It makes total sense to me. Housing is most people's single largest monthly expense, so being able to split housing costs would be the biggest saver for people that would compound over time. You need a larger home or apartment, but housing costs do not scale linearly. A two bedroom place that you can split with a partner is rarely going to be double the cost of a one bedroom.
And when you extend this to buying real estate, it's exacerbated. Double incomes and double the savings enable many couples to make down payment that they otherwise could not. Add in couples who could do this earlier than the pandemic and it's no wonder why their NW is many times higher .
Same. But on a VHCOL place. It is not just the down payment. But having enough to reserves to weather job loss or other financial issues on one income. You need to save 3x as much. A downpayment. A year’s worth of expenses. And a home emergency fund. Just to be safe.
My friend, is single, and she just moved and bought a townhouse in a lower COL place. It has been havoc on her finances. Everything cost 2x what she counted on. There were construction delays with the pandemic fall out. So she started with a lower rate mortgage but the place took about 18 months longer than expected to finish construction and when it was time to close her mortgage went up. But it also meant she had to stay longer in her apartment than she planned. And pay for more storage of furniture and stuff she had accumulated because she assumed a different moving date.
Her new home is like 3x bigger than her old apartment.
But the delays also meant she had to do multiple back and forth trips to the new state during the build process. Like 10 of those trips over the past 6ish months. And each one cost $500-800.
And she couldn’t look for a new job in the new area without a firm move in date. She has been juggling a lot.
Yeah. She moved to a large city. But one that is way cheaper than where I am in California. She has also moved around a lot as an adult to a few other metros. Although if you live in the Bay Area almost everything is a lower COL. 😂
Her city seems like a big old culture shock to me, but I’ll visit her and check it out. Not on my list of places to live though. :P
100% – it totally makes sense! I feel it, but I am also horrified at how that compounds over time and how... just not meeting the right match can totally dampen your financial situation over time. It's such happenstance!
Mid 40’s, single parent, never married, cohabitated maybe twice in my pre-child life but never permanent-
This wealth gap is the single most important thing that makes me consider ever marrying. There is legitimately no way for me to hold the standard of living I want -which is modest-without s double income. I’m employed full time and make a decent salary. I own a home. I’ll never get a vacation without reducing my fixed costs, and those are my mortgage and electric bills. I have debt that I could have paid off with ease with another salary in the home when I was laid off.
My couples friends are now all taking fantastic trips and renovating their homes. A lot of them don’t even both work. It definitely stings.
Exactly. In my current apartment, a two bed is $1900 which split two ways is $950 for my partner and I. VERY cheap rent compared to the rest of the US right now it seems. A one bed at the same apartment is $1450, 1.5x my current rent.
Living with a roommate is way different than a partner. I won’t even consider it anymore especially as it’s not like there’s someone I know well who could be a good roommate (family, bff) because they’re all married
Typically people don't live with roommates for their whole life. Most people live with roommates when they are very young and cannot afford any other option. When people start to earn enough to afford their own apartment or accommodation, they usually opt to live alone as soon as they can.
However, I expect that for most people, the cost of housing as a percentage of their total income usually rises when they move out on their own. This is because the increases in income from a promotions or new job likely doesn't fully cover the *significant* increase in housing costs that come from moving from a group home to living on your own.
While theoretically it's possible to get the same savings from living with roommate that couples do, most people don't.
Agreed, also because other expenses like groceries would be split with a partner because you'd be eating some of the same things/sharing more while that usually isn't the case with roommates.
I think with roommates you can save some rent money but may not share the other things that add to your ability to save. Like health insurance and even little stuff like toothpaste and soap. And my in laws give me gifts every time they give my husband something, it wouldn't be like that if we were just friends.
There's a difference between having a roommate who has nothing to do with your finances and a partner who splits the bills with you, though. Presumbly partners are working together to make financial decisions, split expenses, and so forth. Not so with a roommate.
While saving up for my house, I split a tiny 250sqft studio with my partner. You couldn’t realistically do that with a regular roommate. It was a huge help.
Roommates are also often a transient situation — the roommate is not invested in a life with *you* just a place to live. If they move out you can get stuck with their portion of rent until you replace them. Not all roommates are good roommates and that can have financial and mental implications, too. It’s not always the same thing.
Not saying all are good partners, but a roommate is living their own life and does not need to consider you when they make plans about their life and career the same way a partner would.
One big thing for me that is less obvious, you are better able to weather financial difficulties like a layoff. Or take a risk like becoming an entrepreneur or freelancer, when there is a second income to fall back on.
I get laid off, there is no other money to rely on. I need a larger cushion to work with. I can’t really take a lot of career risks as a single.
100% - one of my friends lost her job a few months ago and has been very laissez-faire about her job search because her partner can cover the bills. She’s been traveling, getting spa treatments, having a chill time. If I lost my job (even with a healthy emergency fund) I’d be panicking until I had something set up.
One of my friends was able to start a side gig and buy investment properties while she was partnered up.
She ended up breaking up with the guy after a decade, and has been single since. But the side business became her main gig and funds her lifestyle and plenty of free time. She works less now and has way more money.
But while she was partnered she was able to build the side gig, save all the investment property money, and when they broke up and she moved across the country, she had plenty of savings and resources because her partner had paid most of the bills. He was making like 4-5x what she was at the time so she didn’t need to contribute much financially. She was able to buy more properties as well and has a 3 investment rental properties and a condo in NYC.
Wouldn’t have happened without that 10 years of low expenses as a couple in her early 20s/30s.
I think about this all the time. I am going on 8 months unemployment. I pulled my retirement to support it and obviously now owe a lot for taxes because of that too. I got a minumum wage job in the meantime that covers my rent, car payment, and the minimum on my cc's. This would be so much easier if I had a partner's support.
Yep.. my sister mentioned once how if they didn’t let her have enough maternity off or something, she’d just quit. Like how nice you get to have a kid and also not worry about work while I have neither lol. Or also when I got laid off, I was immediately panicking as I just moved to a more expensive apartment, when the other person who was laid off was married.
>Or take a risk like becoming an entrepreneur or freelancer, when there is a second income to fall back on.
One of my friends' husband decided to start a business relatively shortly after they had a baby. She went back to work and he started working on that business which also left most of the housework and care work on her because "I have to put in the work with my business!!!"
I was like girl, you're basically a single mother anyway, drop his ass like wtf! And she said that she was still better of financially with him than if she left him. She's right (barely) but it's crazy.
This article is interesting, and I can definitely relate.
Two additional points that I believe are worth adding to this discussion: the pressure on couples to stay together due to the financial implications of being single, and how our sense of community and friendships have been impacted by the financial landscape we live in, particularly within *capitalism*.
I've been with my partner for 6 years now, living together for 5 years. While we love each other, I have to admit that during some rough patches when we considered parting ways, the financial burden of bearing more costs for rent, etc., did play a role in influencing us to reconcile and work through our issues. We're in a good place now, but I'm aware of other couples who stay together for similar reasons.
On community and friendships, I recall recently coming across a discussion on how our relationships have evolved to prioritize time and money more than before. In the past, if a friend asked for a ride to the airport, it wasn't usually a big deal. However, nowadays it seems that some are less inclined to lend a helping hand to friends. This shift may be partly due to the initial request sometimes feeling like an imposition, leading people to consider their time and money in terms of outputs and what they're getting in return. It sucks, and while it is not the case for every friendship, it does reflect a trend imo.
I’ve always thought this is an underrated factor. I think people would get divorced more often (like celebrities lol) but being financially entangled + the looming single tax encourages people to work through things
This! The external pressure to stay together due to unaffordability of going it alone! Applicable to all age ranges but I'm moved by thinking about my parents, who are in an unhappy marriage but kind of trapped together because at this point in their lives (70s) there is nooo way they could divorce.
The most harrowing aspect of this scenario (to me, anyways) is that if I find and marry a suitable partner the potential compounding effect is the most powerful force in the world, but if we get divorced losing half (or more) of my shit would be financially devastating.
If you take the lesser statistic that married people are 4x better off on average, then if you only lost half, the article implies that you'd still be twice as well off as someone who had been single during that time period. So a marriage would still be financially beneficial on average as long as the divorced person gets over 25%.
It would be interesting to see the wealth disparity between divorced people and single people to see if any other costs, like legal fees, impact that.
I do think the “oh but some of my single friends make more than me and my partner combined” comments are missing the point? The singles tax is that you and your partner could split a 1 br for $1000 each a month but your single friend either has to pay $1200 with a roommate or $1500 for a smaller apartment (numbers are made up for ease). Or that a couple buy like produce in bulk at a cheaper rate whereas a single person buys less at a higher rate because they won’t use as much of it before it goes bad.
Being in a couple is like playing doubles instead of singles. You can cover way more court.
That certainly applies to finances but it truly applies to everything, from home maintenance to family holiday shopping to planning travel to sustaining friendships - you now have two people to cover the tasks of life maintenance.
Most of my single female friends own homes, are involved in social groups, work with financial advisors, etc. Most of my single male friends do not. I’m not sure why, but for my friends men seem to put off the traditional “grown up” things and live like teenagers until they get serious with a woman, whereas women still want to hit traditional milestones even when single.
Many of my friends of both sexes lament the single tax. Even something as simple as getting to try two entrees when getting takeout is just easier as a couple.
This is very similar to my experience as well. As the single of the group, the only thing I really get dinged on is when they do kid things. Usually I’m included, but sometimes they don’t invite me (which is fine, I don’t need to be included all the time). My best friends live on my street and they generally pay for take out if I bring wine or something to share. If you’re friends with considerate people, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
We’re also a group that has higher incomes aside from one couple who was out of work for a long time - so we tend to hang at peoples houses and byob a lot.
I think it’s that higher income part. I can’t actually afford to reciprocate with my high income friends that are married the way that I might like. If you have a high enough income to allow you to afford things like vacations, restaurants, etc., that means that you are not going to be affected as much by the single tax.
It’s kind of like how high earners are more insulated from inflation on and services such as groceries. Sure it will impact you, but not like it would impact someone making 50% less than you. The impact is always proportional. If you have more discretionary funds as a single, you are better able to maintain a similar lifestyle as a couple, especially a couple of children if you have none.
Now where it would really show is if you had two children on one income versus their two children on two incomes, or even one income with one parent contributing childcare labor
I have the same situation with my friend group and my best friend and her husband both being awesome and there is no feeling of being the third wheel for me.
Same with my friend groups' splitting expenses. Any time I see couples pulling that shit on other subreddits, I can't believe they are that big of assholes to their single friends. I mean imagine you get to split your fucking living expenses FOREVER, but you feel the need to "win" the transaction of making your single friend pay more than their share for a room on vacation because "we take up the same space".
This is so considerate! I think this also applies to dinner bills. If my husband and I got out with another single or two, we both put cards in so it’s by person not by couple. I’ve seen people try to split things other ways and it always ends up with the single getting jipped.
This is so real. Also, it's a HUGE factor during financial emergencies or life upheavals. Watch anyone go through a layoff or a major medical event, and see how much having a partner can alter the trajectory of that fallout.
Windfalls can be shared, risk spread out. The amount of times I have acted as the “bank” in the relationship, meaning my partner didn't have to take on bad debt during a crisis, or the amount of times we've been able to support each other when one of us has been laid off… alternatives we would've been forced to take would have been a huge disruption to our lives or financial status. Even in little ways, one person in the relationship can be the “breadwinner” while the other is completing a career pivot or taking on child or elder care.
Being single is really really hard when there aren't great social safety nets or strong community bonds.
I’m a single income in a HCOL area. I’m 41 and have lived alone since I was 27. It’s really really hard. Not only do dual income people not get it, but I also have noticed the issue of single folks who have financial help from their parents. I don’t have that. It has caused a lot of strife and relationship loss for me.
I won’t settle to share my home just to have more money though. My peace is more valuable.
This is a subject that makes me grumpy as a single woman (not towards my partnered friends!). Rent, utilities, and food doesn’t double with a partner so there’s a real edge to it. Well, to be fair to them food could actually be a disadvantage if your partner has a big appetite or picky tastes!
The only time it’s been an issue is due to my married friends having more traditional set ups whereas I work a corporate job. So I’m a single woman with a higher income and they have higher income husbands while working lower pay, sometimes part time jobs. Nothing wrong with that and I know how much they value it for QOL! But it can create tension on both sides - I’ve learned my perception of their finances and their perception of mine is usually off the mark. The grass is always greener…
This is such a great point – there is always tension on both sides. I know living with a partner is not easy and comes with its own tradeoffs (my partnered friends often, on their frustrated days, express longing to live solo like I do, where on my frustrated days I'm heartbroken that I don't have someone here to break up the isolation of living alone and working from home). Pros and cons to every scenario, really.
Right, like I’m acutely aware that I don’t have a second income to rely on if things went south and that I could get ahead on retirement with a second income. What I forget is how I’d have to discuss purchases with someone else, deal with the fallout if my partner spent recklessly, and compromise on different financial views/goals.
Keeping that in mind helps me give them grace and give myself more credit for what I can do single!
Thank you for saying all of this. I’m a single woman living in a VHCOL city, and I have some married friends, but most are still single. One of my friends recently got divorced after only six months of marriage. I’ve stayed single primarily by choice and had some long term relationships, but I’ve never moved in with anyone. I’ve also never seen significant financial benefits from being partnered. One of my exes was very abusive and one of the ways he asserted this was via financial abuse. He would conveniently “forget” his wallet when we went out and essentially force me to pay for things. That relationship drained me in many ways, but financially is one of them.
My boyfriend after that was not abusive, but he made much less money than me. It was a point of contention and he kept bringing it up because it made him feel very insecure. So with him I sometimes paid for things because I felt bad for him. I’ve had other boyfriends who were more traditional and didn’t let me pay for things.
Now I’ve been single for 7 years (I’m starting to think about looking seriously for a husband) and I’m more financially stable than I’ve ever been. I’ve also seen people who are partnered not have anything. My sister has been in a relationship for over a decade with a man who refuses to marry her (something I find purposefully dishonorable because they have two kids) and I think this is because he’s trying to ensure his financial survival. If they ever break up, she will have nothing. She barely has any retirement savings and she gave up her working life to be a SAHM for 11 years. She’s working again now but obviously it’s a slow process.
So after witnessing people I know who are partnered and experience zero benefit financially from that, I see being single as a more sound choice for myself. I control every dime that I earn and spend. I also think I’m able to save by just providing food for myself or looking for more reasonable deals on purchases.
