Why being single costs thousands more each year – and how it affects all of us
Valentine’s Day might be a gift-giving occasion your wallet could do without, but it’s thousands of pounds cheaper than being alone.
Being single costs £2,533 more a year, Sky News can reveal. Suddenly, that box of chocolates doesn’t seem so expensive.
Single people are forced to spend 22% more on rent or mortgages, council tax and energy, 28% more on food and 32% more on broadband and phones.
This is according to Hargreaves Lansdown analysis shared exclusively with Sky News, which found singletons have just £42 left at the end of the month – £341 less than couples.
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“They just don’t have that extra money, so they’re making these huge compromises in every bit of their life,” said Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at the leading investment firm.
“And people who are in couples are lulled into a false sense of security and don’t think they have to worry about it.”
But be it via divorce or bereavement, everyone becomes single again if they live long enough, she said.
A single tax?
“It didn’t even enter my brain,” said Robert Macdonald, 56, from Swansea, whose relationship ended eight months ago.
“Definitely living a single life is a lot more expensive and people who haven’t done it probably don’t understand that.”
The refuse collector said everyday essentials have become dearer now he’s unable to split the likes of broadband and phone bills.
Communication devices cost singles £828 a year on average, while each partner in a couple pays £628, the data showed.
“The renting market out there is ridiculous,” added Robert, who has become one of 8.4 million people in England and Wales living alone.
Robert said it was ‘scary’ how fast rent was rising
He spends 41% of his £1,700 monthly salary on a one-bed flat, 11 percentage points more than what is considered affordable.
The average rent for a one-bed was £726 in 2015 – now it’s £1,095, according to estate agent Hamptons.
And there’s no one to help shoulder the burden of heating it either.
“Frightening” is how Hazel, 71, from London, described the price of keeping warm since her husband passed away.
“The costs of gas in this country are shameful,” said Hazel, who chose not to publish her surname.
“For the most part, I dress in 25 layers and I don’t put my heating on.”
Essential housing costs – rent or a mortgage, council tax and fuel – set single people back £7,974 a year on average, whereas couples spend £6,215 each, according to Hargreaves Lansdown.
This £1,759 bill dwarfs the 25% council tax discount available to people living alone.
‘Extortionate’ food bills
Food offers no respite to singletons, who can’t necessarily take advantage of bulk-buy discounts or get through family packs before the produce expires.
Steph, 30, from London, who chose not to publish her surname, said her weekly shop cost her £20 in 2015 – now it’s an “extortionate” £50, despite cutting out meat and fish to save money.
“In the past couple of years, being single is just so much more difficult than it used to be,” she said.
“I feel like I’m a bit forgotten.”
Food costs single people £574 more a year than each person in a couple.
Steph pays £1,300 in rent for a property almost identical to one that cost her £500 in 2015
Holidays are no break
The single tax doesn’t stop at the border.
Since her husband Hugh died, Hazel has continued to take the cruises they once shared together to escape the loneliness at home.
But she is often forced to pay a single-occupancy fee, a supplement that doubles the cost of a room, charging her the same amount as if Hugh were there.
“It’s fiendish,” the former travel agent said.
“Literally what I pay is what people next door pay for two of them. It’s horrible – and that’s the same for every single hotel.”
Death, love and savings
With higher outgoings and one income, singles find it more difficult to save for a house deposit – which they have to fork out for alone.
Lenders also typically consider a mortgage between four and five times a household’s annual salary, putting many properties out of reach for single people.
This can mean they’re left paying rent into retirement when couples have paid off their mortgage.
“It’s a very difficult situation for single people,” said Hargreaves Lansdown’s Sarah.
“You’re going to have to build a massive pension or you’re going to have to buy.”
Just 20% of people with a mortgage live alone, according to Hamptons, and building a “massive pension” is just not an option for people like Lisa McQuoid, 44, from Colchester.
Raising her 15-year-old son on one income – £1,300 a month plus £1,000 Universal Credit – has left the single mum unable to save.
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“There’s no chance of me getting on the property ladder unless I find a boyfriend or my parents die,” said Lisa, who pays £950 a month in rent for the cheapest two-bed she could find.
“I can’t see life improving that much financially, you feel like you have to be in a couple.”
The average deposit in the UK is £24,543, Hamptons says, which would take a single person 11 years to raise if they put aside £185 a month.
Retirement
“Throughout retirement, the number of other people living on their own increases,” said Simon Sarkar, head of research at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association.
“It is something that is widespread, that people do face these changes in circumstances that we all should really think about.”
The association estimates it costs singles £31,300 a year to enjoy a moderate living standard in retirement, compared to £21,550 per person in a couple.
Yet less than a third (31%) of singles are on track with their pension savings, compared to almost half of couples (44%), according to Hargreaves Lansdown.
Often overlooked are the costs of physical and health needs in older age, Simon said.
Singles may have to buy in services that a partner would otherwise help provide, from gardening and DIY to personal care.
