What would be an ok wage to live on in London?

Been looking at roles there, but no idea what I’d need in terms of wages

Tramps live for free. Nicholas Cage pays £1500 a night for a (not top of the range) hotel room. Where abouts do you fit in between them?

You will need around 40k to live alone and around 25k for a house share somewhere central 25% less to live in the burbs. Otherwise you’ll be skint after rent, rates, etc etc.

Say 1250 rent minimum
1500-2000 CT
Another what, 4k for all the rest of the bills including travel card and you’re into 20kpa fixed living somewhere like Tooting, Brixton etc.

Aldi & Waitrose prices are pretty much the same weather your rural or city based, rent / house prices however are not. Consider transport costs in £ & time.

I’ve been in London since 2000.
A few thoughts;
1. Day to day life is expensive – the money just seems to disappear. In part I think this is because you tend to be out and about more rather than staying in and watching TV every night
2. For culture, music, events, social etc it’s an amazing city. There’s absolutely no point being here if you don’t take advantage of this. But these things all cost money…
3. You’ll likely eat out a lot more, because you’re out and about
4. Don’t even begin to think about living anywhere central – zone 3 at least, and even then your monthly travelcard will be c £140
5. Rent is taking up more and more of your income. At least £500pcm for a room in a shared house, plus bills

Personally I would say anything less than £40k and you’ll be scraping by and not being able to make the best of the opportunities on offer. And even then you can forget pension or other saving…

Don’t let this put you off, though, there’s a reason why so many people are moving to London. If you’re young and have the energy and money to take advantage of the opportunities it’s a great place to spend a few years

All you need to know about living in that London

😀

As a single person my niece couldn’t manage a decent standard of living on 32k a year salary. She lasted 6 months and is now back in Derbyshire.

As much as I believe everything I wrote, Binners is also 100% correct 🙂

Personally I would say anything less than £40k and you’ll be scraping by and not being able to make the best of the opportunities on offer. And even then you can forget pension or other saving…

I’d agree with this.

Also live in London, also agree with Binners….

The point of living here is that there’s so much available to do. Unfortunately, unless you earn decent money it means living way out of town and/or somewhere crap just to survive, and therefore you get less of the thing you came for in the first place.

Rent is the major cost of living. I think its worth paying the price to be in zone 2 or 3, but take a look online and figure out whether the rent for a whole place or flat share is going to leave you with enough to spend each month. A whole flat is going to cost you min £1200 pcm.

Also worth noting that being in South or SW London has best access to Surrey Hills and Swinley Forest.

My sister has a fantastic lifestyle in London. But then she earns about the same as the GDP of Portugal, and so does her husband. Her house has just been valued at a price equivalent of the entire industrial output of the North of England from 2003 until the present day

Every time I go down there to see her, I’m staggered by the truly eye-watering price of just day-to-day stuff. A night out at somewhere you’re not likely to get mugged costs about the same as a monthly food bill for a family of four, anywhere outside the independent nation state that London now is. Its insane!

It varies a lot depending on how and where you want to live. Flat/house sharing is generally cheaper than a self-contained place by yourself. It can be cheaper than you may expect to live closer in (once you factor in travel costs), a mate walks 30 mins to work every day and spends the £120/month for a travelcard on his higher rent instead. Also if you cycle then it opens up cheaper areas that aren’t so convenient for public transport – most people want to live within 10 mins of a tube station.

Most costs (food, bills, etc) are the same as elsewhere. Things like eating out – you can get great food quite a bit cheaper than a typical town but you can also spend enormous amounts.

As said, you can spend a lot more if you’re making the most of what London offers.

Sadly true. My country living boss keeps asking when I’m going to renew my 11yo car. He knows what I earn yet can’t seem to comprehend the cost of living and bring up 2 kids in London. Like brooess stated my wages seem to vanish overnight like watching a bath with the plug out.

Best situation is to be a young well paid professional couple on a good salary sharing a flat and enjoying what the city has to offer IMO. Been there once…

Big question without more specifics.

Depends on what area of london, depends on owning versus renting versus house-sharing

Depends on whether you have family etc

As a rough order of magnitude.

SW London, house or flat big enough for a family of 3 is going to be in the ball park of a minimum £2000 a month to rent, £600,000 to buy.

Minimum.

If you are the only breadwinner, and want to run a car, do normal stuff etc then i would assume you’ll need to be in the £85-£100k ball park as a minimum.

Well, I work there. I have to get out at the weekends as it’s a bit well, boring. Now some may say I’m old and past it for living in London, but I’ve been working in it for around 20 years now in one way or another. For me, well I couldn’t work anywhere else. We are at the forefront of our industry here, no one else comes close around the world for the world of Finance, for that reason I’ll stay working here for another good few years yet. So in that respect I’m happy to be a part of it, feel like an unwound clock on occasion then other times a spring loaded Atom clock, Londons like that.
There are some very very good restaurants, not all of them are pricey either, some come, some go, some remain steadfastly good and I’ve been eating and drinking in some lovely places. This is what I like, it’s one of the main reasons I feel ok mid week, but come the weekends I have to get out. Hampshire my real home, it’ll stay that way too.
There is a fallacy that earning les than £40k will bring you on the poverty line, that’s not quite true. Whilst £40k + will make life a little easier you can live for less! though not a lot less if you want to enjoy living there! which let’s face it is what living in Londons all about, you do have to enjoy it because at some point you will leave once you’ve found a partner and have done the rounds of dinner parties etc.
I have friends who grew up there, I have friends who moved in, I have friends that moved out, I have friends that have moved back (though not for very long) I have friends like me who decided back when property wasn’t so expensive back home who bought there and kept the Appt/Flat/House in Town.
It’s just what you want London to do for you, this is the main question. Are you moving in for work, then be very specific about what you want and where you want to live. The beauty of these decision markers are that you will find something, somewhere in the chosen field/living in the place you want to, but you do have to put the leg work in.
It’s terribly competitive, everything is. Going out, finding a home, booking a meal, grabbing a couple of pints at the bar, there is always someone else in front or just behind you. That can be oppressive, or it can be quite fun.
I’ve settled East, Canary Wharf to be exact, East is where you get some space and a reasonable work/life balance with some very special places (even the dodgy areas like Bethnal Green aren’t that bad despite what some will say) we have Greenwich, I love Greenwich Park. If this wasn’t within 15mins walk I’m sure Ida backed out of Town long ago, as is it’s my rest bite, my little bit of salvation.

So, after all that I’d say be choosy about where you want to live and what you want out of London it’s a spectacular place make no mistake.

The country it ain’t, keep that in mind though.

HTH 😆

It’s terribly competitive, everything is. Going out, finding a home, booking a meal, grabbing a couple of pints at the bar, there is always someone else in front or just behind you. That can be oppressive, or it can be quite fun.

Sounds awesome. 😐

More essential information

😀

make the effort and cycle, lots, saves you a lot of money- less likely to drink after work etc
if youre on your own 35k is fine if you dont go crazy and can find a decent flatshare,
ive lived on a fair bit less, slightly rougher area have to make an effot with sarnies at lunch and so on

you dont have to go wild and crazy all the time, but as said the opportunities to live it up and party are immense, plenty of free stuff too and budget for weekends in s.wales to get yer biking fix in,
just used to limit myself to 1 big blowout a month max or it is easy to overspend

^^

Comedy gold Binners

“Put simply, once a core number of self-involved **** is reached then the city becomes as irresistibly attractive to **** as it is repellent to everyone else. Thereafter, their numbers grow exponentially.