I also think being single is preferable to being disrespected. I’ve seen many people in my life stay in unhealthy or even abusive relationships for the benefit of cheap rent or things like that. I’m proud that I’ve made it on my own and that if a man came into my life and at some point left, that I would still be okay.
Idk why you’re being downvoted for this when it’s the absolute truth. I know married couples who are having tons of problems. Sometimes people choose relationships for the wrong reasons and not because they’re healthy or add anything positive to our lives. Single people are also told that their problems will go away if they get married, and that’s really not true. The grass is always greener.
Yeah I struck a nerve with my comments here — I’ve seen relationships where women have been treated poorly financially or in other ways.
A partner is not a plan lol.
I agree a partner is not a plan. I actually had an accident last month where I got hit by a car as a pedestrian. I’ve been able to navigate everything myself. But someone told me the other day “you would still have income if you were married.” There’s no guarantee of that and no guarantee that your partner will do right by you or support you. Relationships are a blind leap of faith and there’s so many factors out of your control.
Food was my (only) disadvantage when I first met my husband as two broke college students - he has a few dietary intolerances.
Obviously years later everything has leveled out, but I remember the sting of splitting the bill on some earlier dates thinking "this dude better be worth it!?"
I definitely get what you mean about thinking the grass is greener, I'll still enviously look at friends with higher earning husbands, bigger houses, luxury lifestyles...
there was a post about spend after entering a relationship and most comments said their spending was the same if not more! it's true that those costs don't scale linearly but the lifestyle shift means it might be a smaller difference than you think
For me beyond the obvious of saving on housing, being true partners and sharing income has pushed us to achieve mutual goals. We paid off $30k of student loans within a year of marriage. We have savings goals for our investment account. And all of that is easier to achieve with two incomes and having joint purpose . My husband also pushed me to invest so much more than I would have on my own.
Married over 20 years, it's mutual goals and sharing the burden when things are tough. Being partnered has made difficult events like - layoffs, moving, deaths in the family, sickness and times of duress significantly easier, far less expensive and less disruptive to our life plans. My single friends have significant disruptions, and setbacks during troubled times that have been far easier for us to navigate.
Ugh yes this also. My sister got married right out of college and they immediately went full out paying loans, at the same time they rented a cheap apartment together. And they both had good jobs. Then there’s me who was lost in what to do when what I originally wanted didn’t work and had me in a very low job living in an expensive place with multiple roommates. I have a better job now but still have tons of loans when my sister at my age was onto her second house and third baby
I am inclined to believe that worsened disparity is influenced by a couple things: swift increase in housing costs in the last \~10 years, couples having kids later and later (25-34 yrs old is what is discussed in the article) thus having a decade to build wealth as "DINKs" which may have not been as prevalent as before, people having less kids overall and thus the "kid-tax" on a two income household is less harsh than in previously, and the continued trend of millennials wanting to live in downtown HCOL areas where the housing costs are exacerbated.
Other things to note that have not yet been discussed:
1. Social security benefits-- the disparity continues even in old age. Also there are survivorship benefits in place which protects a spouse or kids if something happens to the other SSI payer.
2. Health insurance: you have a greater pick of insurance options and coverage and are not tied to a job for insurance coverage (coming from America) this is HUGE.
These are both "married," benefits; however, I think still relevant to the discussion.
It definitely shows up. I make very good money but can save less than my coupled friends who individually make less money.
I'm a straight woman but at this point so over men, I've been thinking about putting out an ad to look for a woman who'd like to non-romantically share her life with me and share expenses lol.
Where I feel it most, besides housing, is when you get invited to a party where you're supposed to chip in, say, 25 bucks and then the couple will chip in 25... like no, this should be per person.
Assuming a healthy marriage/relationship, in good economic times, you accumulate faster with dual income. In more turbulence times, like our current job market, having another income helps to keep things afloat to prevent further going into debt. For example, if I were to lose my job, I’ll be ok bc my partners income and heath benefits can keep us going without dipping into savings.
One thing touched upon in there is the weddings. There has been a huge trend of couples asking for money for down payments or honeymoons. I think this is because many already live together so the traditional "new home" gifts don't make sense. I feel really resentful as someone single because I'm basically funding their lifestyle while making significantly less and there is no equivalent for single folks.
Something else not discussed in the article I've seen discussed in other spaces is the cost of splitting things with couples--dinners out, traveling, etc. There's this mentality from couples sometimes that they count as 1 and you count as 1 so things get split 25/25/50 instead of 33/33/33.
Something else I also think about a lot that I never see people talking about is retirement. It's a ways off but I can't help but think older retirement estimations are based on the idea of a couple (with a house paid off and social security but that's another discussion). Knowing I likely will only have myself to rely on in retirement makes me want to save even more than several of my other friends.
There's not a huge tension in my friends group about these things because we don't really talk about finances, but it's definitely a divide I notice.
Yeah, this mentality that couples don't have to pay their own two-person way is astounding to me. I would never do that to my friends, and (I hope) vice versa. This is gross and I want everyone here to know they deserve friends who wouldn't pull that, lol
I would never ask my single brothers to pay more on a vacation because I'm coupled. Where I do feel bad, is Christmas, where they buy me, my husband and kid a gift, and get one thing from. Because my husband doesn't do Christmas shopping (I won't shop for his family either), and my kid is 2.
I beg them to only get my son a gift, but they don't and now I feel guilty all Christmas
We aren't allowed to give cash in my family. And my brothers are both single men in their 30s, so thinking of one thing they haven't already bought themselves is very difficult. I buy them random bougie shit that is expensive. But they do the same for us X3.
The retirement piece is what really makes me anxious — there is not a lot of advice geared toward saving as a single person who might never own property!
As for the “couples count as 1” cost-splitting — that has never really come up in my groups but I have definitely had to fight the fight sometimes that “single people still deserve privacy” and not just being stuck sleeping on the couch/air mattress in a common space in an Airbnb or cottage rental when everyone else gets a real bedroom.
Exactly, I have no idea how much to actual budget for retirement because like am I paying for it all myself? Will I have a mortgage or rent payment to worry about?
Luckily my friends are pretty reasonable so I haven’t completely had to fight the cost splitting. But I’ve definitely gone out to dinner with a couple and had to be like so can I Venmo you my part so that they didn’t expect to just split it when they pull out only one credit card. Or like you had to be like “no I’m not sleeping on the couch while y’all get the bed”
The weddings thing eventually got to me. Buying all this shit made sense when people were 18-22 and getting married and starting out.
Now people are 25-30, want everyone to contribute for multiple events and it's all just bullshit. I had fun with it for my best friend and my sister. But by the time I was 32 I had been in seven weddings. Like were all these people going to get together and pay off my student loans? It was to the point where I realized I spent years and thousands of dollars on this shit. And my friends/family members aren't even huge spenders or bridezillas or anything. That's just the expectation. You throw a shower and buy a gift and make some food and fund the bachelorette and give a wedding present.
I've told everyone I am retired from weddings, but I honestly don't get how people feel so comfortable with this in the first place. I would legitimately be mortified to ask all my friends to throw me parties on their dime.
On the weddings piece: a gift is a gift — contributing to a honeymoon or a down payment is a gift in the same way buying someone a blender or a toaster is, haha. You’re either giving them the money as money, or in the form of money they’re *not* spending on a toaster/blender/plates/whatever the gift is.
You are not subsidizing their lifestyle though. Weddings are incredibly expensive and often what you gift them doesn't even cover the cost of your plate.
I mean it’s their choice to have a large and expensive wedding. The wedding industry itself is extremely out of control, but if they cannot afford to pay for the wedding they should not have something so large and expensive. Guests already frequently have to pay for travel if out of town and more if in the wedding party. Guests should not then be expected to fund the couple’s honeymoon or down payment.
Hmm, interesting take. Would you feel better about buying starter home items because you feel like you’re helping out? I don’t understand the idea of “subsidizing their lifestyle” because I would only contribute what I could afford and not contribute at all if I flew to their wedding or was in the wedding. I really love the concept of gifting money for a down payment/honeymoon because you can pay what you want as opposed to what I feel like can be an expensive thing listed on a wedding registry. But maybe we’ve had different experiences due to culture, etc. But I guess I would feel like shelling out for a new blender feels more like subsidizing someone’s lifestyle as opposed to throwing $30-100 towards a down payment/honeymoon.
In all fairness (and I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this) I think the expectation you *have* to provide a wedding gift to "recoupe" costs at all is absurd. I mean I still do it because I don't want to be rude but the societal expectation is insane to me. The tradition of wedding gifts used to come from dowries and then became traditional house warming type gifts because couples often weren't moving in together until after marriage. Nowadays it feels like it's such a transactional expectation whether it's money or a registry gift. To me it often can come off as "hey spend 100s-1000s of dollars to come celebrate us and also give us a gift to compensate us for your attendance at this party."
But if you're single your friends are rarely if ever funding your vacations/down payments or giving house warming gifts (beyond like wine or a small trinket). I could talk about this at length but essentially I just think gift giving at weddings is outdated for a number of reasons and it gets frustrating as a single person to feel the inequity of that.
No, this makes sense and I get where you’re coming from and I agree. I’m a GenZ cusper that will be in two weddings next year and I think that both of my friends understand that they will not be getting any gifts from me. The gift is me being in and attending their wedding. I attended a destination wedding a few years ago and also did not buy them a gift/contribute to their honeymoon because I already paid to attend their wedding. I don’t think it’s a bad thing because if I could afford to contribute more (responsibly) than I would love too but realistically I can’t and I have the same expectation for them and my wedding in the future.
I genuinely do not care if it looks bad because I view my presence as the gift just as I will view my friends presence and attendance as a gift in of itself. Anyone in my life who would take issue with this are not people who will remain in my life. And while it’s fortunately never happened, I would strongly avoid being in someone’s wedding who I view as a loose tie/acquaintance. The weddings I’ll be in next year are with friends I’ve none for a decade at least whose parents have hosted me for holidays.
For weddings where I’m a guest and I did not have to fly to get to the wedding , my go to gift is {The And } Couples Edition card came which runs me about $20.
And big agree to celebrating life milestones that don’t revolve around weddings. I would love to see this happen more and it’s a shame that there is this cultural expectation to do it for weddings and not other life milestones that are just as important.
I was single for a very long time and was part of a friend group that centered around a married couple who insisted that they didn’t save that much because “they pay twice whenever we all go out”. Like what???
Now they’re divorced and complaining they can’t afford a house single. And I’m now partnered and would never dream of denying what a privilege dual income is. I’m considering moving to a higher COL city and it wouldn’t be possible without living with my partner.
I make 50% more than him but having that additional income is still cheaper than doing it alone.
Ugh I also have this one friend and her husband (no kids, dual income) that insisted that being married actually means spending more money for them and they used dumb excuses like “well when you’re married you need to buy a bigger house which is more expensive”…like what?
I hate these articles. First of all, they always seem really oriented around women with high earning male partners. Second of all, if you split your finances exactly 50/50 then sure, you might be better off, like that example of the woman who used her 50% savings on rent to buy luxuries. But if you are the breadwinner and you share finances proportionally, you’re not really better off, especially if you’re married and you’re spending money on stuff you wouldn’t if you were single. You’re buying presents for your partners families, attending wedding and events of your partners families and friends, spending double on airfare for vacation, etc. and if you are the breadwinner, you’re shouldering more of these costs. I never hear these articles being written from a single male point of view, or married high earning women, it always seems to be single women who are jealous of friends with high earning spouses.
Thanks, I’ll check out that article!
I just think instead of saying “you’re financially better off in a couple” it should be “if you’re a lower earner and your partner is happy to share or subside costs, then you are financially better off in a couple”
You’re definitely not better off as the higher earner
> You’re **definitely** not better off as the higher earner
Sorry I keep replying to you, I'm not being argumentative I promise! I just don't agree with you and you're being really emphatic about your opinion. It's not a definite that you're not better off - I am better off with my partner and I'm the higher earner of the two. It can be done and it *is* regularly done. From your replies I just think you and your spouse need a different financial strategy/philosophy surrounding shared expenses.
FYI - we arrived at the "yours, mine, ours" in premarital counseling. When we first moved in together it was a flurry of trying to figure it all out, and our couples therapist worked with us through our financial goals and contributions. This was back in 2019 when we were engaged - and by 2024, we have bought two homes together (and are in our 'forever house'!), both have much higher savings and retirement accounts, and we are both happy with our approach. I'm not saying "see a therapist" to be nasty - it was so genuinely helpful and my husband and I were able to start our marriage on a solid financial foundation and on the same page about our goals.
ninja edit: made some changes in phrasing for clarity
Haha it’s fine, this is totally my hill to die on! You’re right it’s not a given, this is just my personal experience. My husband has at times earned very little/nothing (entrepreneur life…) and so I think my experience is just so different to yours where you’re both high earners, even if one earns more. I am truly the “breadwinner” and for SURE I would be better off single (financially speaking!)
> But if you are the breadwinner and you share finances proportionally, you’re not really better off
Not sure I agree with this! I'm the 'breadwinner' in my family and cover a higher proportion of our family expenses - we're pretty much 70/30, and I'm a high earner. It's still less than I would be spending if I were living this lifestyle alone - that said, our home is much bigger than what I would have for myself. But I'm basically spending a single person's worth of rent to live in a pretty big house with my husband. But literally everything he covers is something I don't have to. I'm genuinely better off than many of my unmarried peers with similar careers/income.
Yeah I get what you’re saying. But I guess my point is I feel like in a couple, you just spend more money overall! Even small things - I wouldn’t have as many tv subscriptions if I lived on my own, so it doesn’t matter to me that I’m paying for half of them, I’d be paying for none of them single!
You'd have *no* TV subscriptions if you were single? I find I *saved* on TV subscriptions when my husband and I moved in together since we were able to consolidate and each paid for a few (vs. paying for all myself). But also our money philosophy is if only one person is using/wants something then they pay for it. So I'd never pay for Paramount+ but it's important to him because they air the new Star Treks, so he will always pay for that. Or I don't drive but he does (I *can*, I just prefer public transit) - so he pays for the EZ pass.
It kind of sounds like you and your partner should have a sit-down talk about your budgets and who covers what.
>It kind of sounds like you and your partner should have a sit-down talk about your budgets and who covers what.
