How Many of Us Can Afford to Live Alone?

Walking the financial tightrope without a net

Money is a touchy subject, but if you’re alone in this world, it’s a major concern. Let me tell you a story.

A few minutes after my second husband, Fred, asked me to marry him, I exclaimed, “Now I can freelance!” 

Fred was flustered as he realized I meant to quit my job and focus on writing and music. I didn’t quit until two years later, when I had enough freelance income to become self-employed, but suddenly it was possible.

In the years since then, I have worked some regular jobs, but being married to Fred gave me the flexibility to not have to work full time. I was even able to earn my long-delayed MFA (master of fine arts) degree in creative writing.

I used to joke with my students that I had a “Sugar Daddy.” It was kind of true. Actually, I had two. My father was the other one. We’ll get to that.

I didn’t marry Fred for his money. But I was fully aware that his steady job with the city of San Jose would change my life. I could finally pay my bills and have enough money to buy everything I wanted to put in my grocery cart. Like Scarlett O’Hara in the movie “Gone with the Wind,” I could raise my fist and shout, “I’ll never be hungry again.”

I was 33 when I married Fred. If I had remained divorced and single, I’d still be working full time in my seventies with no possibility of retirement. I have no pension. I cashed in my tiny retirement account to pay the bills ages ago. The jobs I worked, mostly at newspapers and magazines, didn’t put much into my Social Security account.

I married my first husband two weeks after graduating from college. I moved from my parents’ house to the apartment we shared. When the marriage blew up six years later, we divided debts not assets. Neither one of us had a full-time job, and our financial situation was getting worse every day.

It was even more difficult after we split. The savings I had brought into the marriage were long gone. I had a VW that barely ran, a bunch of mismatched dishes, a typewriter, and the furniture I took back to my old room at my parents’ house. I traded my newspaper job for temporary office work at various electronics plants. I hated it, but it paid more than my work as a reporter and editor.

Eventually I found another full-time newspaper job and an apartment up the coast in Pacifica, but my $1,200 paycheck, minus taxes, never lasted to the end of the month. I could barely afford to pay bills. I lived on salads and rice and couldn’t buy much of anything. 

But what did I expect as what my mother used to call a “grass widow?”

For centuries, women have coupled with men as much for financial security as for love. Until the late twentieth century, job opportunities for females were limited to teaching, nursing, childcare, waitressing, and other “pink collar” jobs that paid less than what men earned. Those who didn’t marry often lived with their parents or siblings as the spinster daughter/sister/aunt. Those who did marry but lost their husbands were also in a fix. 

The working world is much more open to women these days. With luck and the right education, many of us can find jobs that offer substantial pay and benefits. We can buy and sell property and have our own credit cards and bank accounts, things that were not possible when I was a young newlywed in 1974.

But it’s still challenging if you’re alone. In today’s economy, it often takes two good incomes to buy and maintain a home and a comfortable lifestyle. Add student debt, and the high cost of everything. You have to earn an awful lot of money to have the house in suburbia that my parents were able to buy on one income with a VA loan in 1950. For many, it’s an impossible dream.

I read online that the average single American under thirty spends $3,693 a month ($44,312 a year.) The same article cites the average full-time worker’s income as $60,070 per the 2022 U.S. Census. Not everyone makes that kind of money. I’m pretty sure the fifty-something woman who cuts my hair or the twenty-something woman who checked out my groceries yesterday are not making that much. Or the worn-out looking guys who built my new deck earlier this month. They probably don’t have benefits and don’t work much once winter weather sets in.

What if you’re older and your only income is $1,500 from Social Security? I know there are lots of variables, including where you live and what expenses you have, but many people might not be able to afford to live alone, or at least not in comfort.

An article by Bobby Burch at lowincomerelief.com says, “The National Council on Aging reports that about 40 percent of U.S. seniors age 60 and older earn less than $30,000 per year, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. About 46 percent of seniors are not confident that their income will be enough to cover their monthly expenses in the next five to 10 years. Without a spouse or family, those financial challenges can be bigger for solo seniors.”

