DINKS Are Living Their BEST RICH Lives While Everyone Else is BROKE!

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]No one believes me that having dual income and no kids is a huge hack for building wealth by moving in together.

[00:00:06]What we did is we combined our finances and we're able to put back so much money.

[00:00:10]>> We both get paid bi-weekly and after taxes we expect to take home a combined income of $11,600 and believe it or not a semianual shopping spree for the both of us.

[00:00:21]>> That dink money dual income no kids.

[00:00:24]That's the that's like real. I'm seeing so much hate about this and honestly I'm here for it because it's not talked about enough. Dual income, no kids.

[00:00:35]>> So, one of the big reasons why I can't have children among many other are that my husband and I get 12 hours of sleep every weekend.

[00:00:42]>> Why is nobody talking about being dinks?

[00:00:44]Well, I'm freshly married and I'm going to talk about it. Here's a life as dinks in early 30s.

[00:00:48]>> It's always going to be comparison, but they got to understand we live a totally different life. I don't have kids.

[00:00:52]>> What is going on guys? JC here and today we're talking about dual income no kids.

[00:00:57]And this is a term that's become popular in the last 10 years or so, maybe a little bit less than that. And it's referring to mostly couples who are together. They combine their resources and they pretty much achieve economies of scale, if you will, by living together without kids. And right now, what we're going to do is define that, what a dink is through the lens of two people. And then we can look into the lifestyle of some dinks, some budgeting, habits of some dinks, and a little bit of data on what a dink actually is.

[00:01:27]>> No one believes me that having dual income and no kids is a huge hack for building wealth. Two incomes, two sets of expenses, two incomes, two cars.

[00:01:37]Basically, people are making the case that if you have two people and two incomes, it's the same as having one person, one income. But people are missing the point about it being dual income no kids or dink as a relationship. If it's you and your friend and your roommates, you're probably not sharing a bed typically.

[00:01:54]But if you're in a relationship that's romantic, you probably are going to share a bed. If you're married, you probably are going to share a bed. And so you don't have to get an apartment that has two bedrooms. You can get an apartment with one bedroom and still have two incomes. So, when I say invest one income and spend the other and use that as your way to build wealth, I'm referring to people who have dink status, dual income, no kids in a romantic relationship. My husband and I have been doing this the entire time we've been married, and it's caused us to have an entire second income that we can use just as discretionary money for investing, saving, being generous, etc. The reason we started doing this is because when we got married, I was still in school. So, we had to do this because it was the way we had to survive. Now that I'm working, we're able to take my entire income and use it for things that we want to pay for. We've also been very intentional about avoiding lifestyle creep, which is where you make more money and then spend more money and then you feel like you have the same amount of money. So now that we make double the money, instead of going out and paying double the rent, we've stayed in the same apartment and negotiated to try to keep our terms still reasonable. And >> essentially, what she defines a dink as being is a couple. She didn't say they have to be be married, I don't think, even though she is married, but she's saying a couple. And it makes sense because, as she mentioned, we've all been there, at least a lot of us. We've had roommates before or we live with a friend maybe for maybe a short period of time. And even though you can kind of split cost a bit, maybe one night you, you know, go half on dinner or something like that, typically you're not going to achieve the same level of financial benefits as you would with a romantic relationship, right? Like she said, you're probably going to have two bedrooms in an apartment instead of one.

[00:03:40]You're probably each going to have your own car and not share one car. If you're not in a romantic relationship, you're probably not going to be willing to not work or let's say take your money and put it into an investment that benefits both of you. You're going to have your own separate investment accounts. You get the idea. So, I do think personally that being a dink, I think, does have the piece there that you're in a romantic relationship and you can achieve economies of scale. It's not as simple as two people, two incomes, is no difference. It's not the same thing. And we do know there's a real thing as such as a single tax. We know if you go on trips, if you go on a cruise, you going on a vacation, stay at a resort, a lot of different scenarios, you do get figuratively and literally taxed for it just being you. You don't get the same discounts, the same benefits. But before we go any further in this, I do want to cover another person who she is saying that you can be a dink without being in a romantic relationship. Let's see what she has to say and let me know what you think about this. It's expensive to be single and nobody really talks about that. So, a year and a half ago, I ended up moving in with my cousin. We made a strategic decision to move in together.

[00:04:47]And I looked at her and I was like, "You know what? You single, I'm single. Why don't we move in together?" And what we ended up doing is creating a double income, no kid dink household. And I remember I ended up writing an article about this and somebody was like, "I never thought about it. I always thought about dinks as married people who make dinks. I made a dink with my cousin, right? Double income, no kid household.

