The CSO reported in December 2025 that those living in single-adult households with children under 18 were most likely to experience enforced deprivation in 2025 (48.7%).
Caitríona Redmond is an Irish writer who covers food, budgeting and consumer issues, focusing on affordable living for families.
LIVING alone can be expensive in ways that are easy to miss until you are the person paying every bill yourself.
Let’s start with housing, be it rent or mortgage. That’s a lot to pay for one person, and it’s incredibly difficult for a single-income first-time buyer to get a home.
The CSO reports that the median house price in Ireland is €390,000. A 30-year mortgage, allowing for a 10% deposit, would have monthly repayments of around €1,500 per month, interest rate dependent.
In my experience, lenders like to use a 30% net income rule when stress-testing a mortgage. Then if €1,500 per month is 30% of a homeowner’s income, they’d need to be taking home approximately €5,000 per month, after tax.
That’s a take-home salary of about €60,000 per year, meaning that a single borrower buying the average-priced home in Ireland should be earning around €95,000 per year. The median salary in Ireland was just shy of €45,000 last year, according to the CSO.
Already, you can see that the borrower would have to spend some time saving their 10% deposit, plus their salary should be over double the median.
Extend that concept a little further, and it’s all of the cost of housing. When paying utility bills, the same standing charge applies, and appliances still run regardless of how many people are in a property, such as a fridge, freezer, light, and heat.
That’s far easier for a couple (or more) to share. Property insurance is not only cheaper for two to pay, as opposed to one, but in some cases single people can be a greater risk for insurance companies.
When it comes to food, there are economies of scale when it comes to cooking for two or a larger family. Cooking for one can be more expensive per portion, and still uses similar energy as cooking for two or more people.
While I might be able to feed my family of four for €200 per week, for example, a single person may spend €75 for similar items, even though they are cooking for one.
We rarely buy our food by weight anymore, and buying products in parcels and packages leads to more food waste.
Raising a family is particularly challenging due to having to be all things to all people. The CSO reported in December 2025 that those living in single-adult households with children under 18 were most likely to experience enforced deprivation in 2025 (48.7%).
Four in five single-adult households with children have at least some level of difficulty in making ends meet; 29.3% of all people living in single-adult households with children under 18 were unable to afford new (not second-hand) clothes in 2025 — up from 22.7% in 2024.
