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Comment by philwelch | Hacker News Reader

Do married people have more money, or do more financially secure people get married?

Married people sharing a household retain more of their income (so have more money) than non-married people who are each managing their expenses.

Many bills (like utilities) often have a base component and a variable component, you pay only one base component if you live in the same house.

Rents for two studio apartments are greater than the rents for a single bedroom apartment, two one bedroom apartments go for more than one 2 bedroom apartment. A chunk of that is the shared square footage of bathrooms, kitchen, Etc.

Food costs in bulk are lower than food costs in single serving quantities. It is more cost effective to cook for two than it is to cook for one (save on energy costs and food)

Yes, being married (not having kids), will give you access to more money than you would have if you remain single.

Is there a separate effect for marriage over and above cohabitation?

I don't know. But I would speculate that if such an effect existed it would be tied to a shared financial outcome for the pair vs two unrelated people cohabiting.

There should also be a secondary effect on savings (if they were combined) where the compounding of interest would work more effectively on a larger principle.

Depending on your relative incomes, the difference in your total tax liabilities can be enough to fully fund an IRA; maybe more.

Things like health and car insurance can cost less for a married couple than they do for two individuals, especially if your state doesn't have a domestic partnership law.

Stuff like that can add up surprisingly quickly.

It's cheaper to live with someone and split bills than live alone and pay all of the bills by yourself. So yes, married people have more money in general.

That's both a fact and not an answer to the question he's asking. For example, unmarried people can live together and split the bills. The above poster isn't asking if it's cheaper to live together with someone--they're asking if selection bias causes it to look that way. That is, whether or not there's sufficient distinction between single folk, long-term non-married split-the-bills relationships, and marriage.

Many people still are living together and splitting bills without being married, so it's not all that relevant to the question.

It's pretty relevant if married people are more likely to be living together and splitting bills, which is probably the case.

Not only that, but married people have lower costs vs the same two people simply cohabiting.

Lower insurance rates (home, auto)

(usually) lower health insurance rates (family plan rather than two single plans). My company doesn't even charge a premium for putting your non-working spouse on your plan.

(usually) Tax benefits

You don't have to be married to live with someone else. That is why many people get a roommate, you split the bills and save more money.

The second one; marriage isn't free. Even at the courthouse.

When my wife and I married we made a profit on our wedding but we set a reasonable budget for it.

I would love to know how you made a profit on it. (That's not a snarky question at all - I have a child likely to get married next year, and I would genuinely like to know.)

Guests give money to the newly weds in lieu of gifts.

You could make a profit by reduced tax liability.

Get married in a courthouse around the end of the year, before the year of your wedding. The following year, have your ceremony. You extend your Married Filing Jointly status to the previous year you were going to originally take credit for it.

That's my best guess though, and depends on your incomes.

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