The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Retiring Early with Young Kids
Retiring early with kids sounds perfect, but the reality isn’t always easy.
I retired in 2021 at the age of 42 with twin one-year-olds and a three-year-old. There’s more time, more memories, and a lot more responsibility than people expect.
In this gallery, I’m sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of early retirement with kids, plus the financial preparation that made it manageable.
If you’ve retired early with kids too, I’d love to hear what worked for you. Share your story or tips in the comments and let’s build something useful together.
👉 Tap or Click through the slides to see what it’s really like to retire early while raising young kids.
Table of Contents
The Good: Complete Freedom With Your Kids
One of the best parts of early retirement is total control of your time. You’re not working around meetings or weekends, you set the schedule.
Just recently, we had what I called “Baseball Day,” packed with pretzels, batting cages, stadium stops, and games. These full, spontaneous days become core memories for your kids.
Freedom like that is hard to beat.
The Good: Being a Hyper-Engaged Parent
You’re there for every milestone and moment: first steps, school drop-offs, after-school talks. Retiring early lets you be a full-time parent, not a part-time one squeezed in around work.
You’re not catching up at dinner, you’ve been present all day. That level of engagement builds strong bonds and real connection. It’s the kind of presence most working parents wish they had more of.
How To Be A Good Dad: Be Present
The Good: Becoming a True Role Model
Your kids grow up watching what smart decisions actually look like. You’re not just telling them to save and invest, you’re living proof of what that creates.
They see you home, available, and financially stable, without needing to chase status. Early retirement sets an example they carry forward. The message is clear: time matters more than titles.
The Good: Rediscovering Purpose Through Parenting
Retiring early doesn’t mean losing purpose, it just shifts it. Instead of meetings and deadlines, your day centers on raising your kids. You’re focused on shaping who they become, not just providing for them.
That’s a different kind of success, but no less important. And it lasts a lot longer than any career title ever will.
The Good: Teaching Kids How Money Actually Works
Kids learn from what they see. When you retire early, they see money handled with clarity: budgeting, investing, and spending with purpose. They notice there’s no daily job, but bills still get paid.
It teaches them that smart planning builds freedom. Most adults never get that kind of financial education, but your kids do, just by living with you.
We also made this related Video: 25 Effective Ways to Teach Kids How Money Really Works
The Bad: Losing a Sense of Identity
Leaving your job means losing part of how you define yourself. For some, that shift hits hard. Work often provides goals, structure, and status, and when it’s gone, you’re left rebuilding from scratch.
Your days revolve around your kids, and your personal ambitions can fade into the background. This hasn’t affected me personally, but I’ve seen others really struggle with it.
The Bad: Feeling Isolated From Friends Who Still Work
Most of your peers are still working. Their lives are shaped by work meetings, deadlines, and limited free time, while yours looks completely different. That disconnect can make relationships harder to maintain.
It’s tough to relate to their stress, and they don’t always understand your world either. Over time, the distance becomes more noticeable.
Early Retirement Challenges: What I Learned After Leaving Work at 42
The Bad: Feeling Taken Advantage Of by Other Parents
We’re always home, and the neighborhood knows it. Other parents send their kids over often, sometimes ten times for every one time they host ours.
It’s great in theory, my wife always wanted to be the house where the neighborhood kids love to play. But it can feel frustrating. We didn’t retire early to run free daycare for other families.
They can’t reciprocate either. They work.
The Ugly: Dealing With Constant Demands
Young kids don’t stop. They wake up early, ask for attention all day, and want you involved in everything. It’s one of the reasons early retirement made sense, to be there, but it’s also nonstop.
That level of need is exhausting, especially without breaks. Some days feel more draining than any job I ever had.
🙋♂️If you like what you are reading so far, subscribe to the DadisFIRE newsletter and follow DadisFIRE on YouTube.💪
The Ugly: Building Unhealthy Dependency
When you’re always around, your kids get used to it. That can lead to separation anxiety, even for short outings. They don’t see other adults as caregivers in the same way.
It becomes harder to create space for yourself or focus on anything that doesn’t involve them. That constant closeness has a downside.
Temper Tantrum: How To Stop The Meltdowns
The Ugly: Losing Structure in Your Days
Without work, your days can blur together. There’s no schedule unless you create one, and that’s harder than it sounds with kids running the show. One chaotic morning can throw off the whole week.
Over time, the lack of structure adds stress instead of removing it. Freedom still needs boundaries.
The Ugly: Lack of Appreciation
Kids don’t understand financial independence or sacrifice. They just expect you to be there. You’re giving them time, energy, and focus, but they won’t say thank you. Not because they’re ungrateful, because they’re young.
It can be tough to give so much and still feel invisible some days.
Life Lessons: What To Teach Your Kid Or Anyone
The Ugly: It’s Draining in Ways You Don’t Expect
There’s no clocking out. No commute to decompress. You’re on from the moment they wake up until bedtime, and even then you might be handling something.
It’s a different kind of work, but just as tiring, sometimes more. That’s the part no one warns you about when they talk about early retirement.
Financial Planning for Early Retirement With Kids
Retiring early with kids means your financial plan has to be solid. You’re not just covering food and housing, you’ve got childcare, education, healthcare, and activities to plan for.
We built a detailed budget and stuck to it. We also maxed out retirement accounts, kept a strong emergency fund, and focused on low-cost living. Saving aggressively before retiring made the day-to-day feel a lot less risky.
Think Raising Kids Is Too Expensive? Not If You Follow These Steps
Creating Passive Income for Early Retirement With Kids
You still need income after you stop working but it doesn’t have to come from a job. For us, that meant rental properties, investment accounts, and a few small side hustles that didn’t take too much time.
The goal was steady income with minimal effort so we could focus on family. It’s not about never working again, it’s about never needing to. When the money flows in without trading your time, parenting gets a lot easier.
What Retiring Early With Young Kids Really Feels Like
Retiring early with young kids sounds ideal, but it comes with real costs. You get time, presence, and memories, but also demands, noise, and constant action.
Some days feel like winning, others feel like work never ended. The trade-off is worth it, but only if you plan well and know what you’re getting into.
Financial freedom doesn’t mean freedom from responsibility, it just lets you choose the ones that matter most. And for me, that choice has always been my kids.
🙋♂️If you like what you just read, subscribe to the DadisFIRE newsletter and follow DadisFIRE on YouTube. 💪
