Friday 6 August 2010

The price of being single

So apparently one of the disadvantages of being single/living alone is that you can't bulk-buy food. Not true! I'm not single now, but am in the last month of a three-year stretch living on my own. I was single for about three or four months of that time. The periods on either side of that have been spent in distance relationships. I've always bulk-bought food whenever I could, although for some things it depends on being able to get a lift from the shop.

Here's a list of stuff that can be bulk-bought in a small household:
-Tinned food - baked beans and tomatoes at least, these often come in multipacks or catering tins (if you have a freezer to keep the remainder of an opened tin)
-Dried beans/chickpeas - either store them dried and boil when needed or (more economically) boil a whole packet (or two if you have a big enough pan) and freeze what you aren't using that day or the next
-Pearl barley, on the same principle as above
-Lentils
-Rice and pasta
-Couscous and quinoa, if you have a weigh-and-save type shop around that sells these things
-Flour (but watch for damp and mites!)
-Spices

And also a whole load of non-edible (well, I don't see them as edible!) things like loo roll and dishwashing liquid.

I know this isn't strictly a vegan issue, but it does at least highlight that being a vegan doesn't cost a bomb!

2 comments:

Ben said...

I just read this piece too. To be honest, I thought it was a load of nonsense. For a start, it fails to distinguish between being single as in not romantically involved with anyone and being single as in living alone. Each of those can involve certain higher costs than being in a couple that live together, but they're importantly different (as you should know!)

Ben said...

I just tried posting the following on the BBC:

As someone in a long distance relationship (though not for much longer), I think it's worth pointing out that this article seems to conflate two very different senses of 'single': not romantically involved and living alone.
Couples who don't live together can still go away together, but face higher general living costs. Someone with no significant other may still live with friends/housemates to keep the bills down, even if they don't have someone special to go on weekend breaks with.