I'm going to preface this by saying I don't have kids, and I love dogs (but currently don't have one). I'm 60.
I'd agree with a prior poster, that for many, having kids gives them an entirely different set of priorities. The important things in life shift. You gain a sense of responsibility that virtually nothing else can match. Your life really becomes focused on everything around your kids.And they are real time-sucker-uppers. But I guess for the vast majority, they see it as really well spent, valuable, enhancing time, and not a "bind". Having a dog is a responsibility, but in terms of tying you down, I don't think people generally see their kids in that way. There are of course exceptions and some people are just not cut out for the responsibility or just the commitment that kids brings.
But leaving the exceptions aside, from the all-time consuming first few years, to doing the school run, helping with homework, playing with them, being a taxi service, and helping them deal with their life issues, they become the purpose, the reason for living. And of course the reason why you work (to provide now, and hopefully in the future). And just as you are about to retire, if things go a certain way, you get grandchildren who you can spoil and spend time with, babysit, and help to be a role model for etc, and they become a bit of purpose in life, but you can leave them back at the end of the day and go on holidays etc.
Looking at it from my view, I feel that having no kids, it by definition makes you more selfish, simply because, you ultimately think about yourself first, you plan you finances around yourself, you plan your day and week around yourself, as you don't have anyone else whose whole life depends on you. Having kids, in my experience of looknig at others, takes that away.
I guess many are reading the above and thinking, that's a **** load of speak from someone who has never had kids...and that's right. But at 60, I'm looking into retirement in a couple of years, with a sense....what actually did I do ?...and what am I going to do. (I should be just ok moneywise). When others where dating I was all consumed by computers and programming, and never had thought for relationships. I could also *blame* an unwell mother that needed some care, but that might just be an excuse.
Thankfully I found someone later in life, but the time for kids for me had come and gone. It's a profound realisation that I pretty much got priorities wrong. I look at some friends I have now around the same age, and they have a whole new lease of life spending good time with their grandkids. Of course maybe part of all that is that I mighta been a crap parent, I'm not great at confrontation, so possibility they mighta run too free...I'll never know.
My experience is that most people struggle to fill time in a fulfilling way. a Hobby is fundamentally just a time-filler because you have little else to do. Spending days and hrs fine-tuning the performance of a PC that no one else uses, it does give a sense of achievement, but is it really the best use of time ?
So the purpose of the above was to provide this 60 years old's perspective and experience of not having kids, its a viewpoint that maybe a 20/30/40 year old might not consider. And how it effects your priorities in terms of finances, and perhaps some that have wanderlust are just trying to fill a time/life void that would not exist if there were kids. I should add that I accept that some have a genuinely rewarding job, and get a sense of life achievement from pursuing that, I can't say mines falls into that categore.
Although to be fair, what that has to do with whether £50K savings is enough...I have no idea !