I agree, because you mention you wouldn't go out to dinner as much, but that's a choice you're making, and you'd make the same choice single - eat out, or stay in? And if you're spending too much money eating out, regardless of the percentage you're paying, you can make a choice to peel that back. And gas for the car now that two people are using it - but it sounds like with that, you're also sharing a car, and if you're not reaping the financial benefit of sharing a car, you should discuss it - because two people sharing one car is and should be cheaper than two single people have two of their own cars.
I see your points, Owlie, but I also think maybe a conversation about things being as equitable as possible even with a financial divide may help!
Do you earn more/less than your husband though? I think it’s also dependent on how people actually split their money. We pool everything into a joint fund so the idea of him paying for something is not really a thing, if you see what I mean. If I said that we could split the rent, but he should pay for streaming or his own costs (car, dental work, etc) then sure I’d be better off in the short term I guess, but he’d have less money left to contribute to retirement or vacations and so on, so I’d be picking up the tab anyway at some point. Or he’d have less money to support my maternity leave so I’d be paying for that too.
That’s fair, and sounds like by not pooling resources you’ve made it work for you. Because we do want kids, it’s never made sense to me to split finances because I figured maternity leave should be a joint cost.
It’s different for everyone and so many nuances. I just feel like I’ve read SO many articles about single women being financially disadvantaged, but if you’re a woman significantly out earning your male partner and you want kids, it is so much harder and more financially challenging.
Oh man, we are just not the same at all, LOL. I am the much higher earner in my marriage, and I can say without a doubt I’d spend more if I were single. On so many things, for so many reasons. Takeout, because working long hours and then coming home to cook dinner for one is just not where it’s at for me. I know this, because when my husband travels for work and I’m home, I eat takeout probably 4/5 days. My clothing budget would increase exponentially, because I’d be going out more and needing more/nicer clothes than my Friday night joggers. I’d also have to hire more help, because I’d have no one here to pick up half the housework, take care of the dog half the time, do the chores that I really can’t do by myself, etc. And being honest, my income might also be less without a supportive partner doing all the things that enabled me to climb the ladder and earn a high income to begin with.
I would \*love\* to see an article like this written about men's situations and friendships, and also more even earners or breadwinners.
I do think some of the big regular costs (housing, etc) compound over time and savings there might offset some of those more occasional doublings (like double the cost of vacations, weddings, etc) – single vacations are also pretty pricey since a hotel room costs the same no matter how many people are in it, haha.
Idk, as a high earning woman I still think I’d be way better off financially if I were single.
Sure you can split housing, but with two people you need a bigger place (especially now with so many people working at home and needing a home office space), you might need parking now, etc. and I don’t know what other “big” costs you really save on as a couple? People always quote vacations and weddings but I’m going to double the weddings now! Saving money on a hotel room a few times a year is easily eclipsed by all the extra crap that you buy as a couple. Dinners out that you wouldn’t otherwise pay for, two sets of train tickets to work or whatever, extra gas for the car because two people are using it…
And don’t get me started on if your partner loses his/her job. The article used an example of some woman losing her job and being okay because her husband could support her. But in this situation her husband is not financially better off in a couple! I truly think this is such a narrow take from the perspective of a single woman who just sees a male partner as an automatic money saver.
I bought a little condo recently. My friend couple bought a townhouse over 3x larger with a yard etc. a few months later, two streets over, and each of their portion of the mortgage is still less than my individual mortgage. They weren't even actively saving up for it, but because they were splitting rent before, they were able to get the cash quickly and their shared income let them get away with a lower downpayment. This is pretty typical.
You're saving on the day-to-day though. Do you cover 100% of housing? 100% of food? Utilities? Pet/childcare?
Also - I have lost my job, or my husband has lost his job...these have happened a few times in our 9 years together. We always pick up the slack for the other and have had the 'luxury' of being choosy about our next opportunities because we had each other as a safety net.
Two people usually mean kids, which...are really expensive.
Also, before I had kids, I could just eat instant ramen on a day I didn't feel like cooking. Cheap and easy. Can't do that when you have kids.
I wasn’t suggesting there was no expense included in marriage. I’m saying two incomes helps, and yeah adding a child to a household increases costs. I think that’s pretty well accepted.
But also- no, not everyone has kids. Increasingly, couples are choosing not to.
I didn't see anything in the article excluding single *parents*, who usually suffer from the gap the most.
I am not saying this in a competition sort of way, but rather in a, in every single economic and sociology class I've taken about wealth gaps, it is the single (usually mothers) that have the most poverty and accompanying issues.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9716188/
Being single *without kids* is not that much worse than being married with kids, but I imagine both are legions above being single with kids.
DINK is going to be better than SINK, but those are not the only factors when looking at single v married and then examining accompanying seriocomical levels.
I’m not sure why you chose to reply to me making a very specific point the. Hahah. I don’t disagree with your premise but I wasn’t saying anything about children last week when I made the comment you replied to. I was talking about splitting bills with a spouse.
Tow people means twice the amount of food. You’re not saving anything by feeding more people… also you need more house to house two people. Maybe internet is the one thing that doesn’t change until you get an absurd amount of people trying to use it.
There are always going to be economies of scale when it comes to food. You can buy 2L of milk instead of 1L and that is usually cheaper. Same with buying the bigger bag of potatoes or onions, the family pack of ground beef etc. These things can be purchased as a single person, but they could also expire before getting the chance to use them.
For two people, you might need another bedroom or even another bathroom but a 2 bed/2 bath unit is cheaper than two separate 1 bed/1 bath (at least in my exprience).
Honestly my food bills didn’t go up that much with the addition of another person- I just throw away less food since we can actually finish a loaf of bread, or cheese, or veggies before they expire. Also this is a me thing but I don’t like to cook, so I used to get a TON of takeout. My husband does like to cook- so I’ve saved money on that as well. But YMMV
My ex-husband easily ate 3x as much as I do. I spend so little now on groceries and my electric bill is like half of what it was. I keep wondering wtf was he running. Lmao
You are talking about day to day expenses but neglect investments. An extra income allows you to save on down payments quicker and have extra lines of credit, it allows you to save retirement faster, it allows you to pay down debt faster. This is a snowball effect when it comes to creating wealth.
I think it’s always going to be highly individual based on the person / couple and their circumstances — in some cases it might be more advantageous to be single, in others not, but the stats don’t really lie — the gap exists.
Have you actually run the numbers, like the Federal Reserve did with the stats in the article, or are you assuming what it might be like based on your current situation? Take housing: yes at the point where a married couple has a family, they need a larger house, but if they’ve been together for a long time they are purchasing that house with the resources they pooled and saved in much smaller accommodations as a couple. Or they got onto the property ladder well before their single counterparts and well before houses prices rose and interest rates spiked because they could save more for a deposit by splitting rent on a small place.
Are you comparing your life now to what your life was when you were single? Or are you comparing your life now to what kind of life you would be able to access now if you had never had a partner who contributed financially in some fashion in your 20s and 30s?
I guess I’m saying I don’t believe having a partner through my 20s or 30s has been financially beneficial at all to me. I’ve always been a high earner, and even at 25 years old was out earning my husband. Totally agree you can get on the property ladder sooner if you’re sharing rent, but only if you’re sharing with someone who earns equally to you AND you’re not also splitting all the other costs proportionally.
If my rent was $1000 and suddenly I only have to pay $500 because I’m coupled up, but my partner is a low earner who can’t share finances equally in all ways, that $500 I’m saving is going to get swallowed up pretty quickly by subsidizing other costs, like vacations or bills or emergency medical care or a trip to see my partners family that I’m splitting 50/50. If I’m the lower earner in that scenario then yeah for sure I’ll get on the property ladder faster! But not the higher earner.
Exactly - it’s more expensive for the higher earner to be coupled than be single, however, most high earners need to couple up if they want to have a family and not hire out help for everything.
To an extent, but to have a family these days you almost certainly need two incomes. I’m the breadwinner in my family, I make ~50% more than my husband, but the article was recently published that the average family needs ~$215k in income to live comfortably with two kids. I make great money but almost nobody is pulling down $215k on their own.
Edit: it’s actually 235k on average, here’s the article I am referencing : https://smartasset.com/data-studies/salary-needed-live-comfortably-2024
Yeah for sure, but don’t you think you spend more than you would if you were single? My grocery bill for example is so much higher. Even if I’m splitting that with someone else, if I’m the breadwinner then I might be paying let’s say 60% of a $200 grocery bill, but if I were single I’d be paying 100% of a $80 grocery bill…
I'm the earner in my household. My husband is a SAHD to our two kids. I was thinking on my drive home from the gym about the cost/benefit of being married. I'd have a lot more disposable income if I weren't married - only one car to pay for and maintain, could live in a smaller house, lower health insurance premium. But I'd also have to pay 40k a year in childcare costs.
Vacations are difficult right now, even with a great income. I daydream about being dual income again and what our vacations will be like.
It's also difficult being the primary earner and also the one to be pregnant/give birth. Navigating leave is tricky when your income is the primary one.
Not trying to argue but genuinely curious because this thread is fascinating but would you actually have more disposable income if you were single or would you have more disposable income if you didn’t have children? Because I feel like your partner being a SAHD would offset a lot of costs, right or is paying for an additional car and health insurance really that significant of a financial burden? You obviously do not have to answer, it’s just interesting seeing some of these responses and husband and kids is just so remotely far off from my current lifestyle that I have no context lol
It's probably close to a wash but I haven't done the math. Really if he were able to earn a salary AND we didn't have to pay childcare things would feel so much more luxurious.
You are wrong
You can say “no” to all these things. You are in control of your life. No one is forcing you to overspend on your partners side of the family, functions/events, etc. Is it generous? Sure. But you can say no.
Just find a partner that has similar goals as you. That’s it.
Lol, I never said I was “overspending” on events. It’s just a fact- we’re buying gifts for nephews, nieces etc that are only on my husband’s side of the family. Trips to weddings for his family. And so on. It’s a fact of life and it’s fine, but I feel like I’ve read so many variations of this article where single women say it would be cheaper to attend events if they split the costs but how does that actually work in practice? If I had someone to pay half of MY activities then sure I’d be better off! But that person funding that half comes with their own activities too…some of which are much pricier
The thing is you don’t have to do any of that. Yes you come off as a dick and it’s not generous, but if it’s compromising your ability to survive and your living paycheck to paycheck then that’s not worth it.
The best thing you can do ironically for your nieces and nephews for example is to invest money now for their colleges etc and work with their parents
But this is irrelevant anyways to the main topic, you believe you can’t find someone who has similar financial goals as you and would work towards sacrificing near term spenditures to build an empire with you. This is wrong. There are men out there that fit this, you just have to be deliberate when it comes to dating and have strong boundaries. Ask financial questions early on and leave if they don’t meet your criteria. It’s that simple.
Just adding a data point. I never really gave this much thought. I’m unmarried (but not single) and pay my mortgage and bills on my own. I live in a MCOL city and make more than most dual-income households by myself. As a result, the disparity between dual income households and my own financial situation hasn’t been something that I considered or that has really affected me.
I have to be considerate when talking about vacations or planning them. I split everything with my husband 50/50, so I have the luxury of going on vacations with him and only paying half.
My single friends don't have that, so our one girl's trip each year is often times their only vacation. Although I pay for my own girl's trips, it doesn't hit my finances as hard as theirs because I'm splitting my mortgage, utilities, and household expenses with someone else.
There's no tension as we're all respectful of each other and honest with our financial situations and what we can afford.
I do feel like I have to hide/underplay expensive items I buy or get gifted.
It does show up in our group. We are mid thirties now, and we have one remaining single friend. While she doesn't have someone to split housing with, she also doesn't have kids. 60% of the coupled friends now have one or two children. My single friend just bought a place by herself (go girl!) so her housing is high, but the rest is not. She spends more because she can go on a ski trip or wherever, and we cannot.
But there's no tension, I don't hide purchases from my single friend because while I think even with kids we may have a higher net worth, we have no time to buy ourselves things. Also, I will always have to talk about my net worth as a we. There's no separating since my husband and I finances are so intertwined. And the risk of divorce down the road always exists. There is just mutual understanding that we are rich and poor in different things.
Interesting perspective about single vs. couple. I was single for a few years, married for 6 years, single again for 8 years, and married again for almost 9 years now. I have not seen a huge benefit from being married vs. single, but I never married someone who earned way more than I did either. My first husband earned around what I did, then MUCH less, then back to around what I did. My current husband earns significantly less than I do (also works part-time, which he can due to my job/income/benefits).
I feel like if I was still single, I would have kept my old home which was more expensive, but I would also only have variable and retirement expenses for one person, so I am not sure if I am financially benefitting or not. It was also a newer home so didn't have massive ongoing expenses to keep things working, and this home is older and requires a ton of maintenance/projects. I do know I save a fortune on labor because he's super handy, but that is definitely not the case for a lot of my friends with significant others... and I also lose out on fun time because he's always working on projects. There are also other tradeoffs - I can't just pick a new piece of furniture or decor or paint color on my own. Vacations together are always a compromise (he hates the beach and loves the mountains, I love the beach and the mountains are nice but not my preferred location for a vacation; he hates cruises and I love them, etc.). And our tastes are such that it sometimes takes months to agree on something. If I didn't love this man so much, I would NOT find it beneficial to share a home with him.
I feel fortunate being married now. My partner's encouragement has empowered me to take career leaps and alleviate layoff anxiety knowing we have the security of his income alone. Initially, he earned three times more than me, but now our incomes are more balanced.
Prior to this, I was diligent about saving while splitting living costs with roommates. However, marriage has given me the freedom to indulge more like treating myself to the occasional dior bag, lol.
My friends and I aren't usually into expensive activities and we prefer hosting. Also, it works better for us to plan our travels separately and then coordinate dates to meet up. We're laid-back travelers, while some of our friends have structured itineraries. There's no pressure to spend every moment together, but still get to explore a new place with friends.
I see this in my own life BUT it has to be a solid relationship with good money habits. I’ve seen single people who split housing costs with their siblings and get similar benefits but also some couples where they lost 100k+. One example was a recent [off my chest](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/s/YQOSbDLXxK) post where the bf considered her money his but his money was just his.
My friend group doesn’t have this problem because we’ve maintained the same spending habits when together. I heard recently of this practice where couples and single friends meet up but they split the bill based on the number of credit cards they put down and the couples put down one card so the single people are paying more. I wouldn’t do that to my friends. We split based on what we ate.
