Amanda Calkins steeped a hand-mixed teabag in a glass kettle over her stove. Out of all the herbal notes in the blend, the elderberry would give an especially pungent kick to the back of the throat.
That Saturday evening, she welcomed seven guests into her two-story, four-bedroom home in Franklin with a hug and a mugful of the freshly brewed tea. They gathered under the ceiling’s exposed wood beams, carrying wind chimes and dried flowers, for a sound bath, one of many spiritual workshops Calkins offers out of her home multiple times a week.
For an hour, participants laid flat on yoga mats and listened to the soothing hum of crystal singing bowls and shakers.
Calkins said she used to enjoy giving herbalism and holistic healing workshops for free, but more recently, she’s had to rely on them as another source of income. Even with two other jobs — including work for the National Alliance on Mental Health and private in-home care for elderly families — she said she cannot afford the costs she incurs every month.
“Particularly with friends of mine, we’re often faced with that paralyzing option of, ‘Do I get groceries or do I pay my electric bill?'” she said.
Calkins is not alone. Single women who own their homes in the Granite State are struggling to pay their mortgages, utility bills, health care plans and other necessary expenses as prices surge across the state, some taking on multiple jobs to stay afloat.
Women working full-time in New Hampshire earned 81% of what their male counterparts earned in 2024, according to data analyzed by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, with working men’s median yearly salary totaling $75,397 and working women’s coming out to $61,442. The gap is even wider between men and women of color.
Jessica Williams, a senior policy analyst with the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute, said that the wage gap has widened nationally, meaning the disparity between women and men’s salaries has only grown in recent years, a potential symptom of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many women could have left the field to care for children, care for older adult family members during that time,” she said. “When women left the workforce and maybe returned once COVID came to a close over the last couple of years, they may have been more likely to enter into lower wage positions, lower earning positions, which can fluctuate those numbers at least nationally.”
Williams suggested that the high cost and low availability of child care can push mothers to stay at home and care for their children full-time. Women with children under 18 made up 13% of the state’s labor force in 2024, the Institute found.
Not only do women tend to take on lower wage positions, but they also may be more likely to hold multiple jobs at one time compared to men.
Kristin Smith, a visiting research professor of sociology at Dartmouth College, said single mothers are among the lowest earners, and in times of economic upheaval, this group tends to face challenges first.
“These folks are really scraping by, probably living paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “So if they need to pay their bills, if they’re not able to, it doesn’t surprise me that they would seek a second job.”
New Hampshire’s unemployment rate sits at 3%, lower than the national average, which means there are more jobs available than people seeking employment. Smith said single mothers may take advantage of this by doing jobs that are “easier to pick up on the side.”
Between her three jobs, Calkins earns a yearly income of $85,000. She pays over $1,200 per week on food, gas and other weekly expenses on top of a monthly $2,500 mortgage payment — and her costs are climbing.
Over the past year, Calkins said her overall expenses “easily went up over $1,000 from what it used to be. I was like, ‘Okay, I can make this work.’ But now the money’s in the negative … I had a savings, and then that dwindled, and then it was paycheck to paycheck. Now I get a paycheck, and it’s gone in two days, and then I wait for the next one, and it’s actually scary.”
Calkins bought her early 20th-century home in 2019 with a former romantic partner. They separated and formalized the title change in 2024, but she said she has been responsible for all the household expenses since 2020.
In October 2025, she offered a room in her home to a co-worker after they were laid off. She asked them to leave after three weeks because they could not afford the rent and she needed a stable supplement.
Since then, she’s been living in the home with her oldest and youngest sons, aged 22 and 15, respectively. Her oldest works full time as a chef and lends Calkins money to help with expenses.
“That should never be a thing,” she said. “It should never be something that he has to stress out about.”
Diane Blake faces similar financial struggles. The 50-year-old from Ossipee works as an optometrist technician and per diem as a hospice nurse. After living in Laconia for most of her life, she bought her home two years ago for $260,000 — a bid that beat out 15 other buyers by offering $20,000 over the asking price.
Blake went through a divorce a few years ago and has three adult children, none of whom live with her. She said she spends about $4,000 per month in expenses. Her house needs repairs to the windows, kitchen floors and septic tank but she cannot afford any maintenance with her current income.
“I don’t have that extra money to be able to do that,” she said. “The little things that would make it more affordable, I can’t afford to spend. There is no extra. I can’t afford to take a third job. I have no more time to give.”
Blake is in so much of a deficit that she does not have health insurance. She said she can’t afford to get sick either “because who’s going to pay the bills?”
At both of her jobs, she regularly runs into people who are experiencing the same struggles. Blake participated in the sound bath at Calkins’s home and both women shared their frustrations with one another.
“There’s no special help for single people,” Blake said. “Elderly can apply for assistance or people with children can apply for assistance. But we’re in that middle income bracket where there is no assistance, and you can work two, three jobs if you want, however many you can fit into your schedule, but that’s all you’ve got.”
Calkins recently had her propane tank locked for nearly a week after missing a payment. Gasoline recently reached nearly $6 a gallon. She has had utility shutoff notices for her electric, water and cell phone plans. Calkins said she often has to choose which services she pays for per month because paying all of them is not an option.
She said she has been able to get some costs down, taking down her cell phone bill from $300 to $90 each month and switching internet providers after paying $90 monthly. But the lack of services available for people who make just enough to overqualify has been hard to navigate.
“Overall, since the cost of living has increased, it’s likely that many families across the state, particularly thinking about maybe single-income households, are finding it much harder to pay for higher costs,” said Williams, the analyst with the N.H. Fiscal Policy Institute.
Calkins said she started sharing her story and struggles in order to start conversations around the difficulties a lot of people like her are facing.
“I think no one wants to talk about money because there’s so much privacy around it, but for us to say out loud, ‘Look, we’re not okay,'” she said, “hopefully there’s a movement and a change that happens.”
