figment of my imagination. They, just like that Ann Landers survey from the 1970s (70% of her respondents said if they could do it all over again they would not have had children) are proof that many people out there regret their decision to have kids. And the daily news stories about child abuse and neglect tell me that there are many parents out there who should have remained childfree.

Your feeble statements will not silence me in the least. I will continue to advocate the childfree lifestyle choice, not only as a means to a more enjoyable life (even if not retired early), but as a great way to improve one’s life by getting out of the rat race by retiring early.

I laugh at your stupid bingos and your nonsense and how little you know about the childfree choice and how advantageous it is for me and how it enabled me to reitre at age 45.

Double LOL at you .
You even don’t get the difference between “being happy in retirement” vs. “being happy child free”.
Like I said – Psychology 101…
Why do (some) people are happier in retirement? Because they know the difference between “working” and “retired”. Even Jacob worked for 6 years, so he knows what “working” means. By being through these 2 states they can identify what make them happier. Some people are happier working and some are happier retired. Some will post about their experiences on the message boards. Perfectly normal.
But what makes your statements sound completely insecure is that you have not been through the stage of “with children”. Instead you claim reading some wacko mommy message boards, that I have no clue about, as your prove of something.
Like I said – good luck to you. I really don’t care what you do with your life. I was just laughing at your statements that you have no clue about.

Sometimes, those who change jobs a lot lose out on longevity advantages of staying in one place, which can make it a tough decision to stay or go. Thankfully for me, I was able to stay at my one job and lessen my commute while reaping the advantages of its fast growing company stock in the 2000s.

I am sorry to hear you get bingoed a lot from your coworkers. But when you RE soon (hopefully), you will have the last laugh!

I never had children and, once out of my teenage pie-in-the-sky years, never had a strong desire for children. Being childfree has been a big reason for my near FI. It is a little bit disturbig when coworkers hint that not wanting children is somehow wrong.

We need more articles and more reader stories about how people can still retire early with kids.

Retiring Without having kids or by living single is not at all hard to do, the real challenge is when you have kids and want to turn them into responsible adults. Reading more stories about people who did that is more inspiring.

And I feel it is important to get the word out about the posiive aspects of being childfree. This is because being childfree has so many negative stereotypes. I hope that some of those “on the fence” about having kids will read my posts and think to themselves, “Hey, we don’t have to follow the so-called life-script and have kids because there are many advantages to being childfree. That Deegee is on to something good!”

Your Psychology 101 is a load of bullshit. People like to boast about the good things in their lives because they are…….good things! Isn’t that what Facebook is for? How many mommies and daddies post pictures of their kids there and boast about how they are the pride and joy of their lives? Why don’t you go and tell them how they are hiding their true feelings about their kids?

People in those early retirement forums boast about how good their lives are since their early retirements. Why don’t you go there and tell them how they are hiding their true feeling about not working any more?

I really do feel sorry for you that you did not have kids and missed out on the whole experience. I really do.
Please cut the crap. It is quite obvious that you are not happy with your choices. People who are happy with their choices are just …well happy.
You are not happy. It is pretty clear. Despite your multiple posts on various message boards about how happy you are. Again, people who are happy, don’t post on all possible internet message boards that they are happy. Because they don’t need to.
Let me guess… Are not you the one who is using “scrabbler1″ nick on bogleheads & “early-retirement.org” forums? Have you noticed that you are actually the only one on these boards boasting about your child-free life?
It is basically Psychology 101… People tend to talk about certain things in order to cover their internal feelings.

Peace to you. You’ve made your choices and you will be the one to get the results.