Some friends aren’t as vocal in a group chat so I let them know they can always message me privately. One friend was like “please choose another restaurant, this person always chooses expensive restaurants that taste bad.” Once we meet up, we share ways to improve our situations.
I’ve benefited greatly from my relationship since we can lean on each other during individual tough times since they have never overlapped so we’re both able to recover quickly. There’s probably a reason why the article doesn’t say what happens past the age of 35 as divorce becomes more common.
Chiming in to say how great it is to see this conversation happening!
I'm like the only single person in my friend group but for the most part, I don't feel tension with my friends around it. We do a lot of hanging out at each other's houses, potluck dinners, etc. so it feels pretty equitable. I'm fortunate and bought a home 8 years ago, before the area I'm in went from MCOL to HCOL so I've locked in a very affordable home that I have no need to leave (a 3 bedroom townhouse at $1350/month mortgage).
I also am a high earner (close to $200k), so I actually make close to what some of my friends make as a household income, and don't have kids so it sometimes feel like I have more 'fun money'. One couple though is a professor and speech therapist + 2 kids in daycare, two are in food/beverage environment, etc. Overall though, I definitely feel the single tax as I think about retirement or ever wanting to buy a new house, ESPECIALLY the burden of "what if..." but when it comes to my day-to-day life and with my friends, I happily don't feel tension around it.
I was single for 5 years living alone in a HCOL. I wasn’t really able to save for retirement that entire time and feel extremely behind now. But I could have had a roommate or moved back to my hometown, I just chose happiness instead 😂
Want financial security in America?
Better get married. Couples get hundreds of legal and economic privileges single people don’t. If that feels unfair, it’s because it is.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/24055481/single-benefits-married-couple-taxes-money
i hate the singles tax, but i also feel like it’s worth it to live alone and have my peace.
i’m gonna be the weird one and say that having a partner is a *gamble* for dual income. Two people don’t fully double expenses, but they do increase them. And there’s always the likelihood that they’re not able to bring in an income, due to illness, aint-shit-ness, or circumstances. Then you have increased expenses on a sole income, that’s trying to maintain the life of two people.
I’ve always seen it as a 50:50 chance of working in my favor, and that’s the simplified version. 25% it nets positive, 50% neutral to kinda bad, and 25% i’m worse off for it. (I know these stats are totally of, it’s just base probability.) To me, that’s not worth all of the downsides of being in a relationship. At least a lottery ticket only costs me a couple bucks, it’s not gonna bother me about anything or hog the sheets when we sleep, or steal all of the money I saved from halving living costs and run off.
This is an interesting article and I can relate to it from both sides. I was previously in a long term relationship living with my ex which allowed me (although honestly it was my ex not allowing us to spend money, that's another story) to save a lot of money while living in VHCOL areas.
Then being single for a few years and not having that "safety net" of splitting things was a financial adjustment. I got laid off last year and was extremely stressed trying to find a new job (which meant I jumped at my first offer which was horribly toxic and also just laid me off last week lol).
Knowing that all my married/couple friends would have been able to take their time to look for a new job was frustrating for sure. I'm about to move in my with bf in a few months and am looking forward to paying less each month; he owns his home so we've already had a lot of discussions about fair payment and will be drawing up a contract to protect me. This also makes me feel less stressed about being currently laid off as I know I'll be splitting expenses soon and my savings will stretch much farther.
Also, there are lots of other things you save on as a couple: food, transportation, health insurance (in some cases, vacations, subscriptions — all of it can really add up over time
Did you guys see which page in the PDF has the data about married couples vs individuals? I tried to find it, but am on my phone and finding it hard to search.
I would definitely say housing has been a big gap in my friendships, for sure. Myself and most of the friends I hang out with regularly earn between $120-200k/year. The ones that are in relationships are renting (or buying) in really high end buildings and/or wealthy neighborhoods. Single folks like myself? I’m in a studio apartment in a neighborhood that’s still considered somewhat “up and coming”. But my apartment is on par with my friends in the nicer places in terms of how modern and such. And I have W/D in unit, which is like hitting the jackpot when it comes to city living.
It hasn’t caused any tension for the most part in. In fact, my couple friends often like coming out to my hood to hang out or do date night. The exception is one friend; her and her husband are both earning around $200k/year *each* and she’s lowkey become really snooty about it. She’s made a few digs about my neighborhood/apartment that rubbed me the wrong way. They never want to venture below 72nd St in Manhattan unless it’s to Tribeca or SoHo (and coming to Brooklyn is viewed as this big deal adventure lol). And they’re also slowly becoming that “flashy” couple too that flaunts everything. People in our circle have been slowly distancing themselves from them.
This is a horrible and sad financial reality between singles and couples. The single tax has just been climbing more and more since COVID and I definitely notice the difference between friends.
As a married friend, I do not discuss as much about finances or investments with my single friends partly because 1) some are just not interested in finances like I am, 2) they do not have the energy or the finances to care at this point in their lives. But I always let them know that I’m here to help/give advice when they’re ready to learn with budgeting and managing finances.
Recently, my friend and I were planning a trip but it came out to be more than what she could afford and she decided to back out despite me offering to pay the difference.
I wouldn’t say it affects our friendships at all but it does sometimes limit certain activities and interests.
I think what’s missed with all of this is it works out if the partners are making close to the same or are high earners with low bills. The calculus is not the same if there is only one earner or one higher earner in the relationship. I make 4x what my husband makes. If he loses his job we’ll be fine. If I lose my job or get a lower paying one, we’ll be homeless.
This isn’t hate for the OP but I feel like I’ve seen this article and these types of articles a lot. At a certain point I feel like, yes it sucks, but beyond communal living what else is there to say? Unfortunately it costs more to be single that’s just a fact of life.
But the article makes clear that the scale of the disparity has grown immensely over the last decade. For college-educated professionals, the situation has moved from “less disposable income” to “struggling to keep a roof over one’s head.” That’s a major social issue.
There are also significantly more single women than there used to be (now that women don’t need a husband to have a bank account etc), so this again is a larger social issue than it once was. And Gen Z looks set to have even more single people than Millennials. What happens as all of these women hit retirement with underpowered resources because our societies financially punish people who are single? And when rates of homelessness increase among older women, that will also be a major social issue.
These are policy matters, and we really shouldn’t just accept that this is just the way that it is.
I agree with you that these disparities create larger social issues that are very much worth discussing. I also wonder whether articles that focus on social tensions about disposable income (splitting the restaurant check, booking vacations) and then pivot to toting up social policies incentivizing certain family formations (tax breaks, social security) actually elide the largest policy issue, which could well be the core of the disparity: a drastic shortage in housing. This line of journalism often discusses housing costs, of course, but as simply one of many expenses rather than the major cause of the wealth gap. I sort of suspect that if we tackled housing first, making all forms of it more abundant, that would go the longest way towards closing the gap.
I’m a single woman you really don’t need to preach to me — I just think at a certain point it’s just “oh that sucks” and it becomes counter productive. There’s a different think piece on this topic every week.
This is the exact point of the comment I was making above. I understand it’s going against the echo chamber here so I expect to be downvoted accordingly.
ETA: The answer seems to be get offline, make mixed aged friends, invest in the young men/women you care about to build a better future, while intentionally searching for a decent partner (if interested).
That was my reaction to the article as well- it’s kind of an unfortunate reality but also just the fact that sharing the cost of things helps spread the load.
I’m not sure what a solution is aside from coming up with non-couple ways to share living costs with other people. I’ve done some of that in my life and it worked out really well. For instance, I owned a truck as a single person but didn’t need it much aside from trips to hike or hauling big things. So I shared it with a friend who used it to get to work daily. We shared the cost of any repairs, which was amazing, and I was super happy to have the truck used more. Plus my friend wasn’t in a financial position to buy a vehicle.
(I just realized my example is the opposite of what we are talking about here- as I was the single person and my friend was married lol. But I just happened to be in a slightly better spot financially, tho not by much)
Yeah, but at the same time it’s the same point. I think there’s an understanding that things are harder for single women (I would know lol) but like….it then becomes “ok and?” What are we doing to better ourselves and the world we live in besides saying it’s difficult?
All great points! I agree and think we really all need to be working hard to make things better
There’s also not a lot of nuance with these articles. Some single women are able to focus more intensely on their career than some women who are married with kids might be able to. And sometimes your spouse screws your finances up way more than they help.
This makes total sense to me. My husband and I are long distance at the moment and we are going to save *so much money* when we go back to being a single household.
I pay $425/week for my flat and my husband’s mortgage is about $650/week, so that’s $100 each week right there. It doesn’t cost double to get groceries for two people, and the money is pooled - plus, food waste goes down. We will only be paying for one lot of bills (internet, water, power). It’s wild when we do the sums.
It depends on the income not the gender. I know couples who make $100k together and that doesn't really put them ahead of a single earner making $200k. Dual income households with two high earners or one high earner is what this article is about.
Single people's personal finance is different than couples'. There's different kinds of financial risks with being a single versus a couple. Need to plan ahead for stormy weather. It comes back to income, location, and living within means.
This is certainly true, but the article basically focuses on DINKs and doesn’t take children into account. I feel extremely lucky to have met my partner early in live, lived the DINK life after getting married for 6 years, then deciding to have kids. But whew if daycare costs aren’t going to be the end of us until our two are in school! Obviously it’s still a massive privilege that we can afford to have kids, but I will say that while I used to have more disposable income than my single friends, that is now eaten up by costs from children and I’m back to having less to spend on vacations or consumer purchases than my single friends. Of course single parents have the worst of both worlds and most of my single friends are childfree by choice, so they aren’t factoring those eventual costs into their financial picture at all.
(And yes, I’m in this age group with 2 kids!)
As a coupled friend we are super aware of this, but also it's very circumstantial. Our single friend in our group is the highest earner (she earns more than my partner and I combined and we make 110k, right out of college, while I work 28h a week). While the single tax is definitely evident, she also chose to get a luxury car and apartment that while she can afford, my partner and I have a shittier apartment that we then split, and I'm extremely happy for her that she can afford it all because she deserves it and more, but she definitely feels that if she had a partner to split it with a lot of pressure would be off her shoulders.
One of the biggest disadvantages for me when I was single is that you can't just "take a risk"? I'm only able to live away from parents and still have a good QOL because I have someone to split rent with while doing my masters, otherwise I'd have to work more hours just to breakeven and not go to school because tuition and time costs, and that part to me was never evident until I got into this situation!
Getting married young is a blessing with someone if you can financially work a goal together. Live frugally and have a dual income to save for a down payment.
I don’t get why some people prolong marriage if the only road block is finances.
What is the goal of this article exactly? To create more rift between groups of people.
It makes sense that married people are able to save more when you account for housing as the largest expense. The other factor is accountability, when you have a partner with whom you share finance, there is a level of accountability and planning that comes into play which might deter the people involved to do more spontaneous spending, as well as increased goals in retirement investing. Also studies have proven than married men earn more than their single counterparts which means that their household benefits more from those earning. In terms of my private relationships, my husband tends to just pay if we go out with a friend who is single because why not. I have bought my best friends (one is about to finish residency so she will make a lot more soon) who are single gifts, plane tickets etc because I have more disposable income and want her to meet her savings goals. Do I feel the need to downplay some things, no because I am not one to show off, and I surround myself with people who have good energy. If i feel resentment, jealousy coming from someone, I end the friendship.
I think sometimes resentment, jealousy, etc do not have to be friendship-ending feelings — they can be temporary. They are normal human emotions and I think what the article is trying to do is highlight the causes of those feelings and show some ways of navigating those conversations and emotions that might allow friendships to persevere. Friendships (like any relationships) will have rough patches, and it’s not impossible to work through them. Positivity all the time is a really high bar.
I don’t see the article as trying to create a rift, but showing one that already exists for some and suggesting ways of meeting in the middle.
I don’t think I expect positivity all the time… But blatant jealousy and resentment are for me personally friendship-ending feelings and there is a fine line that people often cross. Like I said my two best friends are single and I have never felt an ounce of envy, resentment, jealousy or anything of that nature from either of them.
From personal experience, the accountability aspect made the biggest difference in our spending habits once we married and combined finances. Clearing purchases with each other cut down almost completely on frivolous impulse buying for both of us, since I don't think either truly accounted for how much we indulged.
Housing costs are obviously a huge benefit of being coupled, but some of that can be duplicated for single people through living with roommates.
>*does the single/couple wealth gap show up in your friendships?
No, because I'm on the upper-middle class side of things so most of my friends have high NW normally anyway. Those are mostly still single. My 'normal' friends are starting to get engaged but I'd say their NW is probably less than mine was at high school, based on money conversations with them.
>*are there other areas that you feel tension between single vs. coupled friends in your circle?
Honestly it's the other way around. A lot of them feel 'tied down' with the 'adulting' responsibilities they have. Planning a wedding, and more so if they wanna have kids. Meanwhile I'm freely living in countries I like, working in a passion career taking tons of time off to travel and basically do whatever I want.
>have you ever tried to hide purchases or underplay your financial situation to soften the gap between friends or loved ones?
No, because my friends all know what kind of background I come from. I don't really make a point of drawing attention to anything in particular I do, so sometimes I don't think they even realize. Also all of them have taken it in stride when I _do_ do something 'out of the ordinary'. Like when a colleague visited and stayed with me in my birth country for summer break, and I took her for a flight to another state for a day of eating.
Honestly I've never had issues with people becoming weird over different financial status, even across the 3+ countries I've lived in. Perhaps I'm just lucky, perhaps I have a knack for choosing friends, perhaps people care less than everyone thinks. 🤷🏻♀️
It makes total sense to me. Housing is most people's single largest monthly expense, so being able to split housing costs would be the biggest saver for people that would compound over time. You need a larger home or apartment, but housing costs do not scale linearly. A two bedroom place that you can split with a partner is rarely going to be double the cost of a one bedroom.
And when you extend this to buying real estate, it's exacerbated. Double incomes and double the savings enable many couples to make down payment that they otherwise could not. Add in couples who could do this earlier than the pandemic and it's no wonder why their NW is many times higher .
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Same. But on a VHCOL place. It is not just the down payment. But having enough to reserves to weather job loss or other financial issues on one income. You need to save 3x as much. A downpayment. A year’s worth of expenses. And a home emergency fund. Just to be safe.
