Lived on my own until the last year.

It was hard. Not in that I struggled in the sense of I had no food in the cupboard but with sacrifices.

I limited my transport. Limited what I bought. I batch cooked everything, like if I was putting the steamer on, I'd fill every tier with vegetables. If I put the oven on, I'd be cooking 3 meals in it. Showers I timed to exactly 10 mins.

Over winter, sometimes id only heat the living room.

There were days I watched my electricity usage and would switch the fusebox off and just have a few hours on my tablet.

Clothes were a luxury, I only bought what I needed replaced.

Eating out never. Certainly no alcohol, smoking, sky, expensive phones etc.

You know what though I kinda miss it, I lived a really simple life, little possessions, little fuss.

I met my partner though and it brought to the table a extra income. I used our combined income to invest in battery storage and a heatpump. My car was uneconomical to fix so got a cheap EV. My transport, heating and electric is now under£70 a month which is half of what I was paying as a single person despite consuming 3x amount of electricity. If anything.

What would have been a killer blow was if my rent went up.