This podcast isn’t personal advice. If you’re not sure what’s right for you, seek advice. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on personal circumstances.
Helen and Clare discuss the practical costs of being single, the importance of having a will, and bust some myths about common law marriage.
Use the player icons above to listen on your favourite podcast app, or read the full transcript below.
This podcast isn’t personal advice. If you’re unsure what’s right for you, seek financial advice. Pension and tax rules can change, and benefits depend on personal circumstances. Investments can fall as well as rise in value, so you could get back less than you invest.
Full podcast episode transcript
[0:03] Helen Morrissey: Hello and welcome to the Switch Your Money On podcast from Hargreaves Lansdown. I’m Helen Morrissey – I’m Head of Retirement Analysis.
[0:10] Clare Stinton: And I’m Clare Stinton – Financial Wellbeing Lead.
[0:13] Helen Morrissey: So, we’re rapidly heading towards Valentine’s Day – and, while there are lots of mixed views about the day, itself, it is one of the most popular for people to propose.
It could be one of the priciest days of your life – and, by that, I don’t just mean the ring, but the wedding, itself. However, quite aside from the romance of the day, a proposal could end up paying off, financially, as well, because there are so many ways in which being married pays. So, that’s what we’re going to devote this episode to, Clare.
[0:45] Clare Stinton: An episode all about the financial side of love – how romantic!
[Pause]
[0:52] Clare Stinton: There are the day-to-day costs. Clearly, if you’re already living together, little will change – but, when you compare the costs to being single, they are dramatic.
[1:01] Helen Morrissey: So, the HL Savings and Resilience Barometer found that the essential costs of running a home – this includes things like rent, mortgage, Council Tax, and fuel – costs single people, without children, an average of £7,780 a year.
Now, when we look at couples without children, their costs are £6,064 each. So, singles are spending around 28% more each.
As a result of that, then it means that they are forced to cut back on maybe some of the nicer things in life – so they will spend less than each member of a couple, on everything from clothes to eating out and hotel-stays. This is despite the dreaded single supplement on hotel rooms – and this will still leave them short of cash.
[1:47] Clare Stinton: Being single can be an expensive way of life. Many feel more pressure to be out and about socialising, to create opportunities to meet new people, and dating isn’t cheap. Going for a drink, meeting for coffee, dinner, or an art gallery – plus travel to and from... it all adds up.
[2:03] Helen Morrissey: It certainly does – and then, if we look at the cost of living on your own, a single person has an average of £23 left at the end of the month. Now, this is far, far less than the £559 that a couple has left over. So, with money so tight, it means that they’ve got less to put aside in savings.
Now, financial advisers tend to recommend that you have cash to cover 3-6 months’ worth of your essential spending in an easy-access account, and we are seeing 54% of singles falling short of that.
[2:37] Clare Stinton: Those are really staggering figures.
A single person having just £23 left over each month compared to £559 per couple... This has all kinds of impact when it comes to things like being able to save for a property – or, as you said, enough spare cash at the end of each month to start building that cash buffer for when life throws you a curveball.
There is a price or penalty to being single – and the differences don’t stop there, because married couples also benefit from being able to make financial decisions together.
[3:06] Helen Morrissey: They really do. So, I’ll come back again to the HL Savings and Resilience Barometer, and that found that those couples who plan together are in a much better financial position overall. So, households, where decisions are made together, have £328 left at the end of the month – that’s £28 more than those who plan on their own, and £101 more than those where they leave everything to their partner.
That’s why, if you’re living alone, you might want to ask a friend to be a bit of a sounding board, ‘cause that can really help you to work your way through some of the thornier financial decisions that you’ll have to make.
[3:43] Clare Stinton: So, cohabiting couples don’t face the same singles tax, but there are some key differences – and benefits that only come with marriage, particularly when it comes to tax.
[3:52] Helen Morrissey: Absolutely.
So, there are some differences that make it harder to plan. So, most of us will have a personal allowance that’s not subject to income tax, a personal savings allowance, a dividend allowance, and a capital gains tax allowance.
Now, married couples can share assets between them to take advantage of both people’s tax allowances, and the lower taxpayer can hold the balance. If a married couple were to try and do this, then sharing the assets could trigger a tax bill.
I also wanna mention the Marriage Allowance. So, if one spouse is a non-taxpayer and the other is a basic rate taxpayer, the Marriage Allowance will let the non-taxpayer give £1,260 of their personal allowance to their spouse in the current tax year.
[4:38] Clare Stinton: A common assumption is that you’ve been together a while... you might be in a common law marriage, but there is no such thing. The piece of paper – the certificate of marriage or civil partnership – is really important. It means married people have far more rights, in the event of a split, than a cohabiting couple.
[4:54] Helen Morrissey: Yeah, you’re absolutely right there, Clare – it’s something that needs to be highlighted.
So, if a cohabiting couple splits up, and one of them owns the house in their name, then the other partner may have no automatic right to live in it, or to a share in that property. If they were to split up, and one of them has sacrificed their career for caring responsibilities, there’s no right to spousal maintenance as you would get maybe in a marriage. And, in the event of a split... if one of them has a sizeable pension, and the other has nothing, there’s no automatic right to share.
So, also, if they took on debts – or hold savings unevenly – there’s no automatic right to have this balanced out either, even if one of them is holding savings for you both, or if you have taken on debts for a joint project. So, those things are really interesting and important to understand.
