One may be the loneliest number, but for many singles, the real complaint is that it’s the costliest.
Last year, a study by the British price-comparison website uSwitch tried to put a number to being single – factoring in all the extra costs – and came up with an annual amount of £4,794, or about $7,500. Among the financial burdens: everything from having to host parties alone to not having someone to split the cost of giving gifts to being the sole person responsible for a mortgage.
There may be no comparable study for Canadians, but experts say that in the area of travel and housing – two huge areas of aggravation for singles –their resentment is justified.
Travel: The dreaded single supplement
Seattle-based Beth Whitman runs the website WanderlustandLipstick.com, which champions the female single traveller. She also runs tours to exotic places like Papua New Guinea, Bhutan and Vietnam in which single supplements can run up to $1,200 extra for a 15-day trip.
Single supplements are paid when one person stays in a hotel room or cruise cabin meant for two people. The extra charge compensates the hotel or cruise line for the fact that two paying customers aren’t using the space.
“I get a lot of questions about single supplements in seminars I give,” Ms. Whitman said, admitting, “they are not something I’m comfortable about charging.” But she says that hotels insist on them and she has to pass the extra cost on to the single travellers who don’t want to share a room.
And there are many affluent tourists who don’t mind paying a lot more for that privilege, Ms. Whitman said. “They want their privacy and the ability to sleep well. That flexibility is worth the extra money to them.”
Just how much do these supplements add to the cost of a trip? Anywhere between 10 to 100 per cent, says Diane Redfern, a Canadian travel writer based in Gibsons, B.C., who runs the informational website Connecting: Solo Travel Network.
It’s because the costs can run so high that many single vacationers look to tour companies to pair them up to share hotel rooms.
Ms. Redfern says that in 1990, when she began her network, trips for singles were generally a “meat market, swinging-single environment”; now they’re more about travelling with like-minded people.
Primarily, however, singletons join tours to eliminate single supplements, Ms. Redfern says, although safety and companionship are also concerns.
Michelle Balaban, a young Toronto woman who loves to travel, resents paying supplements that “penalize us for being single,” so her junkets around the world usually start with planning around extra charges.
She researches older hotels and inns, particularly in Europe, that often have single rooms, something the experts say just don’t exist any more in modern hotels. She also works with tour operators that are a little more youth-oriented and used to solo travellers.
“I’m used to the principle of paying more to get something better,” Ms. Balaban said. “But with single supplements, that just isn’t the case.”
She prides herself on only having had paid a supplement once. “It was in Norway. If I didn’t get on the boat, I wasn’t going to be coming home. I paid, but never again.”
Housing: Living alone costs more
It’s a no-brainer that buying or renting a home will have a greater financial impact on a single person – there’s no one with whom to split the costs. And for most, that means having to make financial tradeoffs.
Pat Carter is 40, single and rents a condominium in downtown Toronto. Ms. Balaban is 28, lives with her family and has been looking to buy her first condo, also in Toronto.
Ms. Carter and Ms. Balaban are at very different places in their lives, but both are recognizing just what they need to do financially in order to live alone in the big city.
