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The story
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has released its “National Survey of Single-Person Household Income and Expenditure” (Reiwa 6 / 2024), revealing the average net financial assets held by single-person households. Men held an average of ¥16,303,000, women ¥13,341,000, and the overall average net financial assets across all single households came to ¥12,733,000. When the figures made the rounds, 5ch users quickly pointed out that “averages alone don’t show the real picture,” with several posting median figures broken down by age group. The huge gap between the average and the median became the focus of the discussion.
How much are people living alone actually saving?
The results table for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ National Survey of Single-Person Household Income and Expenditure (Reiwa 6) was updated on August 28, 2026.
Net financial assets — savings minus debt — averaged ¥12,733,000 per household.
The author has spent years consulting individual customers at a bank. This article takes a closer look at what makes up single-person households’ savings and debt.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
This is seriously brutal
Sorry, that's because I've got ¥110 million
Re: #7
Re: #12
2025, single-person households (never-married/widowed/divorced)
(Other/both sexes/including unemployed/pension-only/students)
Average financial assets / Median
20s: ¥2.55M / ¥370K
30s: ¥5.01M / ¥1.1M
40s: ¥8.59M / ¥1.24M
50s: ¥9.99M / ¥1.43M
60s: ¥13.64M / ¥3.11M
70s: ¥14.89M / ¥5.02M
Case closed.
Re: #11
The broke crowd always brings up the "median," but that just proves there are a ton of poor people — it doesn't actually tell you anything.
That IS data showing there are a ton of poor people though…
It's great data — it shows most people are poor with a small number of rich outliers.
Savings, stocks, and bonds combined: ¥45 million.
Also own a mortgage-free condo I live in, plus a rental property.
Never married, don't drink, smoke, gamble, or visit the sex industry.
No hobbies, no friends — just worked steadily.
Even at a small or mid-size company out in the regions, if you work until retirement you can end up with about this much.
Why not get married?
Plenty of guys get divorced, their kids go off the rails, and they end up a lonely old man anyway. Well, money can probably fix the rest.
Why Kobe or Fukuoka?
Oh nice. Yeah, I get wanting to take it easy.
People keep mixing up two different things: households having fewer kids, and the rise in people staying unmarried and having zero kids at all.
Early 50s, 40 years as a hikikomori (shut-in), zero savings.
A nightmare wife, terrible kids — a huge burden waiting for you later in life.
You've managed to eat for 40 years without doing anything — doesn't that mean you must have some assets somewhere?
What do you spend your money on?
Investing and books.
I don't have hobbies, so I don't spend on food, travel, drinking, gambling, women, fashion, fan activities ("oshi-katsu"), games, or movies.
I genuinely don't know what I'm living for, every single day.
Once a person stops creating things, they might as well be dead.
Apparently things like the makeup and nail art women do are actually good for the brain.
Doing stuff that looks pointless at first glance matters.
If it keeps you at peace, that's good.
I'm honestly envious.
Re: #34
So looking at that data and thinking "there are tons of poor people, so it's normal for me to be poor too!" — that doesn't actually mean anything.
Nobody actually said "it's normal for me to be poor too!" did they?
You're really letting your imagination run wild.
The average means nothing.
Are you upset?
Savings: ¥500,000. Securities: ¥20 million. No debt, though I've got property damage to deal with.
My water heater broke this year, one of my two IH cooktop burners died, and just the other day my Ivy Bridge motherboard fried too.
I want to replace it all, but everything's so expensive.
Sounds like me — my AC and washing machine both died within a year.
If you're a man, you've probably only got about 15 years left anyway, so might as well take it easy.
They died anyway in the end — what was even the point?
That's just how life is.
At least you got to be a good, dutiful son. My parents don't have savings or a pension either, so I've got no choice but to abandon them. I can't even afford to go to the dentist myself.
Couldn't you use the High-Cost Medical Care Benefit system (Japan's cap on out-of-pocket medical expenses)?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The figures come from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ “National Survey of Single-Person Household Income and Expenditure” (Reiwa 6 / 2024), whose results table was updated just recently, on August 28, 2026. What drew the most attention on the thread was the gap between the published average (¥12,733,000 in net financial assets) and the age-by-age medians users posted in the replies (¥370,000 for people in their 20s, ¥1.1 million for their 30s, and still only ¥3.11 million even in their 60s). Because averages get pulled sharply upward by a small number of wealthy people, the median is generally seen as closer to what most people actually experience. News coverage tends to lead with the average figure alone, which can obscure how skewed the underlying distribution really is. What stands out about this thread is that it turned less into a debate about wealth disparity among single households itself, and more into a broader discussion of statistical literacy — namely, which number you should actually be looking at.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “[Average Savings of Solo Singles] Men: ¥16,303,000, Women: ¥13,341,000 — How Much If Just Counting Deposits?“.
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