[00:05:08]Now, here's the thing. Me and my cousin can both afford to live on our own. But by moving in together, what we did is we combined our finances and were able to put back so much money by moving in together. But outside of that, it's very expensive to be single. At the end of the day, married people have two incomes coming into that household. So, if one person during this recession that is coming up loses that job, there is some other person to to fall back on. Me as a single woman, if I lose that job, there is no second income. But for me, I always want to ensure I have multiple streams of revenue, multiple streams of topline coming in because as a single woman, I want to ensure I am thinking about my longterm success.

[00:05:50]>> So, she said something there towards the end that made me really make my mind up cuz I was on the fence on whether or not I thought that a non-married couple or a non-romantic relationship could be considered dinks. And I think I'm going to go with no only because you heard what she said. She said that in the upcoming recession, right, that she thinks is on the way that if she was to lose her job, she has someone to fall back on. But do you really think her cousin is going to let her fall back on her for very long? Doesn't seem like it's really reasonable, right? If I was in a roommate situation, I had a friend and we were roommating together. We're not in a romantic relationship. It was me and another guy. We're sharing an apartment. We each have our own bedroom in the apartment. And he gets laid off and he's like, "Hey, listen. I got laid off. Do you mind covering for a month or two until I get back on my feet? I'll pay you back. I'll be like, "Sure, no problem." But you think I'm going to do that do that for 6 months or longer? No.

[00:06:38]Now, if it's my wife, it's a different story. So, I think there's a difference between having a roommate or splitting the cost of rent and being in a dink relationship. But again, let me know what you think.

[00:06:52]That's what I personally think. Let's see what Let's look at some definitions and get some better ideas of what a dink actually is. This is from the Pew Research Center and they're talking about dual income no kids. They're going to define it. Let's see how they define it. So they're saying first and foremost in the United States, let's make this bigger. They're saying in the United States that 12% of married couples in their 30s and 40s are dink. So we already have an idea of how they're going to define this. So the Pew Research Center is saying that there's no official definition for what a dink is, but they are going to include in the group married couples in which at least one spouse is 39 to 49 years old. So that also gives you a little bit insight into how they're defining it. They're excluding younger folks. And we're going to find out why in a second. I have an idea already. So they chose the age range to capture couples who are older than the average age at first birth for women in the US, I'm assuming, which is 27 and a half years old. So essentially, they're saying if you're kind of below 30, you really can't call yourself a dink cuz you haven't even really hit that point to where you're likely to have kids. So you just don't have kids yet. But if you're in your 30s, 40s, close to 50, and you and the person you're with romantically don't have kids yet is more of a sign that you've chosen this new lifestyle, quote unquote. So, the Pew Research Center also is going to specifically define dinks as being married couples, not just cohabitating couples. And they're saying that's because they think that married couples are more likely to pull their finances.

[00:08:22]And that goes back directly to what we were just discussing about how yeah, you can roommate with you can be a roommate with your cousin. That's all good. I think it's great actually that you are living below your means, not having lifestyle creep, and again achieving economies of scale. You're still paying less than you would be living on your own. The difference is if the if the rubber really needs to meet the road and things really get tough, it's unlikely that you're all, you know, you're going to be your your cousin's fall back for one year, two years, three years. So, let's take a look now at some people who are dinks and who are going to give us a little bit of insight, a peak behind a curtain if you will, on how they manage their budgeting, their finances, so we can get an idea of what the difference is between a standard DE couple and a single person.

[00:09:04]>> Dink's doing their monthly budget. Dink stands for dual income, no kids, but we have two dogs, Louis and Chance. This is my boyfriend of 15 years, fiance of two years, and now husband of 6 months.

[00:09:17]I'm a nurse.

[00:09:19]>> I'm nervous.

[00:09:21]>> I'm a nurse.

[00:09:22]>> I'm an accountant.

[00:09:23]>> And we're going to be doing a monthly budget for February. So, we both get paid bi-weekly and after taxes, we expect to take home a combined income of $11,600.

[00:09:32]These are our fixed monthly expenses.

[00:09:34]So, our mortgage is $2,540.3.

[00:09:37]HOA is $350. This is a total of $2,898.3.

[00:09:42]For bills and utilities, like our phone bill, internet waste, gas, electricity, and car insurance, it comes out to a total of $995.71.

