It’s that time of year when I get stuck doing a bunch of accounting. A time to start working on taxes; a time to figure out the budget. According to the numbers, I need to get me a wife:
It costs me $41,000/yr just to be alive (bills + mortgage + groceries). If I were married, only a few of the categories that make up that $41k would go up due to my beloved (groceries, gas for cars, another cellphone, etc). The total bill for the two of us would be $49,000/yr. That’s a savings of $16,500 per person!
Ergo, it’s more cost-effective to get married. Guess I should get hitched… <grin>
CNNMoney.com seems to agree:
‘The study, published in the Journal of Sociology by Ohio State University researcher Jay Zagorsky, revealed that individuals who get married and stay married have a net worth almost twice as great as their single or divorced counterparts.
…
Married individuals fared better building wealth, according to Zagorsky, primarily because they share expenses and may have two incomes.
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February 1st, 2006
by Ron
Well, single is one thing but remember that divorce=divide-by-two in most cases. Folk wisdom also is that married men live longer (I know, I know — the old gag is that it just seems longer.)