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The empty nest years are a time many parents may view with a mix of excitement and sorrow. It can be wonderful to see your child achieving independence and starting to rack up accomplishments. It can also be difficult to adjust to life without them. There might have been times when not being a chauffeur, cook and homework wrangler on top of your regular adult duties made the empty nest sound awfully tempting, but now that it's here, you may be having second thoughts. You can't stop time, however, so the next best thing is to be prepared for what comes next.

 

More Financial Obligations

Your child's out of the house, so it might come as a surprise that somehow your financial obligations to them have increased. This is particularly true if they are a college student although it could also happen if you are helping them do things such as pay for a wedding, buy a home or a car, or launch a business. College can be a particular headache. Your child may also need financial guidance in areas such as creating a budget or getting a credit card for the first time, but your primary concern may be the overall cost. One option for helping them out with that cost if you're a homeowner is a home equity line of credit. With a HELOC for college, you could get a line of credit that uses your home as collateral. One possible advantage of this approach is that you may be offered lower interest rates than would be available for a private student loan.

 

Relationship with Your Partner

There's a cliche about people splitting up once the kids have grown up and moved out. This doesn't happen to everyone, but it's not uncommon for parents who are still together to need to recalibrate their relationship when the children are gone. Parenting can be all-consuming, and when the house is suddenly much quieter and the everyday kid-related chores have vanished, you may realize just how consuming it has been. Some couples may find that they have little in common any longer. However, anticipating that things may change profoundly once the kids are out of the house can help you better prepare for this. You might want to talk about how you see your lives together once the kids have left home. You may want to start taking an interest in one another's hobbies and spending some time together talking about things not related to your children to start to build this bridge when your kids are still in their mid-teens.

 

Your Career

When you create your first career plan you have no idea what lies ahead in terms of fitting in both a personal and professional life. However, now you may find that you suddenly have time to devote to your career, particularly if you were the primary parent or if you and the other parent tried to split duties more or less equally. This could be a time of great ambition and accomplishment. On the other hand, with the kids grown up, you might find that you've lost some of your drive for career success. If your earning needs aren't as high now, you may decide to ease off on the throttle. This is also a time when it's not unusual for adults to begin exploring a second career. You may have time to retrain or go back to school now. With more people becoming parents at an older age, you might even be looking toward retirement in a few years. Whatever your situation, this can be a good time to reassess your career goals and ambitions and decide if you're still on the track you want to be on.

 

Your Leisure Time

You may miss having your kids and their friends around, but you probably can't deny that you have more leisure time now. You might want to give some conscious thought to how you want to spend it, particularly since you may be feeling a little bit low about how much quieter your house is these days. One option might be taking the opportunity to reconnect with friends you didn't have as much time for when you were raising a family. You might want to take this opportunity to pursue a time-consuming goal, such as training to run a marathon or getting a degree.