Being Single Costs HOW Much?

by Gena Kaufman, Glamour

I think this line from The Atlantic pretty much sums it up: "Over a lifetime, unmarried women can pay as much as a million dollars more than their married counterparts for healthcare, taxes, and more." (emphasis mine) But don't worry, I'll cover some of their specifics too.

Authors Lisa Arnold and Christina Campbell, two self-proclaimed "straight women with no desire to get married", realized that even though they don't care that much about marriage, the government and corporations do. So, they decided to bust out their math skills and calculate the lifetime cost of being single in America, comparing four hypothetical Virginia women: two single women and two married women, one of each at the salaries of $40,000 and $80,000. (The married women's husbands were given salaries of $51,000 and $103,000, accounting for the $1.00 a man makes to a woman's 78 cents.) (Barf.)

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A few startling figures:

1) Income taxes: The single woman who made $40,000 paid $39,000 more in income taxes over 40 years than her married counterpart. At a salary of $80,000, the single woman paid $155,000 more than the married woman.

2) Healthcare: The single women spent between $24,000 and $48,000 more on healthcare over 60 years.

3) Housing: Due to the costs of living alone and other fun factors (like discrimination against single home-seekers!), couples on average spend 23.9% of their annual income on housing, while single women spend 39.8%.

And the most starting figures of all? Prepare yourself, single gals. Are you ready? The lifetime cost of being single…

$484,368 for a woman who makes $40,000/year

$1,022,096 for a woman who makes $80,000/year

Half a million bucks?!?! Do you know how many shoes I could buy with that? LOL single ladies love shoes!

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I kid, but seriously...yikes. That is news I did not need to hear as I'm preparing to pay my taxes as a freelancing single woman. Of course, these figures are only estimated on averages and there are factors that could change those numbers for every individual. But it's a fascinating read (and you should check out the whole thing, there are all kinds of marital advantages they bring to light that I didn't cover here, like Social Security benefits and IRAs) and frankly, kind of frightening. And not just for single straight women, but for gay couples in any state where they don't have the right to legally wed.

Anecdotally, I have noticed that all of my friends who have seriously coupled up (living together, engaged, married, etc.) do seem to stop struggling as much financially as they did when they were single. Whether it's from benefitting from their partner's higher salary, splitting the rent, or other cost-saving measures that work for couples, I don't know, but I'm going to go create a stricter budget for myself and also, send my godfather the accountant a little note telling him how much I love him. Right now.

Married readers, have you noticed a change in your finances for the better since coupling up? Single ladies, do you feel like you struggle more financially than your non-single friends?

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