Money Box

The cost of living alone, rather than living as a couple, is more than £1000 a year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. In the UK nearly eight million people now live alone and spend on average £21 a week more than individuals who live as a couple. Money Box reporter Marie Keyworth visits Sussex to investigate the cost of living, shopping, exercising and holidaying alone.Up to 90,000 people on benefits are at risk of losing their home when the Government stops paying the interest on their mortgage in just over two weeks' time. In future, help with mortgage interest will be paid as a loan not a benefit. But new figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that around 90% of those who get this benefit have not yet signed up for the loan that replaces it. It will be the same amount and still paid direct to their lender. But it will be a loan from the Government and secured against their home. If they do not sign up for the loan arrangement the money will stop from April 6th.