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Do it, its one of my regrets and I live in the SW. If it goes belly up you can always go back to the north.
Having lived in London for my first 40 years, i left it 6 years ago and have only been back for funerals....
But, @ 24 why [i]not[/i] give it a go? If its not for you, just move back to your parents.
Have you actually looked into house/flat share prices?
If you make the move my advice would be: live as centrally as possible (rent will be higher) as that's where you'll want to spend most of your social time out, it has some great spots & the suburbs and commute into central London are shite.
So, go for broke, aim to work & live as centrally as you can, immerse yourself in it & if its pants head back home.
Sounds like a good idea. But if you enjoy london it will drain all your money and you wont be able to save so you need to be thinking of moving up the career ladder while there.
That way when you move back to yorkshire you can move back on a higher wage.
I have no idea how to move up the career ladder as a bus technician, but there are alot of jobs in london at the moment, I would just start applying for anything you think you might be vaguely qualified for.
And then do the same in 2 years times. And then again in another 2 years time.
Do it. At 24 I went (from London via Southampton uni) to Egypt for two years. Don't regret it in the slightest even if I didn't end up there permanently.
The main shopping/business/entertainment bit would comfortably fit inside Hyde park. Less than a million people live in Leeds so it's more a large town than a city.
Well yes, that's fine [i]in theory [/i]but how would you get it there?
I'm thinking dig a big trench around it, few airbags and float it down the Aire. Might make a mess of Hull, but who cares. Turn right through the bombing ranges (should be safe as long as the yanks are using them), turn right into the Thames and park it where?
Will it become Boris Island? Or will the Headrow become the next main runway for the Heathrow replacement.
This isn't easy!
London is great in your 20’s, if it doesn’t work out it’s better to regret what you’ve done than regretting what you didn’t do..
Don’t limit your self to London there are lots of other great places to live (outside of the UK)
London is great in your 20’s,
And in your 30'', 40's and 50's in my experience. It's not Logan's run where they hunt old people down!
I moved to London last year at 26/27.
It's great, my salary almost doubled in that one year and social life is fantastic. (If you ignore that I left all my friends at home lol)
You can easily get a semi-alright to alright double bedroom in a shared house in a nice part of north London (Harringey, for example) for £600 - 650 a month.
If you go down South (Clapham and beyond) you'll get a nicer bedroom for your money at the risk of being less connected (Some parts of South are just unreachable still)
If you don't mind living further out or in a less-desirable area you can get more for your money, of course. A lot of people are starting to move into Canada Water area which is mainly business parks and shopping outlets but it seems it's becoming more residential - it's cheap, but only one tube line into town.
If you want a one-bed to yourself, you're looking at £1200 and upwards for anywhere reasonable, £1400 and up for a nice standard of living.
Rightmove is the best website we found
Spareroom.co.uk for finding a spare room 🙂
London is expensive, but public transport is reasonable. Find the nearest Weatherspoons ASAP - you'll be spending a lot of time in there.
It's warmer and drier down here. And the streets are paved with gold
Greggs is still available too
😯You can easily get a semi-alright to alright double bedroom in a shared house in a nice part of north London (Harringey, for example) for £600 - 650 a month.
It's like a whole different economy.
Back on topic:
Quick bit of guesstimate maths based on the above rental and a 37hr week suggests you'll be making ~£7.5k/yr more(after tax), but ~£7.5k will be eaten up in rent.
So more or less cost neutral, maybe a little worse off in London due to generally higher prices. So I guess not really anything to lose by trying it.
May sound totally daft, but it's not the money or the social life that could potentially draw me south, but an extra 2-300hrs of sunlight a year, and actually being warm in the summer would be welcome.It's warmer and drier down here
n0b0dy0ftheg0at -
On £11 per hour, OP is never going to be a better position to save for a chunky house deposit than while living with parents, probably paying some "keep," but far below the cost of renting a place and paying utility bills.Even with the wage increase moving to London, doing the same job, the rent will be crippling... Will hardly save a bean.
With house prices having increased by ~4-5x over the last 25 years, you really cannot afford to play "Planet instant gratification," it will have massive financial consequences over a lifetime.
We've been renting the same flat for ~11.5 years, we have paid ~£75000 to the landlord over that period. Only in the last ~2.5 years, since Mrsgoat started working, have we been able to slowly save money for a deposit. At our age (38/44), many people would normally be a fair way into paying off their mortgage, yet we might be just starting next year and paying it off until the day we retire.
Re read his first post, he’s going to be getting £16-18 per hour down here. So circa 30k a year and the probable second largest outgoing, travel, is free for him.
+ If he finds a partner, suddenly prices crash as rent is shared.
Yeah he won’t be able to buy here, but there’s no reference to buying a home in the OP?
You can easily get a semi-alright to alright double bedroom in a shared house in a nice part of north London (Harringey, for example) for £600 - 650 a month.
.
.
.If you want a one-bed to yourself, you're looking at £1200 and upwards for anywhere reasonable, £1400 and up for a nice standard of living.
That is serious cash for a room - more than my mortgage in sunny ayrshire.
