Quora: Do kids ruin your finances?
Q: On average are people who didn’t have children financially better off than those with offspring?
A: That depends on who you ask.
There may be some statistics out there, however your own beliefs about the subject will be more important.
In the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, you can read about two dads that had very different approaches to this.
Poor Dad claimed the reason why he wasn’t rich, was because he had kids. This seems to be a common assumption among both low income and middle class households.
Rich Dad claimed that he was rich because he had kids. The exact opposite of what you might expect. After all, aren’t kids terribly expensive? Could it be that instead of blaming the kids for his financial situation, he decided to improve it because he had mouths to feed?
It is possible.
The bottom line is that while having kids is expensive, they also give you an extra motivation to make more money. Ultimately, whether having kids gets you closer to bankruptcy or being Rockefeller, is up to you.
(Answer provided by a flat broke author with no kids)