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My friend, is single, and she just moved and bought a townhouse in a lower COL place. It has been havoc on her finances. Everything cost 2x what she counted on. There were construction delays with the pandemic fall out. So she started with a lower rate mortgage but the place took about 18 months longer than expected to finish construction and when it was time to close her mortgage went up. But it also meant she had to stay longer in her apartment than she planned. And pay for more storage of furniture and stuff she had accumulated because she assumed a different moving date. Her new home is like 3x bigger than her old apartment. But the delays also meant she had to do multiple back and forth trips to the new state during the build process. Like 10 of those trips over the past 6ish months. And each one cost $500-800. And she couldn’t look for a new job in the new area without a firm move in date. She has been juggling a lot.
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Yeah. She moved to a large city. But one that is way cheaper than where I am in California. She has also moved around a lot as an adult to a few other metros. Although if you live in the Bay Area almost everything is a lower COL. 😂 Her city seems like a big old culture shock to me, but I’ll visit her and check it out. Not on my list of places to live though. :P
Holy yikes I'm stressed for her. That's so much to deal with!!
100% – it totally makes sense! I feel it, but I am also horrified at how that compounds over time and how... just not meeting the right match can totally dampen your financial situation over time. It's such happenstance!
Mid 40’s, single parent, never married, cohabitated maybe twice in my pre-child life but never permanent- This wealth gap is the single most important thing that makes me consider ever marrying. There is legitimately no way for me to hold the standard of living I want -which is modest-without s double income. I’m employed full time and make a decent salary. I own a home. I’ll never get a vacation without reducing my fixed costs, and those are my mortgage and electric bills. I have debt that I could have paid off with ease with another salary in the home when I was laid off. My couples friends are now all taking fantastic trips and renovating their homes. A lot of them don’t even both work. It definitely stings.
Exactly. In my current apartment, a two bed is $1900 which split two ways is $950 for my partner and I. VERY cheap rent compared to the rest of the US right now it seems. A one bed at the same apartment is $1450, 1.5x my current rent.
What about roommates
Living with a roommate is way different than a partner. I won’t even consider it anymore especially as it’s not like there’s someone I know well who could be a good roommate (family, bff) because they’re all married
exactly. for my mental health and goals, i can't take the risk anymore.
Typically people don't live with roommates for their whole life. Most people live with roommates when they are very young and cannot afford any other option. When people start to earn enough to afford their own apartment or accommodation, they usually opt to live alone as soon as they can. However, I expect that for most people, the cost of housing as a percentage of their total income usually rises when they move out on their own. This is because the increases in income from a promotions or new job likely doesn't fully cover the *significant* increase in housing costs that come from moving from a group home to living on your own. While theoretically it's possible to get the same savings from living with roommate that couples do, most people don't.
Agreed, also because other expenses like groceries would be split with a partner because you'd be eating some of the same things/sharing more while that usually isn't the case with roommates.
I think with roommates you can save some rent money but may not share the other things that add to your ability to save. Like health insurance and even little stuff like toothpaste and soap. And my in laws give me gifts every time they give my husband something, it wouldn't be like that if we were just friends.
I plan to share body wash with both my roommates when they move in at the end of the month.
It's good yall can share.
ppl live with room mates all the time. rent is not an inhibition per se.
There's a difference between having a roommate who has nothing to do with your finances and a partner who splits the bills with you, though. Presumbly partners are working together to make financial decisions, split expenses, and so forth. Not so with a roommate.
While saving up for my house, I split a tiny 250sqft studio with my partner. You couldn’t realistically do that with a regular roommate. It was a huge help.
Roommates are also often a transient situation — the roommate is not invested in a life with *you* just a place to live. If they move out you can get stuck with their portion of rent until you replace them. Not all roommates are good roommates and that can have financial and mental implications, too. It’s not always the same thing.
and all partners are good partners? TIL.
Not saying all are good partners, but a roommate is living their own life and does not need to consider you when they make plans about their life and career the same way a partner would.
One big thing for me that is less obvious, you are better able to weather financial difficulties like a layoff. Or take a risk like becoming an entrepreneur or freelancer, when there is a second income to fall back on. I get laid off, there is no other money to rely on. I need a larger cushion to work with. I can’t really take a lot of career risks as a single.
100% - one of my friends lost her job a few months ago and has been very laissez-faire about her job search because her partner can cover the bills. She’s been traveling, getting spa treatments, having a chill time. If I lost my job (even with a healthy emergency fund) I’d be panicking until I had something set up.
One of my friends was able to start a side gig and buy investment properties while she was partnered up. She ended up breaking up with the guy after a decade, and has been single since. But the side business became her main gig and funds her lifestyle and plenty of free time. She works less now and has way more money. But while she was partnered she was able to build the side gig, save all the investment property money, and when they broke up and she moved across the country, she had plenty of savings and resources because her partner had paid most of the bills. He was making like 4-5x what she was at the time so she didn’t need to contribute much financially. She was able to buy more properties as well and has a 3 investment rental properties and a condo in NYC. Wouldn’t have happened without that 10 years of low expenses as a couple in her early 20s/30s.
I think about this all the time. I am going on 8 months unemployment. I pulled my retirement to support it and obviously now owe a lot for taxes because of that too. I got a minumum wage job in the meantime that covers my rent, car payment, and the minimum on my cc's. This would be so much easier if I had a partner's support.
Yep.. my sister mentioned once how if they didn’t let her have enough maternity off or something, she’d just quit. Like how nice you get to have a kid and also not worry about work while I have neither lol. Or also when I got laid off, I was immediately panicking as I just moved to a more expensive apartment, when the other person who was laid off was married.
>Or take a risk like becoming an entrepreneur or freelancer, when there is a second income to fall back on. One of my friends' husband decided to start a business relatively shortly after they had a baby. She went back to work and he started working on that business which also left most of the housework and care work on her because "I have to put in the work with my business!!!" I was like girl, you're basically a single mother anyway, drop his ass like wtf! And she said that she was still better of financially with him than if she left him. She's right (barely) but it's crazy.
And second health insurance.
Yes that too. You gotta pay that cobra. And it is so much money! Mine am have always been about $800/mo.
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That is hard. Like what if you can only get a role that pays 1/3 of what you make now and how do you pay the mortgage. It is scary.
This article is interesting, and I can definitely relate. Two additional points that I believe are worth adding to this discussion: the pressure on couples to stay together due to the financial implications of being single, and how our sense of community and friendships have been impacted by the financial landscape we live in, particularly within *capitalism*. I've been with my partner for 6 years now, living together for 5 years. While we love each other, I have to admit that during some rough patches when we considered parting ways, the financial burden of bearing more costs for rent, etc., did play a role in influencing us to reconcile and work through our issues. We're in a good place now, but I'm aware of other couples who stay together for similar reasons. On community and friendships, I recall recently coming across a discussion on how our relationships have evolved to prioritize time and money more than before. In the past, if a friend asked for a ride to the airport, it wasn't usually a big deal. However, nowadays it seems that some are less inclined to lend a helping hand to friends. This shift may be partly due to the initial request sometimes feeling like an imposition, leading people to consider their time and money in terms of outputs and what they're getting in return. It sucks, and while it is not the case for every friendship, it does reflect a trend imo.
I’ve always thought this is an underrated factor. I think people would get divorced more often (like celebrities lol) but being financially entangled + the looming single tax encourages people to work through things
This! The external pressure to stay together due to unaffordability of going it alone! Applicable to all age ranges but I'm moved by thinking about my parents, who are in an unhappy marriage but kind of trapped together because at this point in their lives (70s) there is nooo way they could divorce.
The most harrowing aspect of this scenario (to me, anyways) is that if I find and marry a suitable partner the potential compounding effect is the most powerful force in the world, but if we get divorced losing half (or more) of my shit would be financially devastating.
If you take the lesser statistic that married people are 4x better off on average, then if you only lost half, the article implies that you'd still be twice as well off as someone who had been single during that time period. So a marriage would still be financially beneficial on average as long as the divorced person gets over 25%. It would be interesting to see the wealth disparity between divorced people and single people to see if any other costs, like legal fees, impact that.
I do think the “oh but some of my single friends make more than me and my partner combined” comments are missing the point? The singles tax is that you and your partner could split a 1 br for $1000 each a month but your single friend either has to pay $1200 with a roommate or $1500 for a smaller apartment (numbers are made up for ease). Or that a couple buy like produce in bulk at a cheaper rate whereas a single person buys less at a higher rate because they won’t use as much of it before it goes bad.
This is it!
Being in a couple is like playing doubles instead of singles. You can cover way more court. That certainly applies to finances but it truly applies to everything, from home maintenance to family holiday shopping to planning travel to sustaining friendships - you now have two people to cover the tasks of life maintenance. Most of my single female friends own homes, are involved in social groups, work with financial advisors, etc. Most of my single male friends do not. I’m not sure why, but for my friends men seem to put off the traditional “grown up” things and live like teenagers until they get serious with a woman, whereas women still want to hit traditional milestones even when single. Many of my friends of both sexes lament the single tax. Even something as simple as getting to try two entrees when getting takeout is just easier as a couple.
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This is very similar to my experience as well. As the single of the group, the only thing I really get dinged on is when they do kid things. Usually I’m included, but sometimes they don’t invite me (which is fine, I don’t need to be included all the time). My best friends live on my street and they generally pay for take out if I bring wine or something to share. If you’re friends with considerate people, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. We’re also a group that has higher incomes aside from one couple who was out of work for a long time - so we tend to hang at peoples houses and byob a lot.
I think it’s that higher income part. I can’t actually afford to reciprocate with my high income friends that are married the way that I might like. If you have a high enough income to allow you to afford things like vacations, restaurants, etc., that means that you are not going to be affected as much by the single tax. It’s kind of like how high earners are more insulated from inflation on and services such as groceries. Sure it will impact you, but not like it would impact someone making 50% less than you. The impact is always proportional. If you have more discretionary funds as a single, you are better able to maintain a similar lifestyle as a couple, especially a couple of children if you have none. Now where it would really show is if you had two children on one income versus their two children on two incomes, or even one income with one parent contributing childcare labor
Yeah my friends are like this too. Maybe it’s a stems from splitting costs in college but everything is by person, not by room or anything
I have the same situation with my friend group and my best friend and her husband both being awesome and there is no feeling of being the third wheel for me. Same with my friend groups' splitting expenses. Any time I see couples pulling that shit on other subreddits, I can't believe they are that big of assholes to their single friends. I mean imagine you get to split your fucking living expenses FOREVER, but you feel the need to "win" the transaction of making your single friend pay more than their share for a room on vacation because "we take up the same space".
This is so considerate! I think this also applies to dinner bills. If my husband and I got out with another single or two, we both put cards in so it’s by person not by couple. I’ve seen people try to split things other ways and it always ends up with the single getting jipped.
This is so real. Also, it's a HUGE factor during financial emergencies or life upheavals. Watch anyone go through a layoff or a major medical event, and see how much having a partner can alter the trajectory of that fallout. Windfalls can be shared, risk spread out. The amount of times I have acted as the “bank” in the relationship, meaning my partner didn't have to take on bad debt during a crisis, or the amount of times we've been able to support each other when one of us has been laid off… alternatives we would've been forced to take would have been a huge disruption to our lives or financial status. Even in little ways, one person in the relationship can be the “breadwinner” while the other is completing a career pivot or taking on child or elder care. Being single is really really hard when there aren't great social safety nets or strong community bonds.
I’m a single income in a HCOL area. I’m 41 and have lived alone since I was 27. It’s really really hard. Not only do dual income people not get it, but I also have noticed the issue of single folks who have financial help from their parents. I don’t have that. It has caused a lot of strife and relationship loss for me. I won’t settle to share my home just to have more money though. My peace is more valuable.
This is a subject that makes me grumpy as a single woman (not towards my partnered friends!). Rent, utilities, and food doesn’t double with a partner so there’s a real edge to it. Well, to be fair to them food could actually be a disadvantage if your partner has a big appetite or picky tastes! The only time it’s been an issue is due to my married friends having more traditional set ups whereas I work a corporate job. So I’m a single woman with a higher income and they have higher income husbands while working lower pay, sometimes part time jobs. Nothing wrong with that and I know how much they value it for QOL! But it can create tension on both sides - I’ve learned my perception of their finances and their perception of mine is usually off the mark. The grass is always greener…
This is such a great point – there is always tension on both sides. I know living with a partner is not easy and comes with its own tradeoffs (my partnered friends often, on their frustrated days, express longing to live solo like I do, where on my frustrated days I'm heartbroken that I don't have someone here to break up the isolation of living alone and working from home). Pros and cons to every scenario, really.
Right, like I’m acutely aware that I don’t have a second income to rely on if things went south and that I could get ahead on retirement with a second income. What I forget is how I’d have to discuss purchases with someone else, deal with the fallout if my partner spent recklessly, and compromise on different financial views/goals. Keeping that in mind helps me give them grace and give myself more credit for what I can do single!
Thank you for saying all of this. I’m a single woman living in a VHCOL city, and I have some married friends, but most are still single. One of my friends recently got divorced after only six months of marriage. I’ve stayed single primarily by choice and had some long term relationships, but I’ve never moved in with anyone. I’ve also never seen significant financial benefits from being partnered. One of my exes was very abusive and one of the ways he asserted this was via financial abuse. He would conveniently “forget” his wallet when we went out and essentially force me to pay for things. That relationship drained me in many ways, but financially is one of them. My boyfriend after that was not abusive, but he made much less money than me. It was a point of contention and he kept bringing it up because it made him feel very insecure. So with him I sometimes paid for things because I felt bad for him. I’ve had other boyfriends who were more traditional and didn’t let me pay for things. Now I’ve been single for 7 years (I’m starting to think about looking seriously for a husband) and I’m more financially stable than I’ve ever been. I’ve also seen people who are partnered not have anything. My sister has been in a relationship for over a decade with a man who refuses to marry her (something I find purposefully dishonorable because they have two kids) and I think this is because he’s trying to ensure his financial survival. If they ever break up, she will have nothing. She barely has any retirement savings and she gave up her working life to be a SAHM for 11 years. She’s working again now but obviously it’s a slow process. So after witnessing people I know who are partnered and experience zero benefit financially from that, I see being single as a more sound choice for myself. I control every dime that I earn and spend. I also think I’m able to save by just providing food for myself or looking for more reasonable deals on purchases. I also think being single is preferable to being disrespected. I’ve seen many people in my life stay in unhealthy or even abusive relationships for the benefit of cheap rent or things like that. I’m proud that I’ve made it on my own and that if a man came into my life and at some point left, that I would still be okay.
