Variant 01 · Kids edition

How much do kids push back financial freedom?

Add the number of kids and what each one costs you. We run the math twice and show the gap.

years
after tax
$
/ month
$
all accounts
$
what a free year costs
$
0 to 5
default 20,000
$

Average US cost runs 15k to 25k per kid per year, food, clothes, activities and childcare combined.

Same FIRE math as the main calculator. Nothing is saved.

What this variant does

Same math, different question.

The standard FIRE calculator skips kids. This one asks how many you have, what each one costs you per year, and adds that to your spending for 18 years per kid.

The default of 20,000 dollars per kid per year is the middle of the USDA range for raising a child in the US. Add daycare and that number jumps. Subtract a hand-me-down lifestyle and it drops.

The result shows two numbers. Years to freedom without kids in the model, and years with kids. The gap is the cost of the family in years of working life.

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Other variants

Try the same math from another angle.

Standard calculator

Want the original five-question version with a shareable result?

How we calculated this

7% real return (historical US equity average). 4% safe withdrawal rate (Trinity Study). Freedom number = target annual spend × 25. Variant inputs adjust expenses or savings, then the same math runs. Taxes (beyond the moving-states variant) and Social Security are not modeled.