How I Struggle with the Decision to Retire Early – What About My Kids’ Future?

A Reddit user in his mid-40s is financially ready to retire. However, he is struggling when it comes to actually pulling the trigger — and one of the issues he is concerned about is how his decision to leave work at a younger age could affect his children’s future.

Here’s why the Redditor is worried, along with some tips on how to decide if early retirement is the right course of action or if it makes sense to work longer to create more financial security for your children. 

Staying on the job for the kids

The Reddit poster explained that he is married with two kids who are 15 and 17. He currently has $4.5 million in investments and a $1.6 million home that is paid off. He’s working a high-stress job that he doesn’t love and that requires him to put in long hours, but he says it is tolerable. 

With his millions in investments, he’s in a good position to leave work — but he has some concerns. He doesn’t know what he would do with his time, for one thing, but the bigger issue is that he’s afraid that he’ll short-change his kids if he leaves work now. He said he believes that the world is getting harder and more competitive, and, while his kids do well in school and are well-adjusted, he could work more and save more to give them more of a financial cushion — especially given that his annual income is $700K. 

Complicating matters further, the company he works for could go public soon and give him another couple of million based on the equity he currently has invested. Since he is already sacrificing a lot right now to give his kids a better future, including living modestly with no fancy cars or big expenses, he just doesn’t think he can give up the big income and the potential future funds when he could stay at his job and do more for his children. 

Do you owe it to your children to keep working?

It’s admirable that the Reddit user wants to do more for his children. However, the reality is that there often should be practical limits on what parents can and should do.

If the OP already has a college fund for his kids, he’s giving them a leg up with that because they won’t have to take out student loans. The $1.6 million paid-off house he owns is likely going to keep appreciating in value, and that house alone should provide a good inheritance for his kids someday in the future when he is gone. And, the $4.5 million he has invested should produce about $166,500 in annual income if he withdraws funds at a safe 3.7% rate. Since the poster says he and his wife are pretty frugal, that may be more than they need. The poster could retire and probably still provide financial help to his kids with the money he has coming in. 

Of course, the key is that you don’t necessarily want to do so much for your children that they lose motivation to do things on their own. Since the poster is already going to be able to do a lot for his kids that most people can’t, sacrificing his own happiness to do even more may not be a practical approach to making life choices. 

As numerous Redditors pointed out, earlier retirement could also give the poster more time to spend with his kids during their last few years at home, which could be very good for the family as well — and which could have benefits that go beyond just giving them money.  Since the poster also isn’t sure what he wants to do with his time, he could perhaps find a middle ground where he does some work to avoid spending down as much of his nest egg and to help shore up the funds he has to provide for his kids. 

Ultimately, the poster’s best bet may be to talk with a financial advisor to explore his options. With help from an advisor, he could set specific goals for exactly what he wants to help his kids accomplish, whether that’s paying for school or giving them a down payment for a house, or some other planned assistance. The advisor can provide advice on what it would take to make that happen, so the poster can decide if he’s on track already, or needs to work a little more to do what he desires — perhaps at a job that provides a better work-life balance. 

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