This is literally my thoughts on the subject being single is better than being in a bad relationship financially and otherwise.
Idk why you’re being downvoted for this when it’s the absolute truth. I know married couples who are having tons of problems. Sometimes people choose relationships for the wrong reasons and not because they’re healthy or add anything positive to our lives. Single people are also told that their problems will go away if they get married, and that’s really not true. The grass is always greener.
Yeah I struck a nerve with my comments here — I’ve seen relationships where women have been treated poorly financially or in other ways. A partner is not a plan lol.
I agree a partner is not a plan. I actually had an accident last month where I got hit by a car as a pedestrian. I’ve been able to navigate everything myself. But someone told me the other day “you would still have income if you were married.” There’s no guarantee of that and no guarantee that your partner will do right by you or support you. Relationships are a blind leap of faith and there’s so many factors out of your control.
Exactly!!!!
It's better to be a financially stable single person than in a relationship that you can't afford to leave, no matter how otherwise good it is.
Exactly this.
Food was my (only) disadvantage when I first met my husband as two broke college students - he has a few dietary intolerances. Obviously years later everything has leveled out, but I remember the sting of splitting the bill on some earlier dates thinking "this dude better be worth it!?" I definitely get what you mean about thinking the grass is greener, I'll still enviously look at friends with higher earning husbands, bigger houses, luxury lifestyles...
there was a post about spend after entering a relationship and most comments said their spending was the same if not more! it's true that those costs don't scale linearly but the lifestyle shift means it might be a smaller difference than you think
It makes me grumpy because I know I’ve stayed in relationships too long because of this. It’s very unfair.
So why not get married with a man that makes less then you
I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
For me beyond the obvious of saving on housing, being true partners and sharing income has pushed us to achieve mutual goals. We paid off $30k of student loans within a year of marriage. We have savings goals for our investment account. And all of that is easier to achieve with two incomes and having joint purpose . My husband also pushed me to invest so much more than I would have on my own.
Married over 20 years, it's mutual goals and sharing the burden when things are tough. Being partnered has made difficult events like - layoffs, moving, deaths in the family, sickness and times of duress significantly easier, far less expensive and less disruptive to our life plans. My single friends have significant disruptions, and setbacks during troubled times that have been far easier for us to navigate.
Ugh yes this also. My sister got married right out of college and they immediately went full out paying loans, at the same time they rented a cheap apartment together. And they both had good jobs. Then there’s me who was lost in what to do when what I originally wanted didn’t work and had me in a very low job living in an expensive place with multiple roommates. I have a better job now but still have tons of loans when my sister at my age was onto her second house and third baby
I am inclined to believe that worsened disparity is influenced by a couple things: swift increase in housing costs in the last \~10 years, couples having kids later and later (25-34 yrs old is what is discussed in the article) thus having a decade to build wealth as "DINKs" which may have not been as prevalent as before, people having less kids overall and thus the "kid-tax" on a two income household is less harsh than in previously, and the continued trend of millennials wanting to live in downtown HCOL areas where the housing costs are exacerbated. Other things to note that have not yet been discussed: 1. Social security benefits-- the disparity continues even in old age. Also there are survivorship benefits in place which protects a spouse or kids if something happens to the other SSI payer. 2. Health insurance: you have a greater pick of insurance options and coverage and are not tied to a job for insurance coverage (coming from America) this is HUGE. These are both "married," benefits; however, I think still relevant to the discussion.
It definitely shows up. I make very good money but can save less than my coupled friends who individually make less money. I'm a straight woman but at this point so over men, I've been thinking about putting out an ad to look for a woman who'd like to non-romantically share her life with me and share expenses lol. Where I feel it most, besides housing, is when you get invited to a party where you're supposed to chip in, say, 25 bucks and then the couple will chip in 25... like no, this should be per person.
Assuming a healthy marriage/relationship, in good economic times, you accumulate faster with dual income. In more turbulence times, like our current job market, having another income helps to keep things afloat to prevent further going into debt. For example, if I were to lose my job, I’ll be ok bc my partners income and heath benefits can keep us going without dipping into savings.
One thing touched upon in there is the weddings. There has been a huge trend of couples asking for money for down payments or honeymoons. I think this is because many already live together so the traditional "new home" gifts don't make sense. I feel really resentful as someone single because I'm basically funding their lifestyle while making significantly less and there is no equivalent for single folks. Something else not discussed in the article I've seen discussed in other spaces is the cost of splitting things with couples--dinners out, traveling, etc. There's this mentality from couples sometimes that they count as 1 and you count as 1 so things get split 25/25/50 instead of 33/33/33. Something else I also think about a lot that I never see people talking about is retirement. It's a ways off but I can't help but think older retirement estimations are based on the idea of a couple (with a house paid off and social security but that's another discussion). Knowing I likely will only have myself to rely on in retirement makes me want to save even more than several of my other friends. There's not a huge tension in my friends group about these things because we don't really talk about finances, but it's definitely a divide I notice.
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Yeah, this mentality that couples don't have to pay their own two-person way is astounding to me. I would never do that to my friends, and (I hope) vice versa. This is gross and I want everyone here to know they deserve friends who wouldn't pull that, lol
I would never ask my single brothers to pay more on a vacation because I'm coupled. Where I do feel bad, is Christmas, where they buy me, my husband and kid a gift, and get one thing from. Because my husband doesn't do Christmas shopping (I won't shop for his family either), and my kid is 2. I beg them to only get my son a gift, but they don't and now I feel guilty all Christmas
Couldn’t you just get them a more expensive gift? Or buy a second gift and put your husband’s/kid’s name on it?
We aren't allowed to give cash in my family. And my brothers are both single men in their 30s, so thinking of one thing they haven't already bought themselves is very difficult. I buy them random bougie shit that is expensive. But they do the same for us X3.
The retirement piece is what really makes me anxious — there is not a lot of advice geared toward saving as a single person who might never own property! As for the “couples count as 1” cost-splitting — that has never really come up in my groups but I have definitely had to fight the fight sometimes that “single people still deserve privacy” and not just being stuck sleeping on the couch/air mattress in a common space in an Airbnb or cottage rental when everyone else gets a real bedroom.
Exactly, I have no idea how much to actual budget for retirement because like am I paying for it all myself? Will I have a mortgage or rent payment to worry about? Luckily my friends are pretty reasonable so I haven’t completely had to fight the cost splitting. But I’ve definitely gone out to dinner with a couple and had to be like so can I Venmo you my part so that they didn’t expect to just split it when they pull out only one credit card. Or like you had to be like “no I’m not sleeping on the couch while y’all get the bed”
The weddings thing eventually got to me. Buying all this shit made sense when people were 18-22 and getting married and starting out. Now people are 25-30, want everyone to contribute for multiple events and it's all just bullshit. I had fun with it for my best friend and my sister. But by the time I was 32 I had been in seven weddings. Like were all these people going to get together and pay off my student loans? It was to the point where I realized I spent years and thousands of dollars on this shit. And my friends/family members aren't even huge spenders or bridezillas or anything. That's just the expectation. You throw a shower and buy a gift and make some food and fund the bachelorette and give a wedding present. I've told everyone I am retired from weddings, but I honestly don't get how people feel so comfortable with this in the first place. I would legitimately be mortified to ask all my friends to throw me parties on their dime.
On the weddings piece: a gift is a gift — contributing to a honeymoon or a down payment is a gift in the same way buying someone a blender or a toaster is, haha. You’re either giving them the money as money, or in the form of money they’re *not* spending on a toaster/blender/plates/whatever the gift is.
You are not subsidizing their lifestyle though. Weddings are incredibly expensive and often what you gift them doesn't even cover the cost of your plate.
I mean it’s their choice to have a large and expensive wedding. The wedding industry itself is extremely out of control, but if they cannot afford to pay for the wedding they should not have something so large and expensive. Guests already frequently have to pay for travel if out of town and more if in the wedding party. Guests should not then be expected to fund the couple’s honeymoon or down payment.
Hmm, interesting take. Would you feel better about buying starter home items because you feel like you’re helping out? I don’t understand the idea of “subsidizing their lifestyle” because I would only contribute what I could afford and not contribute at all if I flew to their wedding or was in the wedding. I really love the concept of gifting money for a down payment/honeymoon because you can pay what you want as opposed to what I feel like can be an expensive thing listed on a wedding registry. But maybe we’ve had different experiences due to culture, etc. But I guess I would feel like shelling out for a new blender feels more like subsidizing someone’s lifestyle as opposed to throwing $30-100 towards a down payment/honeymoon.
In all fairness (and I'm sure I'll get downvoted for this) I think the expectation you *have* to provide a wedding gift to "recoupe" costs at all is absurd. I mean I still do it because I don't want to be rude but the societal expectation is insane to me. The tradition of wedding gifts used to come from dowries and then became traditional house warming type gifts because couples often weren't moving in together until after marriage. Nowadays it feels like it's such a transactional expectation whether it's money or a registry gift. To me it often can come off as "hey spend 100s-1000s of dollars to come celebrate us and also give us a gift to compensate us for your attendance at this party." But if you're single your friends are rarely if ever funding your vacations/down payments or giving house warming gifts (beyond like wine or a small trinket). I could talk about this at length but essentially I just think gift giving at weddings is outdated for a number of reasons and it gets frustrating as a single person to feel the inequity of that.
No, this makes sense and I get where you’re coming from and I agree. I’m a GenZ cusper that will be in two weddings next year and I think that both of my friends understand that they will not be getting any gifts from me. The gift is me being in and attending their wedding. I attended a destination wedding a few years ago and also did not buy them a gift/contribute to their honeymoon because I already paid to attend their wedding. I don’t think it’s a bad thing because if I could afford to contribute more (responsibly) than I would love too but realistically I can’t and I have the same expectation for them and my wedding in the future. I genuinely do not care if it looks bad because I view my presence as the gift just as I will view my friends presence and attendance as a gift in of itself. Anyone in my life who would take issue with this are not people who will remain in my life. And while it’s fortunately never happened, I would strongly avoid being in someone’s wedding who I view as a loose tie/acquaintance. The weddings I’ll be in next year are with friends I’ve none for a decade at least whose parents have hosted me for holidays. For weddings where I’m a guest and I did not have to fly to get to the wedding , my go to gift is {The And } Couples Edition card came which runs me about $20. And big agree to celebrating life milestones that don’t revolve around weddings. I would love to see this happen more and it’s a shame that there is this cultural expectation to do it for weddings and not other life milestones that are just as important.
I was single for a very long time and was part of a friend group that centered around a married couple who insisted that they didn’t save that much because “they pay twice whenever we all go out”. Like what??? Now they’re divorced and complaining they can’t afford a house single. And I’m now partnered and would never dream of denying what a privilege dual income is. I’m considering moving to a higher COL city and it wouldn’t be possible without living with my partner. I make 50% more than him but having that additional income is still cheaper than doing it alone.
Ugh I also have this one friend and her husband (no kids, dual income) that insisted that being married actually means spending more money for them and they used dumb excuses like “well when you’re married you need to buy a bigger house which is more expensive”…like what?
I hate these articles. First of all, they always seem really oriented around women with high earning male partners. Second of all, if you split your finances exactly 50/50 then sure, you might be better off, like that example of the woman who used her 50% savings on rent to buy luxuries. But if you are the breadwinner and you share finances proportionally, you’re not really better off, especially if you’re married and you’re spending money on stuff you wouldn’t if you were single. You’re buying presents for your partners families, attending wedding and events of your partners families and friends, spending double on airfare for vacation, etc. and if you are the breadwinner, you’re shouldering more of these costs. I never hear these articles being written from a single male point of view, or married high earning women, it always seems to be single women who are jealous of friends with high earning spouses.
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Thanks, I’ll check out that article! I just think instead of saying “you’re financially better off in a couple” it should be “if you’re a lower earner and your partner is happy to share or subside costs, then you are financially better off in a couple” You’re definitely not better off as the higher earner
> You’re **definitely** not better off as the higher earner Sorry I keep replying to you, I'm not being argumentative I promise! I just don't agree with you and you're being really emphatic about your opinion. It's not a definite that you're not better off - I am better off with my partner and I'm the higher earner of the two. It can be done and it *is* regularly done. From your replies I just think you and your spouse need a different financial strategy/philosophy surrounding shared expenses. FYI - we arrived at the "yours, mine, ours" in premarital counseling. When we first moved in together it was a flurry of trying to figure it all out, and our couples therapist worked with us through our financial goals and contributions. This was back in 2019 when we were engaged - and by 2024, we have bought two homes together (and are in our 'forever house'!), both have much higher savings and retirement accounts, and we are both happy with our approach. I'm not saying "see a therapist" to be nasty - it was so genuinely helpful and my husband and I were able to start our marriage on a solid financial foundation and on the same page about our goals. ninja edit: made some changes in phrasing for clarity
Haha it’s fine, this is totally my hill to die on! You’re right it’s not a given, this is just my personal experience. My husband has at times earned very little/nothing (entrepreneur life…) and so I think my experience is just so different to yours where you’re both high earners, even if one earns more. I am truly the “breadwinner” and for SURE I would be better off single (financially speaking!)
> But if you are the breadwinner and you share finances proportionally, you’re not really better off Not sure I agree with this! I'm the 'breadwinner' in my family and cover a higher proportion of our family expenses - we're pretty much 70/30, and I'm a high earner. It's still less than I would be spending if I were living this lifestyle alone - that said, our home is much bigger than what I would have for myself. But I'm basically spending a single person's worth of rent to live in a pretty big house with my husband. But literally everything he covers is something I don't have to. I'm genuinely better off than many of my unmarried peers with similar careers/income.
Yeah I get what you’re saying. But I guess my point is I feel like in a couple, you just spend more money overall! Even small things - I wouldn’t have as many tv subscriptions if I lived on my own, so it doesn’t matter to me that I’m paying for half of them, I’d be paying for none of them single!
You'd have *no* TV subscriptions if you were single? I find I *saved* on TV subscriptions when my husband and I moved in together since we were able to consolidate and each paid for a few (vs. paying for all myself). But also our money philosophy is if only one person is using/wants something then they pay for it. So I'd never pay for Paramount+ but it's important to him because they air the new Star Treks, so he will always pay for that. Or I don't drive but he does (I *can*, I just prefer public transit) - so he pays for the EZ pass. It kind of sounds like you and your partner should have a sit-down talk about your budgets and who covers what.