This is why young people have roommates. This is why we pray for widows and orphans at church. It might be a real sacrifice for that gray-haired person across the aisle to put $5 in the collection basket.

When my father-in-law died, my mother-in-law, Helen, didn’t know how she would survive. Fred’s brother, with whom they’d been sharing a house in Las Vegas, had died in a car accident. They had just moved to Oregon, renting a house near us. Helen did not have her own pension despite years of secretarial work, and her Social Security wasn’t much. Having always lived on the edge because they liked to travel and Dad liked to splurge on cars, cameras and stereo gear, she had no savings. 

We invited her to live with us, but she refused, preferring her solo life to disrupting our lives. 

I don’t know if I could have done what Helen did. She cut out everything she could. She never owned a cell phone, and she cut back her landline service to a local-calls-only no-frills plan. She turned off the heat in all but one room. Our winters are cold, wet, and long. When we cleaned out the house four years later, after she died of lung cancer, the bedroom walls were mildewed, and all the books were wrinkled from the dampness. But she had managed to pay off all her debts and leave a little money to us when she passed away. 

When I think about all the things I spend money on . . . 

I was lucky. Fred arranged for me to keep his benefits and half of his retirement income after his death. I earned money writing freelance articles, selling books, teaching, and leading the choir at church. 

Money was still tight. Two and a half years of nursing home care had used up almost all of our savings. I cleaned out my small retirement fund to pay the bills. I had high balances on four credit cards and was paying one card with another.

I had gotten used to being comfortable with Fred’s impressive salary, but his illness and death took me back to worrying about money all the time. You know that sinking feeling when you look at the checkbook and wonder if you have enough to cover groceries and gas until payday?

That changed five years ago when my father died. He didn’t share when he was alive, but he left enough that I no longer have to worry. 

I know I am blessed. I also know that more people left alone in their later years are in my mother-in-law’s situation. They have gone from relative comfort to poverty.

Maybe they can keep their home; maybe not. Often, there’s not much left after the mortgage or rent is paid. Some of my friends, people who have worked hard all their lives, have resorted to food stamps and government assistance for medical care. They do without essential medications because they cost too much. They keep the heat turned down low. One friend, never married and childless, has no car and no Internet because she simply can’t afford them.

The fictional image of a young single professional living it up in a lush apartment with designer clothes and money to burn is not what most of us experience. Divorced, widowed, or never married, we’re more likely to live in a single-wide trailer or an apartment and buy our clothes at thrift shops and Goodwill.

Even for young working people, financial survival is difficult, especially in major cities where the cost of living is ridiculous these days. Falling-apart old houses in Silicon Valley sell for a million dollars or more. I just saw an ad for a one-bedroom apartment there for $2,800. The mortgage on my whole house is $1,103. Even with my inheritance, I cannot afford to move back home to be closer to my family.

We’re going to talk more about money in future posts. I’ll offer some advice from the experts on how not to become a bag lady or a guy living in a tent. 

I won’t ask you for numbers. Money is a private thing. But if you’re alone or see a future alone, do you or will you have enough to get by, to live well? What if you get sick? Are you okay, or are you like me in past years saying, “God help me. I’m going to end up on the streets pushing a shopping cart?” What would you advise others who are on their own? 

Further reading

“The Escalating Costs of Being Single in America” | Vox

Help For Seniors Without A Family: 11 Things You Should Know (lowincomerelief.com)

What Is the Poverty Level for a Single Person? (reference.com)

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

---

How did I end up alone? I didn’t have any kids. After my husband and I retired to the Oregon coast, far from family, he died of Alzheimer’s. You can read our story in my new memoir, No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s, available now at your favorite bookseller. Visit https://www.suelick.com for information on all of my books.