Adult single life in the UK presents unique financial hurdles. Most folks don’t pay attention to these pesky little things, but boy can they kill your budget! TV licenses and gym memberships are costly luxuries bankruptcy doesn’t stretch to cover. This points to the massive mobility dividend disparity between singles and couples. From electric to water and sewer services, many critical services provide zero discounts for single persons. Because of this, the economic cost can be extreme, affecting expenses such as rent and transportation costs.
Rachel has lived by herself since 2017 and pays an annual fee of £169.50 for her TV licence. Sorry, we are unable to offer a reduced rate for single occupancy. This charge does not change depending on if a single individual or multiple people live in a household, resulting in an unavoidable fixed cost. If Rachel lived in a shared home under a joint tenancy agreement, such as with roommates, she would still only need one license to cover all devices in that home. This arrangement would create substantial savings for each person living in the unit.
All the singles point to great expenses surprising to renting. It’s a massive cost. Meanwhile, in Edinburgh, the average price to rent a room is £844 per month. Unfortunately, this cost is disproportionately borne by people who live alone. The number of people looking for rooms as couples has increased by 67% in 2023 compared to 2019, according to the flatshare website SpareRoom. Matt Hutchinson, director of shared property site Movebubble, adds that the division of rent in house shares can be arbitrary. It’s not just divided evenly by rooms, making it very inconvenient to live as a single person.
Entertainment and Travel Costs
Entertainment subscriptions and travel paint an even starker picture of the monetary disadvantage single people experience. A traditional Netflix subscription at £10.99 a month can be split across two devices at once. Couples can share this cost, thus bringing their per-person costs down by half. Our Network Railcard gives you a great chance to save. When two of them take their breaks together, they can get one-third off their rail fares for just £30 a year. This benefit is not available to those who travel alone.
For health clubgoers, single-person gym memberships can be even more expensive. Joint Memberships Nuffield Health provide 15% off joint memberships when you join in-club. Total Fitness offers a 10% discount on two individual memberships with your “couple membership.” These discounts encourage couples to sign up together, while singles have no such alternative available to them.
Insurance and Household Expenses
Insurance and household expenses are another financial obstacle singles face. The average cost of buildings and contents combined cover for a property with a single person is £275.40 per year. In comparison, married couples are charged £292.91 a year. This minor difference hardly addresses the larger per-person cost singles are incurring. Alicia Hempsted explains that insurers consider various factors, including claim frequencies and costs when determining premiums.
Adding a low-risk named driver to your policy will help save money by distributing the risk. For many, especially for people without cohabitating partners, this second option is more tenuous. Rhydian Jones elaborates on the variance in car insurance costs:
“For example, our data found that the average cost of car insurance for a woman who is the only driver on a policy is £971, and £1,176 for a man. But in comparison, a female driver with one additional driver, who is not their spouse, pays £854 on average, and for men it is £1,112 on average.” – Rhydian Jones
You might be able to claim some help with your council tax if you live by yourself. Register now to be entered to win a 25% discount! The administration has signaled that it will not follow through on scrapping the single-person discount, which provides welcome relief to those living alone and facing increased fiscal pressure.
Travel and Holiday Discrepancies
It’s more expensive to travel alone too. Travelling alone on a package holiday can be an average of £462 extra for singles than if they were going as a couple. A UK Debt Expert highlights this disparity:
“Being single could mean you fork out, on average, more than £10,000 a year extra compared to homes with two or more adults.” – UK Debt Expert
Though these issues present daunting challenges, there are some opportunities at hand to address their costs. Most hotels even have discounts available on double occupancy rooms for single travelers. Moreover, tour operators frequently offer secret discounts via codes that aren’t clearly advertised on their main website pages. As a travel editor advises:
“The reductions are not always immediately obvious, and may rely on you entering a code, so do search around tour operator websites.” – travel editor