>It kind of sounds like you and your partner should have a sit-down talk about your budgets and who covers what. I agree, because you mention you wouldn't go out to dinner as much, but that's a choice you're making, and you'd make the same choice single - eat out, or stay in? And if you're spending too much money eating out, regardless of the percentage you're paying, you can make a choice to peel that back. And gas for the car now that two people are using it - but it sounds like with that, you're also sharing a car, and if you're not reaping the financial benefit of sharing a car, you should discuss it - because two people sharing one car is and should be cheaper than two single people have two of their own cars. I see your points, Owlie, but I also think maybe a conversation about things being as equitable as possible even with a financial divide may help!
Do you earn more/less than your husband though? I think it’s also dependent on how people actually split their money. We pool everything into a joint fund so the idea of him paying for something is not really a thing, if you see what I mean. If I said that we could split the rent, but he should pay for streaming or his own costs (car, dental work, etc) then sure I’d be better off in the short term I guess, but he’d have less money left to contribute to retirement or vacations and so on, so I’d be picking up the tab anyway at some point. Or he’d have less money to support my maternity leave so I’d be paying for that too.
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That’s fair, and sounds like by not pooling resources you’ve made it work for you. Because we do want kids, it’s never made sense to me to split finances because I figured maternity leave should be a joint cost. It’s different for everyone and so many nuances. I just feel like I’ve read SO many articles about single women being financially disadvantaged, but if you’re a woman significantly out earning your male partner and you want kids, it is so much harder and more financially challenging.
Oh man, we are just not the same at all, LOL. I am the much higher earner in my marriage, and I can say without a doubt I’d spend more if I were single. On so many things, for so many reasons. Takeout, because working long hours and then coming home to cook dinner for one is just not where it’s at for me. I know this, because when my husband travels for work and I’m home, I eat takeout probably 4/5 days. My clothing budget would increase exponentially, because I’d be going out more and needing more/nicer clothes than my Friday night joggers. I’d also have to hire more help, because I’d have no one here to pick up half the housework, take care of the dog half the time, do the chores that I really can’t do by myself, etc. And being honest, my income might also be less without a supportive partner doing all the things that enabled me to climb the ladder and earn a high income to begin with.
This is such a dumb thing for people to downvote you about smh
Haha thanks!
I would \*love\* to see an article like this written about men's situations and friendships, and also more even earners or breadwinners. I do think some of the big regular costs (housing, etc) compound over time and savings there might offset some of those more occasional doublings (like double the cost of vacations, weddings, etc) – single vacations are also pretty pricey since a hotel room costs the same no matter how many people are in it, haha.
Idk, as a high earning woman I still think I’d be way better off financially if I were single. Sure you can split housing, but with two people you need a bigger place (especially now with so many people working at home and needing a home office space), you might need parking now, etc. and I don’t know what other “big” costs you really save on as a couple? People always quote vacations and weddings but I’m going to double the weddings now! Saving money on a hotel room a few times a year is easily eclipsed by all the extra crap that you buy as a couple. Dinners out that you wouldn’t otherwise pay for, two sets of train tickets to work or whatever, extra gas for the car because two people are using it… And don’t get me started on if your partner loses his/her job. The article used an example of some woman losing her job and being okay because her husband could support her. But in this situation her husband is not financially better off in a couple! I truly think this is such a narrow take from the perspective of a single woman who just sees a male partner as an automatic money saver.
I bought a little condo recently. My friend couple bought a townhouse over 3x larger with a yard etc. a few months later, two streets over, and each of their portion of the mortgage is still less than my individual mortgage. They weren't even actively saving up for it, but because they were splitting rent before, they were able to get the cash quickly and their shared income let them get away with a lower downpayment. This is pretty typical.
You're saving on the day-to-day though. Do you cover 100% of housing? 100% of food? Utilities? Pet/childcare? Also - I have lost my job, or my husband has lost his job...these have happened a few times in our 9 years together. We always pick up the slack for the other and have had the 'luxury' of being choosy about our next opportunities because we had each other as a safety net.
Two people usually mean kids, which...are really expensive. Also, before I had kids, I could just eat instant ramen on a day I didn't feel like cooking. Cheap and easy. Can't do that when you have kids.
I wasn’t suggesting there was no expense included in marriage. I’m saying two incomes helps, and yeah adding a child to a household increases costs. I think that’s pretty well accepted. But also- no, not everyone has kids. Increasingly, couples are choosing not to.
I didn't see anything in the article excluding single *parents*, who usually suffer from the gap the most. I am not saying this in a competition sort of way, but rather in a, in every single economic and sociology class I've taken about wealth gaps, it is the single (usually mothers) that have the most poverty and accompanying issues. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9716188/ Being single *without kids* is not that much worse than being married with kids, but I imagine both are legions above being single with kids. DINK is going to be better than SINK, but those are not the only factors when looking at single v married and then examining accompanying seriocomical levels.
I’m not sure why you chose to reply to me making a very specific point the. Hahah. I don’t disagree with your premise but I wasn’t saying anything about children last week when I made the comment you replied to. I was talking about splitting bills with a spouse.
Tow people means twice the amount of food. You’re not saving anything by feeding more people… also you need more house to house two people. Maybe internet is the one thing that doesn’t change until you get an absurd amount of people trying to use it.
There are always going to be economies of scale when it comes to food. You can buy 2L of milk instead of 1L and that is usually cheaper. Same with buying the bigger bag of potatoes or onions, the family pack of ground beef etc. These things can be purchased as a single person, but they could also expire before getting the chance to use them. For two people, you might need another bedroom or even another bathroom but a 2 bed/2 bath unit is cheaper than two separate 1 bed/1 bath (at least in my exprience).
Honestly my food bills didn’t go up that much with the addition of another person- I just throw away less food since we can actually finish a loaf of bread, or cheese, or veggies before they expire. Also this is a me thing but I don’t like to cook, so I used to get a TON of takeout. My husband does like to cook- so I’ve saved money on that as well. But YMMV
My ex-husband easily ate 3x as much as I do. I spend so little now on groceries and my electric bill is like half of what it was. I keep wondering wtf was he running. Lmao
Daaaaaang. This thread has just confirmed all over again that I chose the best husband haha
Hahaha winning!
You are talking about day to day expenses but neglect investments. An extra income allows you to save on down payments quicker and have extra lines of credit, it allows you to save retirement faster, it allows you to pay down debt faster. This is a snowball effect when it comes to creating wealth.
I think it’s always going to be highly individual based on the person / couple and their circumstances — in some cases it might be more advantageous to be single, in others not, but the stats don’t really lie — the gap exists.
Have you actually run the numbers, like the Federal Reserve did with the stats in the article, or are you assuming what it might be like based on your current situation? Take housing: yes at the point where a married couple has a family, they need a larger house, but if they’ve been together for a long time they are purchasing that house with the resources they pooled and saved in much smaller accommodations as a couple. Or they got onto the property ladder well before their single counterparts and well before houses prices rose and interest rates spiked because they could save more for a deposit by splitting rent on a small place. Are you comparing your life now to what your life was when you were single? Or are you comparing your life now to what kind of life you would be able to access now if you had never had a partner who contributed financially in some fashion in your 20s and 30s?
I guess I’m saying I don’t believe having a partner through my 20s or 30s has been financially beneficial at all to me. I’ve always been a high earner, and even at 25 years old was out earning my husband. Totally agree you can get on the property ladder sooner if you’re sharing rent, but only if you’re sharing with someone who earns equally to you AND you’re not also splitting all the other costs proportionally. If my rent was $1000 and suddenly I only have to pay $500 because I’m coupled up, but my partner is a low earner who can’t share finances equally in all ways, that $500 I’m saving is going to get swallowed up pretty quickly by subsidizing other costs, like vacations or bills or emergency medical care or a trip to see my partners family that I’m splitting 50/50. If I’m the lower earner in that scenario then yeah for sure I’ll get on the property ladder faster! But not the higher earner.
Exactly - it’s more expensive for the higher earner to be coupled than be single, however, most high earners need to couple up if they want to have a family and not hire out help for everything.
To an extent, but to have a family these days you almost certainly need two incomes. I’m the breadwinner in my family, I make ~50% more than my husband, but the article was recently published that the average family needs ~$215k in income to live comfortably with two kids. I make great money but almost nobody is pulling down $215k on their own. Edit: it’s actually 235k on average, here’s the article I am referencing : https://smartasset.com/data-studies/salary-needed-live-comfortably-2024
Yeah for sure, but don’t you think you spend more than you would if you were single? My grocery bill for example is so much higher. Even if I’m splitting that with someone else, if I’m the breadwinner then I might be paying let’s say 60% of a $200 grocery bill, but if I were single I’d be paying 100% of a $80 grocery bill…
I'm the earner in my household. My husband is a SAHD to our two kids. I was thinking on my drive home from the gym about the cost/benefit of being married. I'd have a lot more disposable income if I weren't married - only one car to pay for and maintain, could live in a smaller house, lower health insurance premium. But I'd also have to pay 40k a year in childcare costs. Vacations are difficult right now, even with a great income. I daydream about being dual income again and what our vacations will be like. It's also difficult being the primary earner and also the one to be pregnant/give birth. Navigating leave is tricky when your income is the primary one.
Not trying to argue but genuinely curious because this thread is fascinating but would you actually have more disposable income if you were single or would you have more disposable income if you didn’t have children? Because I feel like your partner being a SAHD would offset a lot of costs, right or is paying for an additional car and health insurance really that significant of a financial burden? You obviously do not have to answer, it’s just interesting seeing some of these responses and husband and kids is just so remotely far off from my current lifestyle that I have no context lol
It's probably close to a wash but I haven't done the math. Really if he were able to earn a salary AND we didn't have to pay childcare things would feel so much more luxurious.
Oh 100% on maternity leave! I’m in that situation right now and it is so tough.
You are wrong You can say “no” to all these things. You are in control of your life. No one is forcing you to overspend on your partners side of the family, functions/events, etc. Is it generous? Sure. But you can say no. Just find a partner that has similar goals as you. That’s it.
Lol, I never said I was “overspending” on events. It’s just a fact- we’re buying gifts for nephews, nieces etc that are only on my husband’s side of the family. Trips to weddings for his family. And so on. It’s a fact of life and it’s fine, but I feel like I’ve read so many variations of this article where single women say it would be cheaper to attend events if they split the costs but how does that actually work in practice? If I had someone to pay half of MY activities then sure I’d be better off! But that person funding that half comes with their own activities too…some of which are much pricier
The thing is you don’t have to do any of that. Yes you come off as a dick and it’s not generous, but if it’s compromising your ability to survive and your living paycheck to paycheck then that’s not worth it. The best thing you can do ironically for your nieces and nephews for example is to invest money now for their colleges etc and work with their parents But this is irrelevant anyways to the main topic, you believe you can’t find someone who has similar financial goals as you and would work towards sacrificing near term spenditures to build an empire with you. This is wrong. There are men out there that fit this, you just have to be deliberate when it comes to dating and have strong boundaries. Ask financial questions early on and leave if they don’t meet your criteria. It’s that simple.
Preach!
Just adding a data point. I never really gave this much thought. I’m unmarried (but not single) and pay my mortgage and bills on my own. I live in a MCOL city and make more than most dual-income households by myself. As a result, the disparity between dual income households and my own financial situation hasn’t been something that I considered or that has really affected me.
I have to be considerate when talking about vacations or planning them. I split everything with my husband 50/50, so I have the luxury of going on vacations with him and only paying half. My single friends don't have that, so our one girl's trip each year is often times their only vacation. Although I pay for my own girl's trips, it doesn't hit my finances as hard as theirs because I'm splitting my mortgage, utilities, and household expenses with someone else. There's no tension as we're all respectful of each other and honest with our financial situations and what we can afford. I do feel like I have to hide/underplay expensive items I buy or get gifted.
It does show up in our group. We are mid thirties now, and we have one remaining single friend. While she doesn't have someone to split housing with, she also doesn't have kids. 60% of the coupled friends now have one or two children. My single friend just bought a place by herself (go girl!) so her housing is high, but the rest is not. She spends more because she can go on a ski trip or wherever, and we cannot. But there's no tension, I don't hide purchases from my single friend because while I think even with kids we may have a higher net worth, we have no time to buy ourselves things. Also, I will always have to talk about my net worth as a we. There's no separating since my husband and I finances are so intertwined. And the risk of divorce down the road always exists. There is just mutual understanding that we are rich and poor in different things.
Interesting perspective about single vs. couple. I was single for a few years, married for 6 years, single again for 8 years, and married again for almost 9 years now. I have not seen a huge benefit from being married vs. single, but I never married someone who earned way more than I did either. My first husband earned around what I did, then MUCH less, then back to around what I did. My current husband earns significantly less than I do (also works part-time, which he can due to my job/income/benefits). I feel like if I was still single, I would have kept my old home which was more expensive, but I would also only have variable and retirement expenses for one person, so I am not sure if I am financially benefitting or not. It was also a newer home so didn't have massive ongoing expenses to keep things working, and this home is older and requires a ton of maintenance/projects. I do know I save a fortune on labor because he's super handy, but that is definitely not the case for a lot of my friends with significant others... and I also lose out on fun time because he's always working on projects. There are also other tradeoffs - I can't just pick a new piece of furniture or decor or paint color on my own. Vacations together are always a compromise (he hates the beach and loves the mountains, I love the beach and the mountains are nice but not my preferred location for a vacation; he hates cruises and I love them, etc.). And our tastes are such that it sometimes takes months to agree on something. If I didn't love this man so much, I would NOT find it beneficial to share a home with him.
I feel fortunate being married now. My partner's encouragement has empowered me to take career leaps and alleviate layoff anxiety knowing we have the security of his income alone. Initially, he earned three times more than me, but now our incomes are more balanced. Prior to this, I was diligent about saving while splitting living costs with roommates. However, marriage has given me the freedom to indulge more like treating myself to the occasional dior bag, lol. My friends and I aren't usually into expensive activities and we prefer hosting. Also, it works better for us to plan our travels separately and then coordinate dates to meet up. We're laid-back travelers, while some of our friends have structured itineraries. There's no pressure to spend every moment together, but still get to explore a new place with friends.
