Key financial questions to consider as you adjust your budget, housing plans and retirement goals.

Once the kids move out of the house, empty nesters often find themselves with new spending options and priorities. Reassessing your budget and goals can help support your financial well-being in this new phase of life. Use these four questions to get started.

1. How has daily spending shifted?

With fewer people in the house, the costs of groceries, household supplies and utilities typically go down. Removing a driver from your auto insurance or a device from your phone plan can result in more savings. How will you redirect the difference? Pay down debt? Save money to build up an emergency fund? Boost your retirement account?

2. Do you plan to stay in your current home?

The decision to stay in the home where you raised your kids or move is highly personal. Some parents want space where their grown children, and perhaps their partners and children, can visit and stay. Others see an empty nest as an opportunity to downsize or move to a home that requires less maintenance.

If you plan to stay in your home, what repairs or upgrades will be needed over the next 10 to 20 years? Are modifications that will allow you to age in place needed? How will your budget absorb future increases in insurance premiums, property taxes and possibly medical expenses? If  you’re unable to perform maintenance and yardwork in the future, can you afford to hire help?

If you want to sell, what will your home likely sell for? What will a new place cost, including rent or mortgage, insurance, taxes, possible HOA fees and utilities? If relocating, what will you spend on travel to visit friends and family you leave behind?

Assess how moving or staying in your home will affect future finances.

3. How robust are your retirement savings?

Some empty nesters feel confident about having enough in retirement savings while others see the need to save more. If you’re in the latter group, could you redirect the money you used to spend on your kids—including sports, tuition and other expenses—to save for retirement?

If you seek to build retirement savings as much as possible and you’re age 50 and up, you can make catch-up contributions between $1,100 and $11,250 in addition to standard contribution amounts for 2026. Get details from the IRS on catch-up contributions for specific retirement plans here.

4. If you have term life insurance, have you re-evaluated your needs?

Many parents purchase term life insurance to provide financial protection for their kids until they become adults. Once the kids become financially independent, empty nesters may decide to reduce or eliminate coverage and apply the money saved to other priorities.

Becoming an empty nester is an ideal time to reassess your budget and make intentional decisions about spending, where you live and investing. The plans you make now can help support the lifestyle you want in the years ahead.

 

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