DINKs in their 50s who are on track to retire early explain what being childfree has meant for their lifestyle and finances

• Wendy and Steve Thomas are longtime DINKs, which stands for double income, no kids.
• They didn't necessarily set out to become DINKs, but it's a lifestyle that's worked well.

Wendy and Steve Thomas didn't necessarily set out to be DINKs, but it's a lifestyle that's worked out for them.

Wendy Thomas, 55, and Steve Thomas, 51, are a California-based couple in a growing legion of Americans who are DINKS — households that are double income, with no kids.

They've been married for about 20 years and have cultivated a strong social network of fellow DINKs; they even started a DINK club in their previous neighborhood and count at least a dozen DINK couples among their close friends.

It's a lifestyle they "fell into," according to Steve Thomas, who works in the golf maintenance industry. When they first got married, they were open to having kids and did want them, but ended up not having them.

"I think we soon started seeing some of the perks to that," Steve Thomas said, adding: "We found out really quickly just specifically the financial perk of being able to both work and save."

The financial perks of being DINKs help them travel and live a life that is "very active and very fun."

"Southern California has a very expensive cost of living," Steve Thomas said. "To be able to live a comfortable lifestyle out here with the dual income is huge."

Wendy Thomas, a former interior designer, retired at 55. These days, she's obsessed with pickleball.

"It's a whole new community that I found, and I'm having so much fun meeting new people," she said. She also loves photography, cooking, and spending time outdoors in her native California.

"Going to the redwoods and just hanging out along the coast has just been such a wonderful thing and a big part of our life and also our friendships," Wendy Thomas said. "A lot of people that we know we like to go on road trips with, so it's just been a real blessing to live where we live."

For Wendy and Steve, being DINKs means the time and resources to do the things that they value. And they're not alone. More women between the ages of 40 and 44 are opting to be child-free. As of 2018, over one in seven American women in that age range were childless, compared to one in 10 as of 1976, according to the US Census Bureau. And 16.5% of Americans aged 55 or older were childfree as of 2018.

As parenthood only becomes more costly, DINK-hood, and the financial security it brings, might get even more appealing. Gen Z and millennial parents previously told BI that they're struggling to stay afloat, as lack of policy and tightening economic strains leave them cash-strapped and isolated. As more Gen Zers and millennials say they're living paycheck to paycheck and say that starting a family is only getting harder or is outright impossible, it might be the dawn of a DINK era. It's a lifestyle that already is making a lot of sense for some millennials and Gen Zers.

Meanwhile, DINKs are doing well financially. The median net worth of a couple with no children is $399,000, per the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances; that's well above all other family structures.

The privilege of time

Watching the realities of parenthood and the time it demanded was eye-opening for Wendy Thomas, who spent a few years working as a teacher for younger children and saw how strained new parents were and how their lives had transformed.

Suddenly, new parents' time was consumed by their children — and, from her conversations, it seems that "nobody quite prepares you for the amount of time" and how all-consuming it can be.

"Once we started seeing what actually ends up happening, reality versus fairytale, then our eyes were kind of opened," she said. When you're younger and contemplating getting married, there's almost a "fairytale type of situation" presented to you of what life will look like.

"But raising kids is not for the faint of heart at all. It's something that you really have to be committed to doing. And if it's something that you're not a hundred percent there mentally to be able to handle, then I would say it's not a necessity," she said.

Not having kids also means more flexibility. If a friend sends a last-minute invite to an interesting event, it's easy to head out the door. If they want to move or explore a new area, they can. Steve Thomas said that last year, they were able to travel for more than a month. That's something that people with children might not be able to do.

At their current ages, the couple is seeing more of their friends become empty nesters, recalibrating their lives and relationships. Wendy Thomas said it's almost like "starting over" for those couples.

"That's not to say that parents with kids can't have a long, happy, healthy marriage or that DINKs never get divorced," Steve Thomas said. "All those things happen, but it just makes a lot of sense what we're living."

And the couple isn't out proselytizing the DINK lifestyle, although it can elicit a lot of questions from strangers. While occasionally people will tell them they're missing out or express worry about future loneliness, many people commend the financial choice.

"We both have a retire-relatively-early goal in mind, so we can really enjoy life and travel and then not doing the 'work to live, live to work,' whole balance thing," Steve Thomas said, adding: "That was always one of the perks to what we're doing."

Are you a DINK who loves the lifestyle or do you aspire to be one? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@insider.com.

This story was originally published in December 2023.