[00:09:51]For our dog expenses, like dog insurance, dog food, dog grass that we have a subscription for monthly comes out to a total of $4642.

[00:10:01]Our monthly subscriptions like Netflix, Disney Plus, Spotify, Hulu, Gym, and other subscriptions comes out to a total of $235.94.

[00:10:10]We want to budget for around $500 of grocery next month and then $300 of eating out. So that would be a total of $800. Gas to budget around $275. And when it comes to our own debt, like student loans and credit card, we each pay for our own debt. So for the month of February, we are expected to be paying $9,1110.

[00:10:30]After subtracting from our expected income, which is $11,600, we're expected to have a leftover of $2,588.90.

[00:10:39]So, we do have trips planned this year, like weddings, batches. So, we want to add $1,000 to our savings. And then for the emergency fund, add $1,000 to that.

[00:10:46]And then spending for ourselves, we'll do $300 and then we'll have a buffer of $288.

[00:10:52]>> Okay, so I want to back it up. She said a lot here which really all we need to pay attention to is the first part because she said they bring in close to $12,000 a month combined. I think that's net. I think that's net which is pretty good income. Now what did she say about their mortgage? Let's take it back. So their mortgage is $2,898.

[00:11:09]So not $2,900. We can round it to 3,000 for easy math. So let's just say that they live in a one-bedroom apartment. Oh no, mortgage. A one-bedroom house. Okay.

[00:11:19]So, let's assume they were both single and living alone and they both had a house on their own. They're still going to be paying probably close to that $3,000 a month in a mortgage. Maybe it's a smaller house they get. Who knows?

[00:11:29]Maybe they're paying 2500, whatever. But look at how much they're saving just by having a house together. People like this is common sense. Duh. But again, we have changing.

[00:11:39]I don't know. We have modern families nowadays. So, people are having kids later. Some people have no kids at all.

[00:11:45]They don't want to have kids ever. And so there are a lot of, you know, they're having fewer kids. So there are a lot of different ways that people are doing relationships now. And so that's why this this term has come about and become more popular. I think so. Again, I think that just just the amount of money you're going to save alone on a mortgage payment or on rent alone. That's it. And splitting groceries because yes, you're still eating for two people, but you can buy in bulk.

[00:12:10]You're saving tons of money as a dean couple compared to a couple with kids and even a couple or sorry and even a person who single and doesn't have kids at all.

[00:12:21]>> Hey friends, it's payday today. So come budget my paycheck with me as a 25-year-old living in Los Angeles. So this year I thought it'd be beneficial to go over my husband and I's income combined and not just mine just to give any couples out there an idea of how we manage our finances together. So this year, my husband and I are focusing on redirecting our money into scing funds to support a pre-planned trip, emergency fund, and believe it or not, a semianual shopping spree for the both of us. We want to start focusing on getting quality clothing over fast fashion. So we set up to update our wardrobe every summer and fall for the changing season.

[00:12:56]We got paid $1,938 for the week and put aside $686 for rent, $887 to our bill account, and the remaining $365 went to our checking account to split into savings and groceries.

[00:13:09]>> Okay, let's stop here because she already said something that most people are not going to be able to do without going to credit card debt, without being irresponsible financially. That is. She said that her and her husband go on a semianual shopping spree. Now, how are you how many couples that have kids, right, go on semianual shopping sprees?

[00:13:27]I doubt very many unless they are very high income. Now, let's take a look at some of the numbers. She says per week they're bringing about $2,000. So, about $8,000 a month. They're putting what?

[00:13:37]686 away for the rents. I'm guessing that's okay by week. So, then that's about what is that? 6 * 2 is 12 24 was that 1,400? No, no, 2,600 maybe for rent. So once again, have a lot of disposable income obviously because how else you can take a semi annual shopping spree. Now she says she's 25 years old as we just saw from that Pew Research definition. They don't typically make the cut in that case because they're under that 30 year old threshold. So they may not be technically dinks by that definition, but I'm sure there are plenty of unofficial definitions out there. Yo, I just want to let you know as your older brother that if you're moving in with your boyfriend or girlfriend and you think it's going to last a while, even if you don't, start socking away that money. That dink money, dual income, no kids, that's the that's like real. You could sock away so much money when you don't have kids and you live with someone. We're still living off of the benefits of the money that we saved together when we didn't have kids. We met at 28, moved in together about 30, 31, and we were able to sock away a good amount of money. So, I'm telling you, if you're moving in with someone, doesn't matter what age you are, that is a great time to save.

