Dating on a budget
Money can't buy you love, so it's ironic that when Cupid is at his most potent we rush around spending like we're oligarchs. If the first flush of a relationship isn't a good time to rein in your spending, I don't know when is. All those restaurant bills, cinema tickets, trinkets given… what's the point when all you want to do is get naked in a darkened room? Just as war threw people together, so the credit crunch should see singletons the country over making concerted efforts to locate a lover. There's surely no better way of saving your pennies and reducing your heating bills than succumbing to blind passion.
Annual budget: £1,200
Co-habiting in hard times
Once you've shacked up together, the best investment you can make is in your independence. Economising on things like gym membership, nights out with friends and football tickets is a grave mistake. Newly co-habiting couples spend a fortune on home comforts that they misguidedly believe will tie them together for the long term – but as we all know, a designer sofa and a deluxe mattress only guarantee a nasty separation. Better to make do with the threadbare settee you inherited from your auntie and your partner's shabby pan collection till you're sure the relationship is a goer.
Annual saving £800 (cost of new sofa)
Marriage on a shoestring
Once you've signed on the dotted line, trying to maintain financial independence is futile. Some of the greatest friction in a marriage is caused by money, and it's often because we try to cling to that last area of autonomy. What was once yours is now "ours". If you end up divorcing, your accrued belongings will in all likelihood be divided up by a stranger in a courtroom. Instead, throw your earnings into the pot along with your endurance skills, then revel in the mathematics of bills halved by the presence of a spouse. Divorce in a recession is an act of financial madness!
Annual saving £28,000 (average cost of divorce)
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