it is painfully expensive, especially housing costs, the average 1 bed flat is as much to rent as a 2 bed house around here, there isnt an affordable living option for single people that doesnt involve living in a shared house with an ever changing array of random strangers living with you and in many cases you dont even save that much by making the sacrifice of your own bathroom and kitchen.<p>why someone doesnt convert some of the huge number of large empty buildings into small, affordable 1 bed accommodation for single people? im sure if it were more affordable we wouldnt be seeing the ever increasing number of homeless people about.<p>when a large percentage of your income is spent on basic living costs it can take only a small financial hit to see you totally stuck, many people, especially those on minimum wage struggle to feed themselves properly let alone save money for a rainy day.<p>its already a huge problem and there is little sign that the situation will improve, if anything it only stands to get worse as buy to let landlords sell up and the remaining properties get increasingly expensive to rent. of course its actually much cheaper to pay a mortgage on house than it is to rent one, but those who are renting arent doing it out of choice, they do it because they cant afford to save a huge deposit and likely dont have the credit rating required to be considered for a mortgage in the first place despite the fact that they already manage to pay much more every month in rent