The Single Saver

Greetings, personal finance enthusiasts! My name is Denise and I blog as “The Single Saver.” As the name implies, I am single and I am a saver.

I was raised by two financially savvy parents. This was very fortunate for me, as I was taught early on that you never spend more than you earn and you always pay off your debts (and credit cards) in full before they are due. This kind of upbringing taught me life lessons that have served me very well over the years. I now model my own spending and saving habits from my parents. As a result, the only debt I currently have is a mortgage (which I hope to be rid of soon). The next big step after becoming mortgage free? Early retirement! Wish me luck!

Anyway, I started The Single Saver to help fill what I saw as a void in the blogging world. Although there are thousands of great personal finance blogs out there, I felt that very few were really targeted towards singles and small families. Hence, The Single Saver was born.

Being single is expensive.

When you are single, you are dealt a completely different set of cards than your married counterparts. You only have your own income to fall back on in hard times. You don’t have a spouse’s income (or even the opportunity for a non-working spouse to pick up a side job).

Here are just a few ways in which singles have a definite disadvantage when it comes to savings:

• Housing eats up a third (or more) of most budgets. It is the largest expense most of us will ever have. A single person has to bear this burden on his or her own.

• A single person with children likely has to pay for childcare. There is no option for a spouse to stay home with the children. And there is no 2nd paycheck from the spouse to offset childcare costs, either.

• Single people are at a disadvantage when it comes to retirement savings. Married couples have the option to have two IRA’s, two 401(k) accounts, etc. And while many have proven it is possible for a family to live on one spouse’s income and save the other’s, a single person has no choice but to make their one income work to cover their living expenses and their savings needs.

Now don’t get me wrong, being single isn’t all bad. There are some nice financial perks to such a lifestyle, such as:

• You only need one car. That means you also only have expenses for one car.

• You are free to eat as you want. There is no pressure to make a fancy meal if rice and leftovers suit your needs. No one but you can complain if you eat rice for three meals straight to save some money on the grocery budget!

• You are also free to keep the house as cold in the winter or as hot in the summer as you wish. I know from experience that this leads to some fantastic energy savings.

• Your financial goals are yours and yours alone to make and succeed at. You never have someone else fighting you on the goals.

So as you can see, there are some big advantages and disadvantages to saving while single. And I try to help singles and small families work with these advantages, and around the disadvantages, at The Single Saver.

Blogs I like

I love blogs that give me an insight into the author’s lifestyle. I love blogs that teach me tips for being frugal. I like to get to know the blog author through their writing… blogs that have a personal touch always attract my attention. And so, these are characteristics I have tried to incorporate into my own writing. Rarely will you find “heavy” topics at The Single Saver. My goal is to educate and inspire you with ways you can save money in your own daily life in a lighthearted way. And though I won’t go quite as far as to call my blog “fluffy,” I do hope that it is seen as “fun.”

While The Single Saver is geared towards singles and small families, it is written with everyone who enjoys saving money in mind, so I hope you will stop by sometime and check it out!