You’ve probably noticed the headlines referring to millennials putting off having a family, or you may be one of the statistics the headlines often refer to. It seems like every other week or so, there’s some study or survey coming out, mentioning how millennials are marrying and becoming parents later in life. In April, for instance, the U.S. Census Bureau came out with a report on the changing economics and demographics of young adulthood and pointed out that in the 1970s, eight out of 10 people married by the time they turned 30. Today, it isn’t until the age of 45 that eight out of 10 people have married.
You have to wonder — when you put off raising a family, does it help or hurt your financial picture?
Obviously, the answer is — yes. Whether putting off starting a family helps or hurts your money situation depends on your own life story and how you manage money. But if you’ve never thought about it much, and you are delaying some of life’s bigger milestones, you may want to chew over whether you’re helping or hurting your finances.
[See: 25 Ways to Fix Your Finances Fast.]
Why putting off a family could help your financial picture. Joshua Blanton, a 26-year-old who is a CEO of a tech firm and a chief marketing officer at a consulting firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, thinks it has helped him financially to not have started a family yet. Right now, for instance, he puts 25 percent of income into stocks and savings.
“You certainly have less distractions if you’re focused on your career for the first few years of your working life and not worried about a spouse and children,” he says.
“If you devote the first five to 10 years, post-graduation, to career development, you should be making far more money over the course of your life, on average, than those who choose to immediately start a family,” Blanton says. “So to all the nonmarried, children-less millennials out there, keep eating your avocado toast, because it’s a lot cheaper than buying diapers.”
Furthermore, he adds, “In terms of spending, I think millennials are often portrayed in a negative and frivolous light. What a lot of these older generations see as ‘frittering’ money away is no more expensive than the older generations having kids at a younger age.”
Why putting off a family could hurt your financial picture. Of course, not every millennial is an executive and an entrepreneur. Yes, you might put money away during your 20s and 30s and get married later in life and be far more financially secure than if you married somewhere in your early or mid-20s.
For instance, Mike Gnitecki, a paramedic in Longview, Texas, says he puts everything he can into his retirement account from his paychecks.
“In the last two and a half years alone, I have saved $64,871.83 toward my retirement. This would not have been possible if I had the expenses of raising a family,” Gnitecki says, adding that he has a girlfriend but marriage isn’t on the “immediate horizon.”
Still, plenty of millennials are burdened by student debt (the average class of 2016 graduate owes $37,172, according to StudentLoanHero.com) and are underemployed, which Accenture defines as workers in jobs that don’t require their college degree. Last year, the company Accenture released a study that surveyed 1,013 college graduates from 2014 and 2015, and 51 percent of them said that they felt they were underemployed.
[See: 10 Ways to Repair Your Retirement Finances.]
If you marry late in life, say, in your late 30s, are underemployed, struggle to maintain decent health insurance and are burdened by debt, you could find yourself starting a family broke, remaining broke and going into credit card debt to keep things afloat and sending your kids off to college right around the time you’re realizing you hardly have saved anything for retirement.
Chuck Underwood, the founder and owner of a generational consulting firm called The Generational Imperative, Inc., in Miamisburg, Ohio, feels that millennials, as a group, are likely in trouble when it comes to preparing for retirement.
“They have shot their own personal finances in the foot by being the most frequent job-hopping generation in U.S. history. The average 26-year-old has had roughly seven full-time jobs since leaving the classroom,” Underwood says.
That means, he adds, that they have no sense of job stability, and stability is useful to have when starting a family.
He is sympathetic, though, toward millennials who end up waiting to get married and have kids, noting that today’s millennials are shouldering “unprecedented college debt” and that many of them have seen their parents divorce due to marrying too young and not being financially ready for marriage and parenthood.
[See: 11 Money Tips for Women.]
Whatever you do, save what you can, early and often. There’s really no right answer.
On one hand, you have Savannah Simons, a 25-year-old working in public relations in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who says that in high school, she was certain she wanted kids, and in college, less certain, and now that she manages her own money, even more hesitant about having children.
“Between the rising costs of tuition, health care, food and overall cost of living, it seems like you have to be making a minimum of six figures to raise one child,” Simons says, adding that her boyfriend feels the same way.
Whatever happens in the future, Simons says, she won’t get married unless she feels financially secure.
“I’ve always said, if you can’t afford a marriage license, you have no business getting married,” Simons says.
But then, on the other hand, you have Alec Sears, a 25-year-old recent college graduate who works as a communication specialist in Provo, Utah. He got married nine months ago. He and his wife are holding off on having children for a few years, in part since his wife is finishing up school and wants to get her career started as a registered nurse. He says that, so far, starting a family has been very good for his wallet, because it’s made him think more seriously about money.
“Since I’ve married, I have felt more inclined to save up and be thrifty,” Sears says.
Meanwhile, he says that he has watched several close single friends spending their days traveling, attending concerts and partying on exotic cruises.
“My best friend, when asked about dating and marriage, insists that he has to cram in as much fun as possible before getting tied down by work, taking care of a family and the real world,” Sears says.
Sears adds that his friend’s mindset isn’t a bad one at all. Indeed, it isn’t — especially if his friend is also putting money away for retirement and rainy days.
“When it comes down to it, you just have to be smart and know your priorities,” Sears says.
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Will Putting Off Marriage and Kids Help or Hurt Your Finances? originally appeared on usnews.com
