To think there's bias against single family households?

[Keyansier]

Does anyone else think this? For example: I cooked beefburgers earlier and needed baps for them but they only sell them in packs of 4. I have no need for 4 right now. It means I have been forced to open the packet only for 2 of them to go stale unless I use them before their staledate. Obviously for a family of 4, then this quantity would be fine without needing to think of this.

Also, things like rent: Does anyone think this is unequal, that 1 person has to pay the same amount of rent that a family of 4 would pay for?

I guess I am biased because I don't have any family like many on here will have, but it's always seemed unequal to me.

Everyone will always be disadvantaged and against the "norm" at some point, usually because there is no real "norm"

Its called life.

It’s a cost. If your circumstances mean you can share that cost, great, if not it’s still needs paying for. That’s just how it is. There are advantages to living with others and sharing costs but it often means compromise too. I know people that are very happy not having anyone to share costs with as it means they can please themselves!

Oh it’s you again.

I don’t know why you’re complaining about the potential waste of bread since you’re very proud of your technique for getting free food from Tesco.

What happened to your boyfriend?

A lot of people are responding with children as being an explanation for how it isn't more expensive to be single. But you get single parents with children too.. for whom things will be more expensive than if they had a partner. So in a sense the issue of children is a bit of a red herring. Its common sense that a single person with kids will have higher expenses to pay than someone part of a couple with kids, and that a single person without kids will have higher expenses than a couple without kids. The position on this issue is the same with or without kids involved. So the fact that having children is expensive doesn't really detract at all from the fact it is more expensive to be single than in a couple.

I think this is the takeaway from this thread. All living situations have pros and cons.

I don't, I'm just saying how society is skewed against people that don't have a partner to pay the other half, for anything, not just rent.

I'm not sure if people genuinely don't get what I'm saying or just finding it funny to disagree with me.

I hear you. Society caters for the "nuclear family", even as statistics show a large percentage of people live on their own and that number is growing annually.

It is disconcerting when you discover that the old adage "two can live as cheaply as one" is factually correct, but that one has to pay for it all.

There are swings and roundabouts to all living situations. I've lived alone for the last couple of decades, so I've had to pay for everything, holidays tend to cost more per head, though i can go when it's off-peak. But I only have to feed one, and I was brought up on leftovers, so don't waste much and don't eat the same thing more than two days in a row usually. And in my free time, I can do pretty much anything I want without having to consider others. You just adapt to what you have, and while dockets is geared up to the nuclear family and couples, it's not all bad living alone. Pretty awesome at times.

I'm a single parent of one. I just put all food I don't use in the freezer.

Yep. Also, I really don't think that an adult working full time should have to flatshare inorder to afford to live. And the goal shouldn't be to meet a partner just so you can afford housing and utilities.

If only you could buy rolls singly ...... which of course you can at most supermarkets these days

Everything does seem priced for two income households so a single adult on a low income can really struggle with basics. Rents aren't always cheaper because a property is small. Utilities still have fixed costs. The only thing to save on is food and other non fixed costs.

Now life has gone far more expensive it is certainly tougher to live on one income.

Keyansier

I think what is worrying about this recent cost of living crisis is that it is so dramatic. Thankfully, there has been some help offered and hope on the horizon, in the form of Liz Truss's recent initiatives with energy. But the situation has the potential to become rapidly much worse and it has taken people by surprise.

I'm struck by how much easier it is for a single person without dependents to adjust to such a dramatic change. We used to have relatively stable inflation and low interest rates. We are always being told that people need to think carefully about whether they can afford to have children. Many do think carefully, but they have been caught out by the current economic crisis, which they couldn't have foreseen. We can either blame it on world affairs or say that the Conservative government has little will to ameliorate it, for ordinary people - but it's here. (Many, like me, think Brexit has made things worse.)

I think it's much easier to adjust to sudden hardship when you're on your own and can be flexible. And hard times describes the picture now. My son's former headteacher at his special school used to say that there was genuine poverty in the late 70s, with children coming to school in ragged clothes, and you don't see that today. I feel that the standard set for today's parents is high - quite rightly - and it sets them a challenge now to be supplying new clothes and stimulating activities, and I think many parents will struggle to decide what it is acceptable to cut back on. It's not thinking hypothetically, as these are the worsening economic times we are living through - and they are hitting families of young kids hard.

Why, a singleton even had the option to work abroad for awhile and earn and save a lot. And whether you WANT to get a lodger or share in future may not be the issue. We might all have to do things that we never thought we'd 'want' to do.

Hunk yourself lucky, Rhod Gilbert had to buy 2 jacket potatoes in a pack that couldn't be split- he only wanted one........

Think not hunk! FFS! 😂

Literally just clocked who it is.

The gift that keeps on giving. 😀

You're examples are terrible. You could say the same about a family of 5. Or any family which wasn't exactly 4.

Just buy a 2 pack next time.

Imagining it’s a conspiracy is a poor use of your time.

This post is one of the most stupid I've ever read on Mumsnet

Exactly. And most of the cons can be got around with minor compromises.

So instead of buying your shopping online from a particular supermarket that doesn't sell what you want, either go in person, maybe to a different supermarket, or just freeze the second chicken breast, or make something else - if you buy two chicken breasts, they will come with a date a few days ahead so you could make two different things with them. Same with spare bread rolls, freeze or use over a few days.

It would be incredibly expensive and likely wasteful to make food or anything else to fit every imaginable combination, so they make the most popular ones, and the reality is, if that doesn't suit you, you need to adapt so that it does, which is not unsurmountable, most of the time.

It is just so weird to insist it’s a ‘bias’ that things are financially harder with only one household income than with two. Even more so when that sold earner has a ‘low income’.

Being poor is harder than not being poor for making ends meet. Of course, housing costs will consume a larger proportion of a household’s income when it’s smaller. And cost of living increases will be felt sooner and harder on a smaller income with more responsibilities to cover. That’ll be the case however many buns come in a packet in Tesco.

This is all do bears shit in the woods stuff. Tesco are not conspiring against anyone in putting 4 buns in a standard packet.

It would be incredibly expensive and likely wasteful to make food or anything else to fit every imaginable combination, so they make the most popular ones, and the reality is, if that doesn't suit you, you need to adapt so that it does, which is not unsurmountable, most of the time.

It's not incredibly expensive to sell more things loose. I know people here say supermarkets sell bakery loose here, bit I don't know where they shop, I wouldn't call that 20 pieces of 2 types of some bun in ASDAs nearby me anything more than meek attempt. Veg is better. Friit still needs some work too.
Tesco manages to sell absolute majority of their bakery loose in few other countries.

Again, this isn't just a case of inconvenience, but also budget (returning back to low budgets and issue buying food). I grew up going to a shop buying 1 roll and 1 kliebasa or 50g of ham for lunches. It was great.

Also considering how much people moan about plastic... Another point for stopping wrapping everything

Hi Op,

That chip on your shoulder, did you manage to buy it on it's own or did you have to buy a pack of 4?

As a single parent yes I have experienced bias but generally in worse ways than what you have described.

I have never thought for a second about bias in bread rolls (something I buy weekly and they tend to be in packs of 6?)
Or in fact any item bought in a supermarket.
As for renting you just need to look for places that have the minimum amount of bedrooms required. For example I have to share with my youngest. Not ideal but it's fine for now and eventually I will have to get a sofa bed and sleep in the living room and do a room shuffle for the kids upstairs.

If you consider your examples to be bias you have done alright.

You do know you can freeze bread or almost anything else?

Also one person isn't really classed as a family.