The Singles Tax
The cost of being single
An itemized bill for your love life.
Frequently asked questions
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. 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 for ten years. It's the boring-index-fund counterfactual, not a promise about markets.
Do you keep my answers?
No. Everything is worked out in your browser, and nothing you enter is sent or stored anywhere. 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.