That's a good point and one of the frustrating things I find about an otherwise awesome blog. Living with a significant other is cheaper than living by yourself because I really doubt you're going to want to live in really close quarter with someone your not sleeping with.
I was living on 5-7k for five years before I got married. Being single or married doesn't materially affect the math. If you're single, you can live in a smaller space, but you'll spend slightly more on rent. This is nearly a wash. However, if you're single you don't have to go along/compromise with your partners less than frugal choices.
My rent (which is the cheapest possible in town) is $6,000 (not including heating oil, which is ~$75/mo in the winter) a year for a very small room of a duplex in which each half is shared by 4 people. In a very different real estate market I've been in within the last two years (KY houses are on the order of 1/2 the cost of houses in NH), it's still about the same price for rent. You won't make it on the $1-2k that's left over from that. How long ago were you living on <$7k?
Are you positively sure you have the cheapest rent in town? We lived in the same city for two years before we found a place that was 30% cheaper. Go to craigslist and set up an RSS feed. The underpriced places don't stay on the market for more than a day before someone snatches them up.
Yeah, it doesn't get a hair more than $500/yr cheaper and would exclude bus access. (note the shitty living situation) Part of the reason is that NH has a high property tax instead of having income tax. That's passed on to the renters.
Have you checked out Seabrook (dunno what your feelings are towards salt marches and nuclear plants). I hear they almost pay people to live there. We were talking about moving to the Free State for a while but the property taxes are scary. Now it looks like we'll be buying a house in Oregon.