What are you trying to experience here through moving to London ? More cash or living in a different city ? Wouldn't somewhere like Manchester or Bristol be an option ?
I've never lived in London (it never appealed) - but have moved from the North down to the South West, then to the M4 Corridor, now up in Scotland. I get the idea of seeing some more of the world, but more cost effective places than London could be an option here...?
Personally I'd go back to Wiltshire/Oxfordshire given the opportunity
I lived in London for two years in my early 20s. Hated it. But it was a great experience to look back on and I had more noteworthy things happen in a week than in a year in most parts of the country.
No money would tempt me to live there these days but unfortunately I'm working there at least once or twice a month.
The sensible answer would seem to be stay where you are and save up for a mortgage but the reality is that having a steady job and mortgage is not always the route to eternal happiness. Personally at your age I would jump at the chance of moving to London. I did it in my mid twenties and absolutely loved my time there. I wasn’t earning mega bucks but still had enough to live quite well. You might even get back into cycling as it by far the best way to get around the city. Met loads of people from different countries/cultures......Mrs Stern too which is how I have ended up in Germany. Most of my friends have since moved out of the city to have families and the only ones who have remained work in the media Industry and earn shed loads but couldn’t really do it anywhere else in the UK.
May sound totally daft, but it's not the money or the social life that could potentially draw me south, but an extra 2-300hrs of sunlight a year
I would have guessed that overall it would have been the same - you'd have less in winter but more in summer...?
Although it might be sunlight that you actually want, i.e. when you're awake
Overall, I suspect you are right about [i]daylight[/i], its clear blue skies and that yellow ball in the sky that would be nice instead of just variations of grey.I would have guessed that overall it would have been the same - you'd have less in winter but more in summer...?Although it might be sunlight that you actually want, i.e. when you're awake
jambourgie - Member
Move to London of course. If you can afford it, do it. While you're young. You can always go back.
this
its a brilliant place to be when youre young
but expensive, cycle everywhere and you can save a lot of money though!
I cycled to work 99% of the time, reckon I saved 10-15 grand over the 10 years I lived there by not getting a travel card
I personally can't think of anywhere I'd less rather live in the UK than London. I know it well - my Aunt lived there and I sometimes stayed for a few weeks at a time.
That said she and her family loved it and my brother in law made the move and hasn't looked back. I have friends too who would now not live anywhere else and others who have tried it and run screaming.
It is one of those places - either it'll click and you'll have the time of your life or it won't and it will be hateful.
The thing is you'll only know which once you've tried it.
So on the one hand you have a brilliant modern, cosmopolitan city that attracts people from across the Europe and world to its clubs, shops and world class universities etc, and with thriving cultural and alternative scenes. And on the other hand you have London.
Nah. From Leeds, lived in London from ages 25 to 39. Regret leaving if I'm honest. Well, regret selling the house when we did anyway...
scaled - Member
It's a brilliant place to live in your 20s.I'm from Croydon - it's a bit crap but nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Most importantly it's cheaper than central london and the trains run all night.
If you fancy cycling it's actually only 10 miles to Victoria.
I couldn't live there now, I've got kids and the traffic is insane.
The thing is, if you're born/raised in Croydon (as I am also) it's acceptable to to hop on the train to go in to town as that's what you've always known.
However, I think if I was moving from somewhere much further away I'd want to be further in to town - do it properly so to speak (Clapham/Balham maybe). While I resent the reputation that Croydon seems to have I can't disagree with the idea that it has lots of the negatives of London without a lot of the positives.
That may change though.
ANYWAY, OP - do it, 100%.
It is a fantastic place to be for someone of your age.
Whilst you're young enough and free enough, do it. My son is going to Kings next year, and honestly i'm very jealous (not to mention i'm going to bloody poor for a few years). I wish i'd done it 20 years ago, even if only for a few years just to enjoy it before mortgages and grown up stuff came along. I'd have probably come back to North Yorkshire eventually anyway, as its unbeatable for a well rounded lifestyle, but for being young and carefree, hell, i suspect London is pretty unbeatable.
I'd go, if nothing else, just for the experience of living in one of the worlds great cities. What have got to loose?
Lived in Brixton for 6 months when I was younger. Loved it. Totally broke but that was fine at the time. I'd say if you fancy doing it give it a go. I'm also out on the lash in Scarborough on Saturday for first time in 20 years.
Try it if you dont like it just move back.
I studied and lived in london, for my line of work i pretty much had no choice. Now i spend a few weeks a year there, really like it but gosh you can burn through some cash not even trying. 4 quid for a coffee at bar italia, soho last time...i d love a cake but that would push 10 quid. I just cant justify it, here in spain thats a nice lunch with bottle of wine.
Rents are expensive too but i m a landlord, the flats over 10 years have never been empty and the rents have always increased. Tenants have ranged from students at first to people mid 40s now.
Good luck, no regrets for me whatsoever
I love London and its one of my few regrets that I didn’t live there for a while whilst in my 20’s
+1
check out lfgss for a london centric bike scene. its probably younger than this lot, so probably a better place to ask.