If you don’t have children and don’t plan on having any, many of the “default” settings of personal finance may not apply to you. You may not, for instance, plan on leaving legacy wealth, as many parents do, and you certainly don’t have to worry about paying for a kid’s wedding or college education.
But who will take care of you or make decisions on your behalf in the event that you can’t make them for yourself? For many Americans, the default answer is, “my kids.”
If something bad happens and you don’t have children who will take care of you, things can get complicated quickly, says Maddy Roche, chief growth officer at Childfree Trust, a fiduciary firm specializing in childfree and permanently childless people.
“Think about some of the structures that assume that you have children, whether it be insurance planning, estate planning, medical relationships,” she says. “You can’t get an elective surgery unless you have an emergency contact. Those are the things that we run up against when time’s too late.”
The solution, she says, is to start thinking about these scenarios early. “As hard as it is to think about the future, one of the best ways to ensure that you’ll be respected in the ways that you crave and deserve is to be proactive,” she says.