[5:45] Clare Stinton: And are there rules that favour married couples in death too?
[5:48] Helen Morrissey: Er, yeah, there are.
So, if you are a cohabiting couple, for instance, and one of you dies without a will – and, obviously, you’re not married – then the other could get nothing. Similarly, if the home is in your partner’s name, you could potentially lose your home too. Most pensions will pay out to a spouse when you die – but, if you’re not married, you need to complete an Expression of Wish form to ask for anything to pass to your partner. If you don’t complete the form, there’s no guarantees that this will happen.
It’s also worth saying that, if you’re in a final salary pension scheme, then you need to look at the scheme rules to see who is eligible to receive benefits. Some may not pay out to a cohabiting partner.
[6:31] Clare Stinton: That’s a really good point because those final salary schemes tend to be really individualistic in nature, so do reach out to your scheme if you’re concerned about that.
So, what about Inheritance Tax? Are there challenges or considerations here?
[6:44] Helen Morrissey: Yes, there are! [Laughs]
So, if one of you dies, and leaves everything to the other in a marriage or civil partnership, this would all be free of Inheritance Tax. However, if you’re not married, and you breach the Inheritance Tax nil rate band, then there could be tax to pay – and, in some cases, this could mean that you can’t afford to stay in your home.
So, in a marriage, if you left everything to your partner, you would also leave your inheritance nil rate bands... these are worth up to £500,000. Neither of these things apply, though, if you are cohabiting.
There are also no inheritable ISAs. If your spouse holds an ISA on death, you will get an additional ISA allowance, called an Additional Permitted Subscription – which, essentially, means ISA assets, I believe, can all be wrapped up in an ISA again, without affecting your allowances. If you’re not married, then you’re not gonna get that extra ISA allowance... it’s well worth knowing.
[7:40] Clare Stinton: So, Helen, if you aren’t married – or in a civil partnership – how can you go about protecting yourself?
[7:46] Helen Morrissey: Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Clare.
So, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that you can do is updating those Expression of Wish forms on your pensions. Now, that really is vital because administrators and trustees will use these forms when deciding who’s gonna receive the death benefits.
These forms should be updated whenever there’s a major life event – so that could be a relationship breakup, for instance. And this is to ensure an ex-partner is not named at the expense of a current one.
You need to consider how you hold your pension savings. So, in the event of a split, if one of you has a sizeable pension, and the other has nothing, there’s no compulsion to share if you’re just cohabiting. So, you should both be building up a pension in your own name wherever possible.
What I’d also say is you really need to make a will. The only way to ensure an unmarried partner inherits is to draw up a will, so that your assets are left exactly as you want them to be. If you don’t, there’s a risk that that surviving partner could be left with nothing.
Another thing to think about is a cohabitation agreement. Now, this’ll lay out all kinds of things – from how you manage money between you to who owns what in the relationship. It should also iron out what will happen in the event that you split up. You can also include how children should be supported after a breakup.
I would also say again, if you do have children, you need to ensure that both of you are on the birth certificate. This will give the father the automatic right to care for the child, should the mother die.
You should also consider lifetime gifts. So, the less generous tax treatment of cohabiting couples on death means that it is worth considering whether it makes sense to give gifts during your lifetime, which could fall out of your estate for tax purposes, and it could mean that you pay less in terms of Inheritance Tax when someone dies.
So, there’s a few things there.
[9:46] Clare Stinton: Some great tips there – and I think it’s worth pointing out that you complete your Expression of Wish form with your pension provider. There’s often a bit of confusion there if it’s a workplace pension... whether you complete that with your employer.
So, clearly, there are some real financial benefits to marriage, but it isn’t always mathematically the best option, is it?
[10:03] Helen Morrissey: Absolutely. So, marrying the wrong person – and losing half of what you own in a divorce – is likely to leave you worse off.
Now, we’ve come to the end of our podcast today, but I can’t let you go without our stat of the week.
So, we’re gonna go back to Valentine’s day proposals – and I said earlier on that it is a popular day for proposals. However, it’s actually the third most popular day, so what d’you think came top?
D’you think it’s Christmas Day – New Year’s Eve – or Christmas Eve?
[10:38] Clare Stinton: It’s got to be between ‘Christmas Day’ and ‘New Year’s Eve,’ but I’m going to go with ‘Christmas Day.’
[10:43] Helen Morrissey: Okay – well you would be right. I will personally say that a Christmas Day proposal is a bit of a high-risk strategy, and that it could potentially ruin Christmas – however, it does save having to buy a present, I guess!
[10:56] Clare Stinton: [Laughs]
[10:57] Helen Morrissey: So, that’s it for this week – but, before we go, we should remind you that this was recorded on February 3rd 2026, and that all information was correct at the time of recording.
[11:08] Clare Stinton: Nothing in this podcast is personal advice – you should seek advice if you’re not sure what’s right for you.
[11:14] Helen Morrissey: Tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances. Pension money can’t normally be accessed until the age of 55 – that’s rising to 57 from 2028.
[11:26] Clare Stinton: So, all that’s left for us is to thank our Producer, Elizabeth Hotson.
[11:30] Helen Morrissey: And to thank you all very much for listening, and we’ll be back again soon. Goodbye!
[11:34] Clare Stinton: Bye!