£250,000: Is this the price of being single?

A recent study commissioned by an online comparison site claims living alone costs single people an extra £250,000 over a lifetime. Bearing the full burden of a mortgage or rent, holidays and bills, all adds up, single people spend more over the course of their life because they’re not part of a couple.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies don’t think it’s so clear cut, with the art of being a clever consumer more or less the same for the single people as anyone else. Dropping down a brand, making a shopping list, menu planning, – are all ways of cutting supermarket bills for everyone. But as we know, they do acknowledge it’s harder for singles when it comes to booking a holiday. So is being single more expensive?

Whilst couples do have a clear advantage with their buying power another school of thought says there are some other financial advantages for single people, with tax credits and benefits penalising couples.

But with the number of single-person households forecast to reach 9.5 million over the next decade are single people at a financial disadvantage? Is this the case? And if it is, what can be done to minimise the price of being single?

Time for a wake-up call?

Dedicated to your interests, we don’t plan settle for what’s available. It’s time for a wake-up call. Using the power of 1 to the power of 17 million people we’d like to ask all those providing household services all sorts of difficult questions in the year ahead.  Challenging them to provide better deals.

In this section we will be looking at:

We won’t be:

We will be: