Opinion Independence isn’t cheap — ask the person living alone and paying the ‘singles tax’

The cost of living alone does not stop at rent. Utilities accumulate in quiet, almost imperceptible increments: The electricity for a single apartment, the water, the internet subscription you insist you cannot do without. Alone, they somehow feel amplified. In average Indian metro cities, a single person might pay between Rs 2,400 and Rs 4,200 a month on utilities, compared to Rs 3,700 to Rs 5,900 for a couple, which translates to roughly Rs 1,850 to Rs 2,950 more per month or about 30 to 50 percent higher per person. The numbers are small in isolation, but they accumulate month after month, a persistent reminder that independence carries a cost.

In a couple, there is a shared gaze over the bills, a tacit negotiation of responsibility, a division of the mundane burdens that somehow lightens their weight. Alone, every small charge is yours. Every packet of detergent, every refill of coffee, every subscription to a streaming service that you never quite watch in full, becomes an act of solitary reckoning. In the evenings, you turn on the lights, fully aware that no one else will switch them off.

Just as the bills quietly add up in the background, so too do the expectations of social life. Social expenses carry their own hidden surcharge for singles. A dinner out, a movie, a gym class, each costs more per person when you are alone. Couples can split bills, share subscriptions, or simply stay in and call it a night while singles are expected to go out, be seen, and keep up with the city’s social rhythm. Even routine outings can add up to hundreds or thousands of rupees more each month for the solo adult, a quiet reminder that independence comes with its own social tax.

And if social outings demand extra spending, the mundane routines of daily life do not relent. When you are grocery shopping for one, you cannot buy in bulk. You cannot split the economy-size tub of yogurt with someone who will eat half before it spoils. You are condemned to smaller packages, higher per-unit costs, more frequent trips through fluorescent aisles, pushing a cart that is always half-empty and entirely yours. Even food delivery, the supposed democratiser of urban convenience, is a lesson in solitude: The delivery fee, the minimum order, the surge pricing in the rain, all of it adds up. You learn, often too late, that convenience is not a cure for loneliness; it is merely a reminder that the city will always charge a premium for your independence.

Freedom’s complications

Yet even freedom carries its complications. In cities where rents rise like tidewater, many find themselves making choices that are at once necessary and absurd. Young professionals move in with partners earlier than planned simply to afford a slightly larger apartment. Weeks later, relationships unravel, leaving ex‑partners awkwardly bound by leases and shared furniture. There is a particular comedy in two people, once intimate, now negotiating who gets the toaster or whose turn it is to take out the trash, each still paying their portion of the rent. A couch becomes a neutral territory, a kitchen a silent battlefield.

Flatmates, too, introduce their own brand of absurdity. In Mumbai, Delhi, or New York, two colleagues end up sharing a one‑bed apartment simply because the combined rent is survivable. Polite civility is maintained, while each silently tallies the other’s minor infractions, the tap left running, the coffee jar left empty, the laundry that never quite makes it into the basket. Economical, yes, but also a small theatre of human compromise: Independence has its premiums, but so does negotiating the daily rhythms of someone whose habits you do not fully endure.

What makes these complications more acute today is that adulthood itself has stretched. People are staying single longer, marrying later, or choosing not to marry at all. The life stage once defined by early cohabitation or family formation has become a decades-long exercise in independence. Apartments that once felt temporarily expensive now become long-term commitments. The quiet burdens of bills, groceries, and maintenance, once minor inconveniences, accumulate into something more persistent, a tax not just of money, but of time, routine, and solitude.

And yet, for all its complications, long-term independence has its peculiar rewards. There is a sovereignty to decisions that need no justification: What to eat, when to sleep, how to spend a Sunday morning. Small triumphs accumulate, a perfectly arranged bookshelf, a quiet meal taken exactly as one likes it, the light falling across the living room at a precise hour. These are victories measured not in social approval or shared experience, but in the tiny, unobserved acts of self-determination. In these moments, the financial cost, the social friction, even the occasional pang of loneliness, feels bearable.

Perhaps the cost of living alone is inseparable from its rewards, though neither is ever straightforward. The bills are higher, the errands more frequent, the social structures less accommodating, and yet the apartment is yours. The couch is exactly where you left it. You can eat dessert before dinner, leave the dishes in the sink for as long as you like, or binge a show at 3 am without commentary. In a city that charges extra for independence, this is a small, stubborn victory. Freedom may be expensive, but it comes with excellent lighting, full control of the AC, and the occasional delicious, solitary triumph of simply existing on your own terms.

The writer is consultant, Aon