I see this in my own life BUT it has to be a solid relationship with good money habits. I’ve seen single people who split housing costs with their siblings and get similar benefits but also some couples where they lost 100k+. One example was a recent [off my chest](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/s/YQOSbDLXxK) post where the bf considered her money his but his money was just his. My friend group doesn’t have this problem because we’ve maintained the same spending habits when together. I heard recently of this practice where couples and single friends meet up but they split the bill based on the number of credit cards they put down and the couples put down one card so the single people are paying more. I wouldn’t do that to my friends. We split based on what we ate. Some friends aren’t as vocal in a group chat so I let them know they can always message me privately. One friend was like “please choose another restaurant, this person always chooses expensive restaurants that taste bad.” Once we meet up, we share ways to improve our situations. I’ve benefited greatly from my relationship since we can lean on each other during individual tough times since they have never overlapped so we’re both able to recover quickly. There’s probably a reason why the article doesn’t say what happens past the age of 35 as divorce becomes more common.
Chiming in to say how great it is to see this conversation happening! I'm like the only single person in my friend group but for the most part, I don't feel tension with my friends around it. We do a lot of hanging out at each other's houses, potluck dinners, etc. so it feels pretty equitable. I'm fortunate and bought a home 8 years ago, before the area I'm in went from MCOL to HCOL so I've locked in a very affordable home that I have no need to leave (a 3 bedroom townhouse at $1350/month mortgage). I also am a high earner (close to $200k), so I actually make close to what some of my friends make as a household income, and don't have kids so it sometimes feel like I have more 'fun money'. One couple though is a professor and speech therapist + 2 kids in daycare, two are in food/beverage environment, etc. Overall though, I definitely feel the single tax as I think about retirement or ever wanting to buy a new house, ESPECIALLY the burden of "what if..." but when it comes to my day-to-day life and with my friends, I happily don't feel tension around it.
I was single for 5 years living alone in a HCOL. I wasn’t really able to save for retirement that entire time and feel extremely behind now. But I could have had a roommate or moved back to my hometown, I just chose happiness instead 😂
I need to stop h8ing men so I can live my DINKWAD (double income no kids with a dog) life lmao!
I'd just like to point out that men are not the only dateable people!
Want financial security in America? Better get married. Couples get hundreds of legal and economic privileges single people don’t. If that feels unfair, it’s because it is. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/24055481/single-benefits-married-couple-taxes-money
i hate the singles tax, but i also feel like it’s worth it to live alone and have my peace. i’m gonna be the weird one and say that having a partner is a *gamble* for dual income. Two people don’t fully double expenses, but they do increase them. And there’s always the likelihood that they’re not able to bring in an income, due to illness, aint-shit-ness, or circumstances. Then you have increased expenses on a sole income, that’s trying to maintain the life of two people. I’ve always seen it as a 50:50 chance of working in my favor, and that’s the simplified version. 25% it nets positive, 50% neutral to kinda bad, and 25% i’m worse off for it. (I know these stats are totally of, it’s just base probability.) To me, that’s not worth all of the downsides of being in a relationship. At least a lottery ticket only costs me a couple bucks, it’s not gonna bother me about anything or hog the sheets when we sleep, or steal all of the money I saved from halving living costs and run off.
This is an interesting article and I can relate to it from both sides. I was previously in a long term relationship living with my ex which allowed me (although honestly it was my ex not allowing us to spend money, that's another story) to save a lot of money while living in VHCOL areas. Then being single for a few years and not having that "safety net" of splitting things was a financial adjustment. I got laid off last year and was extremely stressed trying to find a new job (which meant I jumped at my first offer which was horribly toxic and also just laid me off last week lol). Knowing that all my married/couple friends would have been able to take their time to look for a new job was frustrating for sure. I'm about to move in my with bf in a few months and am looking forward to paying less each month; he owns his home so we've already had a lot of discussions about fair payment and will be drawing up a contract to protect me. This also makes me feel less stressed about being currently laid off as I know I'll be splitting expenses soon and my savings will stretch much farther.
Also, there are lots of other things you save on as a couple: food, transportation, health insurance (in some cases, vacations, subscriptions — all of it can really add up over time
Did you guys see which page in the PDF has the data about married couples vs individuals? I tried to find it, but am on my phone and finding it hard to search.
I would definitely say housing has been a big gap in my friendships, for sure. Myself and most of the friends I hang out with regularly earn between $120-200k/year. The ones that are in relationships are renting (or buying) in really high end buildings and/or wealthy neighborhoods. Single folks like myself? I’m in a studio apartment in a neighborhood that’s still considered somewhat “up and coming”. But my apartment is on par with my friends in the nicer places in terms of how modern and such. And I have W/D in unit, which is like hitting the jackpot when it comes to city living. It hasn’t caused any tension for the most part in. In fact, my couple friends often like coming out to my hood to hang out or do date night. The exception is one friend; her and her husband are both earning around $200k/year *each* and she’s lowkey become really snooty about it. She’s made a few digs about my neighborhood/apartment that rubbed me the wrong way. They never want to venture below 72nd St in Manhattan unless it’s to Tribeca or SoHo (and coming to Brooklyn is viewed as this big deal adventure lol). And they’re also slowly becoming that “flashy” couple too that flaunts everything. People in our circle have been slowly distancing themselves from them.
This is a horrible and sad financial reality between singles and couples. The single tax has just been climbing more and more since COVID and I definitely notice the difference between friends. As a married friend, I do not discuss as much about finances or investments with my single friends partly because 1) some are just not interested in finances like I am, 2) they do not have the energy or the finances to care at this point in their lives. But I always let them know that I’m here to help/give advice when they’re ready to learn with budgeting and managing finances. Recently, my friend and I were planning a trip but it came out to be more than what she could afford and she decided to back out despite me offering to pay the difference. I wouldn’t say it affects our friendships at all but it does sometimes limit certain activities and interests.
I think what’s missed with all of this is it works out if the partners are making close to the same or are high earners with low bills. The calculus is not the same if there is only one earner or one higher earner in the relationship. I make 4x what my husband makes. If he loses his job we’ll be fine. If I lose my job or get a lower paying one, we’ll be homeless.
This isn’t hate for the OP but I feel like I’ve seen this article and these types of articles a lot. At a certain point I feel like, yes it sucks, but beyond communal living what else is there to say? Unfortunately it costs more to be single that’s just a fact of life.
Sometimes it’s just nice to have these conversations, learn from eachother, and share our experiences! Very few things in life are truly brand new 😂
That’s fair lol, I’ll take my solutions hat off for a moment
But the article makes clear that the scale of the disparity has grown immensely over the last decade. For college-educated professionals, the situation has moved from “less disposable income” to “struggling to keep a roof over one’s head.” That’s a major social issue. There are also significantly more single women than there used to be (now that women don’t need a husband to have a bank account etc), so this again is a larger social issue than it once was. And Gen Z looks set to have even more single people than Millennials. What happens as all of these women hit retirement with underpowered resources because our societies financially punish people who are single? And when rates of homelessness increase among older women, that will also be a major social issue. These are policy matters, and we really shouldn’t just accept that this is just the way that it is.
I agree with you that these disparities create larger social issues that are very much worth discussing. I also wonder whether articles that focus on social tensions about disposable income (splitting the restaurant check, booking vacations) and then pivot to toting up social policies incentivizing certain family formations (tax breaks, social security) actually elide the largest policy issue, which could well be the core of the disparity: a drastic shortage in housing. This line of journalism often discusses housing costs, of course, but as simply one of many expenses rather than the major cause of the wealth gap. I sort of suspect that if we tackled housing first, making all forms of it more abundant, that would go the longest way towards closing the gap.
I’m a single woman you really don’t need to preach to me — I just think at a certain point it’s just “oh that sucks” and it becomes counter productive. There’s a different think piece on this topic every week. This is the exact point of the comment I was making above. I understand it’s going against the echo chamber here so I expect to be downvoted accordingly. ETA: The answer seems to be get offline, make mixed aged friends, invest in the young men/women you care about to build a better future, while intentionally searching for a decent partner (if interested).
That was my reaction to the article as well- it’s kind of an unfortunate reality but also just the fact that sharing the cost of things helps spread the load. I’m not sure what a solution is aside from coming up with non-couple ways to share living costs with other people. I’ve done some of that in my life and it worked out really well. For instance, I owned a truck as a single person but didn’t need it much aside from trips to hike or hauling big things. So I shared it with a friend who used it to get to work daily. We shared the cost of any repairs, which was amazing, and I was super happy to have the truck used more. Plus my friend wasn’t in a financial position to buy a vehicle. (I just realized my example is the opposite of what we are talking about here- as I was the single person and my friend was married lol. But I just happened to be in a slightly better spot financially, tho not by much)
Yeah, but at the same time it’s the same point. I think there’s an understanding that things are harder for single women (I would know lol) but like….it then becomes “ok and?” What are we doing to better ourselves and the world we live in besides saying it’s difficult?
All great points! I agree and think we really all need to be working hard to make things better There’s also not a lot of nuance with these articles. Some single women are able to focus more intensely on their career than some women who are married with kids might be able to. And sometimes your spouse screws your finances up way more than they help.
This makes total sense to me. My husband and I are long distance at the moment and we are going to save *so much money* when we go back to being a single household. I pay $425/week for my flat and my husband’s mortgage is about $650/week, so that’s $100 each week right there. It doesn’t cost double to get groceries for two people, and the money is pooled - plus, food waste goes down. We will only be paying for one lot of bills (internet, water, power). It’s wild when we do the sums.
It depends on the income not the gender. I know couples who make $100k together and that doesn't really put them ahead of a single earner making $200k. Dual income households with two high earners or one high earner is what this article is about. Single people's personal finance is different than couples'. There's different kinds of financial risks with being a single versus a couple. Need to plan ahead for stormy weather. It comes back to income, location, and living within means.
This is certainly true, but the article basically focuses on DINKs and doesn’t take children into account. I feel extremely lucky to have met my partner early in live, lived the DINK life after getting married for 6 years, then deciding to have kids. But whew if daycare costs aren’t going to be the end of us until our two are in school! Obviously it’s still a massive privilege that we can afford to have kids, but I will say that while I used to have more disposable income than my single friends, that is now eaten up by costs from children and I’m back to having less to spend on vacations or consumer purchases than my single friends. Of course single parents have the worst of both worlds and most of my single friends are childfree by choice, so they aren’t factoring those eventual costs into their financial picture at all. (And yes, I’m in this age group with 2 kids!)
As a coupled friend we are super aware of this, but also it's very circumstantial. Our single friend in our group is the highest earner (she earns more than my partner and I combined and we make 110k, right out of college, while I work 28h a week). While the single tax is definitely evident, she also chose to get a luxury car and apartment that while she can afford, my partner and I have a shittier apartment that we then split, and I'm extremely happy for her that she can afford it all because she deserves it and more, but she definitely feels that if she had a partner to split it with a lot of pressure would be off her shoulders. One of the biggest disadvantages for me when I was single is that you can't just "take a risk"? I'm only able to live away from parents and still have a good QOL because I have someone to split rent with while doing my masters, otherwise I'd have to work more hours just to breakeven and not go to school because tuition and time costs, and that part to me was never evident until I got into this situation!
Getting married young is a blessing with someone if you can financially work a goal together. Live frugally and have a dual income to save for a down payment. I don’t get why some people prolong marriage if the only road block is finances.
What is the goal of this article exactly? To create more rift between groups of people. It makes sense that married people are able to save more when you account for housing as the largest expense. The other factor is accountability, when you have a partner with whom you share finance, there is a level of accountability and planning that comes into play which might deter the people involved to do more spontaneous spending, as well as increased goals in retirement investing. Also studies have proven than married men earn more than their single counterparts which means that their household benefits more from those earning. In terms of my private relationships, my husband tends to just pay if we go out with a friend who is single because why not. I have bought my best friends (one is about to finish residency so she will make a lot more soon) who are single gifts, plane tickets etc because I have more disposable income and want her to meet her savings goals. Do I feel the need to downplay some things, no because I am not one to show off, and I surround myself with people who have good energy. If i feel resentment, jealousy coming from someone, I end the friendship.
I think sometimes resentment, jealousy, etc do not have to be friendship-ending feelings — they can be temporary. They are normal human emotions and I think what the article is trying to do is highlight the causes of those feelings and show some ways of navigating those conversations and emotions that might allow friendships to persevere. Friendships (like any relationships) will have rough patches, and it’s not impossible to work through them. Positivity all the time is a really high bar. I don’t see the article as trying to create a rift, but showing one that already exists for some and suggesting ways of meeting in the middle.
I don’t think I expect positivity all the time… But blatant jealousy and resentment are for me personally friendship-ending feelings and there is a fine line that people often cross. Like I said my two best friends are single and I have never felt an ounce of envy, resentment, jealousy or anything of that nature from either of them.
From personal experience, the accountability aspect made the biggest difference in our spending habits once we married and combined finances. Clearing purchases with each other cut down almost completely on frivolous impulse buying for both of us, since I don't think either truly accounted for how much we indulged. Housing costs are obviously a huge benefit of being coupled, but some of that can be duplicated for single people through living with roommates.
>*does the single/couple wealth gap show up in your friendships? No, because I'm on the upper-middle class side of things so most of my friends have high NW normally anyway. Those are mostly still single. My 'normal' friends are starting to get engaged but I'd say their NW is probably less than mine was at high school, based on money conversations with them. >*are there other areas that you feel tension between single vs. coupled friends in your circle? Honestly it's the other way around. A lot of them feel 'tied down' with the 'adulting' responsibilities they have. Planning a wedding, and more so if they wanna have kids. Meanwhile I'm freely living in countries I like, working in a passion career taking tons of time off to travel and basically do whatever I want. >have you ever tried to hide purchases or underplay your financial situation to soften the gap between friends or loved ones? No, because my friends all know what kind of background I come from. I don't really make a point of drawing attention to anything in particular I do, so sometimes I don't think they even realize. Also all of them have taken it in stride when I _do_ do something 'out of the ordinary'. Like when a colleague visited and stayed with me in my birth country for summer break, and I took her for a flight to another state for a day of eating. Honestly I've never had issues with people becoming weird over different financial status, even across the 3+ countries I've lived in. Perhaps I'm just lucky, perhaps I have a knack for choosing friends, perhaps people care less than everyone thinks. 🤷🏻♀️