[00:14:57]We neither of us really started saving significantly until we moved in together. So, I'll say it again. You're moving in with someone, you love each other. Hopefully, it's going to work out. It should work out cuz like you're moving in with someone, right? and like in your mind you said, "Oh, this is going to work. I want to do this." Start saving that money. It'll help you tremendously down the road.

[00:15:17]>> I don't think I like the idea of intermingling finances before you are actually intermingled, if you know what I mean. And I'm not talking about uh what what's what did uh Will Smith's wife say? I'm not talking about entanglements. I'm talking about legit engagements and marriages. Nonetheless, he has another point. And yeah, he said he wasn't even able to save really until he actually moved in with his now wife, I think. So that just goes to show you how powerful it can be. He's and again, it is different than having a roommate.

[00:15:47]I've already gave my opinion why that is. I think we can all understand that.

[00:15:52]But yes, the power is definitely in the pudding. Coming back to this Pew Research article again really quickly, I wanted to point two things out that they brought up that I thought was interesting. One thing is they're saying that Dink couples tend to have um higher levels of education. It's saying that 58% of Dink couples, both spouses, have at least a bachelor's degree, whereas 43% of couples who have kids have bachelor's degrees. They also say that Dink couples earn more income than couples who have kids. So median household income for dinks is $193,000 as of a few years ago, whereas the number is 151,000, about 152,000 for couples with kids. Now, they do say that couples who have kids tend to have more wealth than those who have dinks, even though dinks have higher incomes. I'm going to assume that's because those couples are a bit older who have kids, so they have more time to obviously build their nest egg. But nonetheless, it just goes to show you, I think obviously a driving force behind this whole new dink movement, if you will, is the fact that people are waiting longer to have kids and start families if at all because they're focusing on going to school, getting educations, getting degrees, which leads to earning higher incomes, graduating later, and quote unquote starting your life a bit later.

[00:17:01]So maybe you delay having kids, you want to travel more, experience life, the whole nine yards. With all this being said, the whole idea of a dink comes with stigmas against it or attached to it. By the way, there's all kinds of dinks. There's Dink wads, which is dual income with a dog, I think. Dink wax, dual incomes with a cat. They some have something called dinkies, which sounds absolutely ridiculous, which is dual incomes, no kids yet, which to me just means you're not a dink couple. You just haven't had kids yet. There's all kinds of names. Anyways, the stigma that comes along with it is people tend to call you selfish. They might call you lazy. They might call you all kinds of different things. And she is going to talk about that a little bit more in depth here.

[00:17:38]I'm seeing so much hate about this and honestly I'm here for it because it's not talked about enough. Dual income, no kids. It never ceases to amaze me for the people that I know or on the internet are less mature or you're not grown up enough yet or just just wait till they have kids. They'll see. They just they're still a little immature.

[00:18:01]It makes me absolutely cringe every single time. It doesn't matter if you're 20, 25, 40, and you still don't have kids. And people are still wondering like, "What are you waiting on?"

[00:18:12]Nothing. I'm waiting on nothing. I'm 25.

[00:18:14]My husband's 28. We travel a lot. We got two little pups back here. Um, both work full-time, and there is not a day that I wake up yet and think, "My life would be better if I had children." And before all these moms start trolling my page and tell me I need Jesus, I've got him. He loves me and he will love me without children.

[00:18:39]Your career, the things you're passionate about, the things that make you happy, the people in your life, the company you have, those things are also really important. And you are not defined by kids.

[00:18:52]We love to book a trip and impulsively just leave. We love to just go on trips and take the pups and not have to worry about what time we need to be back. We get to wake up at 7:00 in the morning and go get some coffee or we get to sleep until noon because we binge watched a show till 2:00 in the morning until I have this hole in my heart and it can't be fixed unless I have a kid.

[00:19:14]I'm not going to have one. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

[00:19:18]>> So, I'm going to preface what I'm saying by starting with the fact that she's 25.

[00:19:22]Once again, we know that from that Pew Research article, I think they said the average age now for the uh for a woman to first have or have their first child is 27 and a half. So, she's a couple years before that. So, but for those people who are out there in their 30s and 40s who don't have children, who feel the same way that she does, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think that we all free to choose the lifestyle we want to choose as long as we're not hurting anyone else. And if you don't feel ready to have a child, then probably shouldn't have one. Right now, I've heard stories where people say they're not ready and that you'll never feel ready and that once you do have the kid, everything changes and your world changes and the sky opens up and you fall in love and all. I'm sure that's true. That said, I mean, we are living in a bit different times, I guess, if you will. Although, sometimes I wonder if that's true or if it's just more so the social media and internet and things like that is more ubiquitous, which I guess would make things different still.

