Riding solo: Singles face higher costs on rent, health and more - The Front Page

Being single is more expensive than being coupled up. Photo / 123rf

From booking holidays to having a roof over your head, there’s often an additional cost of doing life alone.

There are cheaper holiday packages for pairs, car insurance companies give discounts for more than one vehicle, and food delivery services advertise two-for-one deals. Couples who decide to tie the knot can also get a leg up by way of cash and gifts from wedding guests.

But, does the data actually show that life’s more costly when you’re solo? Turns out, it does.

Research shows that, for people aged 25 to 49, single people spend 14% more than their coupled counterparts.

It has been dubbed the ‘singles tax’ and while it is gaining more traction in the mainstream, lowering costs for the partnerless is not an easy task.

Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Equab told The Front Page for a young person, on average, it costs about $70 more to be single a week.

“The biggest difference is on rent and utilities. So if you think about it, when you’re coupling up you might still have a one or two-bedroom house. But, you’re sharing it with two people. But, for a single person you still need that one house and the same amount of electricity and things like that,” he said.

Data showed single people aged 25 to 49 were spending 14% more than their coupled counterparts. For housing, they pay 53% more, health 40% more, and communication 41% more.

In 2023, 389,352 people (8.5% of all people living in households) lived alone in New Zealand.

" What’s the ideal state of households in New Zealand versus what the reality is? I think in our mind it’s still that nuclear family with mum, dad, two kids, and a dog. But that’s not really the reality of how New Zealand lives anymore. So our policies are very focused on that nuclear family unit," Eqaub said.

" It’s thinking about whether or not the way we think about what households need a lot of support, right? At the moment it’s very geared towards families. I understand why we should invest in children. That’s fine. But the fact that there is a higher cost of being single is currently reflected in things like the New Zealand super, but not in many of the other types of assistance out there.

“There is no reason why single people should be stigmatised just because that’s not our model view of a New Zealand family looks like because that is simply not true anymore,” he said.

A 2021 US survey found an unmarried person could pay as much as a million dollars more than their married friends over their lifetime.

Hargreaves Lansdown analysis shared with Sky News showed that in the UK, being single costs £2533 ($5874) more a year.

However, Eaqub said it’s not all doom and gloom for singletons.

“There are also benefits to being single. What are those? Sometimes you might just want a little bit of peace and quiet to be yourself, right?”

Listen to the full episode to hear more about how it’s more expensive living solo.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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