Why hello. It’s been a few weeks. I have burnout. I’m tired so thanks for your patience. But I also have thoughts.

I’ve spent the last five-and-a-half years writing about the singles tax since you’re here reading this newsletter. I’ve talked about carrying the hard costs like rent or mortgages by yourself and the softer costs like paying the single supplement when travelling.

There’s also the obnoxious fact that buying groceries for one costs more per serving than feeding an entire family of four from Costco.

But there’s a newer tech approach that might strongly affect your spending and budget: algorithmic pricing.

If you’re a solo earner already stretched for time, energy and money, there’s a good chance we’re going to end up paying it.

Algorithmic or as it’s being called, surveillance pricing, according to Canada’s Competition Bureau, ‘can be broadly defined as the process of using automated algorithms to set or recommend prices for products or services, often in real time, based on a set of data inputs.’ (You can read the whole page on the topic here.)

A company, say a grocery store, can use customers’ personal data like their postal code/neighbourhood, spending history, their browsing history and even their devices to set a custom price for an individual, using AI these days, that said individual is willing to pay.

Allyuh. Basically, if the system thinks you’re busy, loyal, stressed, affluent (ha!), less likely to comparison shop or have a pet that only likes this ONE brand of food, it will show you a higher price. I’m not one to think that just because you live in an affluent or relatively-affluent neighbourhood you can just afford higher prices for things unless your salary magically increased. Add that life has gone up in price in 2026 and yeah, not great.

Also, I’m not really seeing anything about surveillance pricing offering lower prices.

Now, this isn’t new. Retailers have always used data to determine pricing. Like, milk is a dollar more by me than by my parents. Or, look at luxury, LVMH decided to jack up the price of the Louis Vuitton Neverfull (why, it’s so basic) and the price of Chanel bags because data determined during the pandemic that people would buy.

What’s new is the speed that it could happen plus the amount of personal data used. It’s like AI is looking at us through the window, peeking around the door, maybe hiding under our bed with their phone, recording everything or them encouraging us to put our deepest fears into their platforms.

Add the current atmosphere where Canadians are feeling very stressed about their finances (I get press releases every day about this) and you see why this topic is very hot.

Single people are especially vulnerable to this type of pricing because we don’t always have the luxury of splitting Costco hauls, driving across town for three separate sales or even comparison-shopping all the time. As I’ve said before and heard from many of you, we’re managing an entire household finances, caregiving, errands, emotional labour by ourselves.

There’s another thing that people miss about the personalization of our data. A study done in 2025 by Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business found that personalization may not help consumers. It doesn’t always mean better recommendations. Sometimes it’s as simple as the system has learned exactly how much inconvenience we’ll tolerate before paying more.

So what do we do?

First, understand that loyalty programs are no longer just reward systems. I feel I’m stating the obvious here because we’re all aware, but they’re data-harvesting operations. Every scan, click and late-night grocery or Zara order helps build a consumer profile.

If you can, occasionally shop without logging into apps. Compare prices across devices. Check prices in an incognito browser, maybe one like Duck Duck Go or FireFox. Clear cookies before booking flights or ordering delivery. Turn off personalized experiences in account settings whenever possible. I’m sorry, I know this is more work but don’t make it that easy to collect your data.

If there is a store that starts leveraging this, boycott it is you can. They want more of your money? Then no money for them.

More importantly, to hop back on a topic that is near and dear to me, this can’t just be an individual responsibility issue. Consumers should not need cybersecurity-level tactics to buy yogurt at a fair price. Though, as an aside, practice good cybersecurity.

Governments are finally starting to pay attention. Manitoba recently moved to ban surveillance pricing practices, and federally there’s increasing pressure to examine whether AI-driven personalized pricing crosses into discriminatory territory. (Um, yes, more than likely?)

Single people are already subsidizing society in ways policymakers rarely acknowledge. We pay higher per-person housing costs, we receive fewer tax advantages as I discussed on Ontario Today. We shoulder more risk individually.

Now companies want to turn our behavioural data into even more of a revenue stream with economic profiling.

Solo earners who are already navigating an economy built around couples and families, we shouldn’t have to absorb yet another invisible surcharge just because an algorithm thinks we’re easier to charge more because we’re busy living our lives.

This week’s readings:

America's biggest career hurdle: being a daughter (Business Insider)

Condoms are getting more expensive (NSS Magazine)

So what is a sovereign wealth fund? (Preet Banerjee, Instagram)

By me: Planning to share a home to save money? Here’s what to consider (The Globe and Mail)

Also by me: Being an author makes you a boring conversationalist

A new “expectation-to-reality” gap may help explain Canada’s gender pay disparity (Moneysense)

A new survey from Adyen found that Gen Z is doing the least tightening of their spending compared to 67% Millennials, 71% Gen X, and 64% Boomers.

New data from Willful found that 1 in 3 Canadians (36%) set aside money for their pets in will with the average cash gifts to pet guardians being $11,121 across Canada. (I’ve talked to Erin about this before and mentioned this as one reason to have a will as a single person. And they have a pet calculator. Very cool.