[00:20:11]All that said, um, look, I think it's a good strategy to use. I think especially if you know you want kids and you're preparing to have them intentionally, it's a great strategy to live below your means, stack away a lot of money, invest a lot of money, pay off your debt, you know, get a a home that's in a good neighborhood that you can live in for a while so you don't have to continually upgrade and, you know, go from your starter home to a bigger home and now you're just starting to amortization schedule over again. Taking all these things into consideration ahead of time and having that foresight I think is the power superpower to being able to leverage your dink lifestyle. And then of course there are the perks to it.

[00:20:50]Like she said, sleeping in till 7 or 12 in the afternoon because you binge watch the movies. Getting up anytime you want, going on impromptu vacations. You can't really do that when you have kids. You can barely do it when you have dogs, let alone kids. So if you're in that stage of life, enjoy it. And then once you have kids, pour everything you have into them. That said, let's take a quick look at some of the lifestyles that people are talking about that they're having as dual income, no kids.

[00:21:12]>> So, one of the big reasons why I can't have children, among many other are that my husband and I get 12 hours of sleep every weekend. Literally, we're starting our mornings usually at like 11:30 a.m.

[00:21:23]Unless I go to a workout class, but still, I don't go to workout class any earlier than 11:30 on the weekends. We just love our sleep. We love having our slow mornings. I can't imagine ever wanting to change that selfishly. So, we usually enjoy a breakfast around noon and then we'll go out for a walk or we'll meet up with friends. I am ready for a house though because like this is ridiculous. This is how I have to walk to my table. So, ready for a house, not ready for kids. Still need my sleep. I don't think I'll ever get over that. Why is nobody talking about being dinks?

[00:21:51]Well, I'm freshly married and I'm going to talk about it. Here's a life as dinks in early 30s. No shocker here, folks.

[00:21:55]Today, we went to Costco. We don't have kids to feed, but we got lots of money to spend on goodies. Brian always checks out while I get a box and then I sit here and look cute. Here's the haul. And her total was $252. The register game at Costco never gets old. You cannot tell me that grocery shopping and a fresh slice of Costco pizza isn't a good date night. I mean, you can tell me that, but I don't believe it.

[00:22:13]>> It's always going to be comparison, but they got to understand we live a totally different life. I don't have kids.

[00:22:18]>> Mhm.

[00:22:18]>> You get what I'm trying to say? I don't have to go as hard. Like, I I I'm straight. I'm good. I'm more than good.

[00:22:24]So, it's like >> when I feel like it, I do. And when I don't feel like it, I don't.

[00:22:30]>> Mhm. to is just that simple.

[00:22:32]>> So, there are a few Dink couples that we just saw there and they are demonstrating their lifestyle. Waking up at noon, going to Pilates, having the most millennial breakfast in the morning of avocado toast. My gosh. Going on ski trips and vacations and horseback riding whenever they want to, having late night pizza dinner dates, which you could probably do with kids. That'd be kind of fun. You know, just they're just showing how they're enjoying their life as couples that are married and have a good amount of extra disposable income. I'm not mad at it. And again, who's to say that these people will never have kids?

[00:23:02]They probably will. Most of them most likely will by, you know, statistically speaking. But even if they didn't, you know, I know people personally very close to me who have never had kids and they're up in age now. And um, you know, they're very outgoing people and they have a big community that keeps them engaged and connected and they seem fairly happy and financially speaking probably better off than a lot of the people I know who who have kids. Not to say you can't be financially successful with kids. It's not what I'm saying at all. Anyways, I thought this was pretty interesting. Just something I've seen pop up uh on my timeline and just in not the news. I don't really watch the news, but on my social media feed, let's say.

[00:23:42]And so, I thought I'd cover it because I thought, you know, it's interesting. I don't know. Let me know what you think, guys. What do you think about all this?

[00:23:47]Do you think it's just another term that people are assigning to some to something that doesn't need another term? like everything now has a is is a definition or a cool fancy name to it for something that's already existed for centuries. So, it's just yet another one of those things or is there something to this? Let me know. Curious to know. That being said, thanks for sticking around this far video. I really appreciate it.

[00:24:09]And as always, until next time, make smart financial decisions.