The Singles Tax
How much does being single cost you?
An itemized bill for your love life.
Questions
What people ask before they start.
Where do these numbers come from?
The big one, the living-alone premium, comes from Zillow's national analysis (about $7,000 a year) and StreetEasy's New York figure (about $20,000), scaled to your city size. Cooking for one uses the USDA food plans' 20 percent surcharge for one-person households. The phone line is carrier rate-card math, car insurance is the married-driver discount you're not getting, and solo travel is the half of the hotel room a partner would cover. Valentine's spend is the National Retail Federation's survey, the wedding footnote is The Knot's annual average, and the rest are the midpoints of the ranges you picked. Where a number is a guess, the receipt says so.
How does the invested-instead line work?
It takes what you spend each month, deposits it monthly into an account earning 5% a year compounded monthly, and runs that over the same stretch as the forecast's at-this-pace line: from when you went single to the age that line names, or the next ten years if you're 45 or older. It's savings-account math, not a promise about markets.
Do you keep my answers?
Only your age group. Everything is worked out in your browser, and we count the age group you pick, never your other answers. Refreshing the page starts you over.
Is this serious?
The prices are real where they can be. The framing is a joke. It is not financial advice, and being partnered is not an investment strategy, whatever the forecast chart implies.