“Because it’s not in your face, you might think that you’re getting by, but the lack of long-term resilience is a big deal,” said Ms Coles.
Emergency funds
The financial resilience of single people is tested throughout their lives, with 46% of them having failed to save enough to cover three months of essential spending, compared to 16% of couples.
It makes it harder to absorb the financial hits dished out by life’s unwanted surprises.
When Lisa first answered the phone to Sky News, she had just parked a car that broke down the week before, costing her £250.
When Robert picked up, he asked if the gas man was on the other end of the line, who was scheduled to fix his boiler for £170.
“Again, there you go, if two people were here it would be cheaper,” he said.
Business
Facewatch: The controversial tech that retailers have deployed to tackle shoplifting and violence
The Christmas period is upon us, and goods are flying off the shelves, but for some reason, the tills are not ringing as loudly as they should be.
Across the country, the five-finger discount is being used with such frequency that retailers are taking action into their own hands.
With concerns about the police response to shoplifting, many are now resorting to controversial facial recognition technology to catch culprits before they strike.
Sainsbury’s, Asda, Budgens and Sports Direct are among the high-street businesses that have signed up to Facewatch, a cloud-based facial recognition security system that scans faces as they enter a store. Those images are then compared to a database of known offenders and, if a match is found, an alert is set off to warn the business that a shoplifter has entered the premises.
It comes as official figures show shoplifting offences rose by 13% in the year to June, reaching almost 530,000 incidents. Figures reported in August showed more than 80% result in no charge.
At the same time, retailers are reporting more than 2,000 cases of violence or abuse against their staff every day. Faced with mounting losses and safety concerns, businesses say they are being forced to take security into their own hands because stretched police forces are only able to respond to a fraction of incidents.
A Facewatch camera
At Ruxley Manor Garden Centre in south London, managing director James Evans said theft had become increasingly brazen and organised, with losses from shoplifting now accounting for around 1.5% of turnover. “That may sound small, but it represents a significant hit to the bottom line,” he said, pointing out that thousands of pounds’ worth of goods can be stolen in a single visit.
“We have had instances where the children get sent in to do it. They know that the parents will be waiting in the car park and they’ll know that there’s nothing that we can do to stop them.”
Gurpreet Narwan is seen at the garden centre while being shown how Facewatch works
Staff members here have also had their fair share of run-ins with shoplifters. In one case, employees trying to stop a suspected shoplifter were nearly struck by an accomplice in a car. “This is no longer just about stock loss,” said James, “It is about the safety of our staff.”
However, the technology is not without its critics. Civil liberties groups have warned that the expansion of this type of technology is eroding our privacy.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, called it “a very dangerous kind of privatised policing industry”.
Facewatch is seen in operation as retailers look to crack down on crime.
“[It] really threatens fairness and justice for us all, because now it’s the case that just going to do your supermarket shopping, a company is quietly taking your very sensitive biometric data. That’s data that’s as sensitive as your passport, and [it’s] making a judgement about whether you’re a criminal or not.”
Silkie said the organisation was routinely receiving messages from people who said they had been mistakenly targeted. They include Rennea Nelson, who was wrongly flagged as a shoplifter at a B&M store after being mistakenly added to the facial recognition database. Nelson said she was threatened with police action and warned that her immigration status could be at risk.
Gurpreet’s profile can be seen on the Facewatch database
“He said to me, if you don’t get out, I’m going to call the police. So at that point I turned around and I was like, are you speaking to me? Then he was like yes, yes, your face set off the alarm because you’re a thief… At that point, I was around six to seven months pregnant and I was having a high-risk pregnancy. I was already going through a lot of anxiety and, so him coming over and shouting at me, it was like really triggering me.”
The retailer later acknowledged the error and apologised, describing it as a rare case of human mistake.
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A spokesperson for B&M said: ‘This was a simple case of human error, and we sincerely apologise to Ms Nelson for any upset caused. Reported incidents like this are rare. Facewatch services are designed to operate strictly in compliance with UK GDPR and to help protect store colleagues from incidents of aggressive shoplifting.”
The cloud-based technology has critics who argue that it amounts to a misuse of personal data and privacy
Nick Fisher, chief executive of Facewatch, said the backlash was disproportionate.
“Well, I think it’s designed to be quite alarmist, using language like ‘dystopian’, ‘orwellian’, ‘turning people into barcodes’,” he said.
“The inference of that is that we will identify people using biometric technology, hold and store their own, store their data. And that’s just, quite frankly, misleading. We only store and retain data of known repeat offenders, of which it’s been deemed to be proportionate and responsible to do so… I think in the world that we are currently operating in, as long as the technology is used and managed in a responsible, proportionate way, I can only see it being a force for good.”
Yet, there is obviously widespread unease, if not anger, at the proliferation of this technology. Businesses are obviously alert to it, but the bottom line is calling.
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