Hi everybody!
This is my first post here - I have joined a little while ago and have been reading a lot on this forum. The reason I have not posted here until now is that I found everything I needed without asking questions
.However there is one aspect of UK immigration that I cannot seem to find proper answers to anywhere on the web. Although this forum comes closest to answering some of the questions I would like to start a new thread and hopefully have a full resource (first on the web so far I think) for people with similar problems.
Over the last few months I have done a lot of research in my quest to understand the cost of living in London and to compile a sample budget for newcomers to the city. This budget is split in to two options first is a single person living on their own and second is a married couple living together. The reason for this is that my plan is to make the move on my own, settle down, and then a few months later my wife will join me.
I spent many, many hours on property websites, (rightmove, thinkproperty, findaproperty and others), TFL site, Supermarkets, Household and Furniture stores, and just talking to people who live in London or near it.
Here is what I came up with so far:
The basic regular expenses are – Rent, Council tax, Utilities (Water, Electricity, Sanitation, Gas), Phone (cellphones and landline), Transport (car or public transport or both), Groceries and General household consumables (personal care {excluding cosmetics}, household chemicals, laundry) Internet and TV licence.
These basics do not include clothes and shoes. Firstly I am planning to bring quite a lot of that with me when I arrive (and I assume others will do the same) and secondly in my opinion this is a very unpredictable expense and will vary greatly from person to person.
Keeping the above in mind here are some figures I came up with (these are explained below):
Item...................1 person...........Multiplier..........2 people
Rent......................850...................1.5.................1275
Council tax............150....................1.5.................225
Utilities..................120....................1.5.................180
Phone.....................45....................1.8..................81
Transport..............220.....................2...................440
Groceries etc.........200.....................2...................400
Internet.................20......................1....................20
TV licence..............12......................1....................12
Total:...................1617........................................2633
Ok let me explain my reasoning behind these numbers.
I know that you may be able to get away with quite a bit less than the 850 I allocated to rent, but I do not want to share accommodation and am willing to pay a little more for my own one bedroom place (or good studio). Yes, I also know that it will depend on where in London you look in terms of price that is why I used north-west London as my bench mark because, if I’m not mistaken, it is the most expensive part of London generally, and if I can find a place to rent there for this price, I should be able to find the same quality/size elsewhere cheaper or better for the same price.
Council tax is an estimate and I may be completely wrong here but from what I understood from people living in London the figure is somewhat accurate.
Utilities include Water, Electricity, Sanitation, and Gas. This figure again is an estimate based on information gathered from people living in or around London.
The phone charges are based on prices from BT website and Vodafone and Orange offers. The figure under one person includes one cellphone contract with roughly 300 minutes anytime talk time and 500 texts, and a landline rent and a few calls (as most calls will be made from the cellphone).
Transport is a very unpredictable thing. I assume that I will be using public transport as I have no problem with that and in some way it even appeals to me. So there is no car included in to the transport figure. The figure was calculated based on information from TFL website using weekly passes.
Groceries etc – this figure was calculated by doing some online shopping, my wife and I took our weekly shopping list and went shopping at Tesco (I think it was Tesco)… if not then it was another major UK supermarket. The figure includes only home prepared food (in other words no pub or restaurant meals) it also includes some toiletries and basic household chemicals.
Internet – some people may discount this altogether as they may find it unnecessary, for me the Internet is very important as it will be used for Job hunting, communications with family and entertainment.
TV Licence - yeah for many people it may be wierd but you have to pay a licence to own a TV in the UK... actually here in SA you also have to payit.
Add them all up and you get the total.
Now for the multiplier – I used different multipliers to get from 1 person figures to 2 people figures as some of the numbers do not need to be a direct X2 multiplication.
Again with accommodation I understand that one can get away with less but this is a figure I found I am comfortable with. If you wish to change it – I’m not stopping anybody.
The rest is pretty self explanatory.
This is my thinking so you may have to adjust the numbers according to your ideas or findings. Also keep in mind that these were calculated based on research done during November 2007 – January 2008.
Ok so this is about it in terms of the basics.
The reason I did not include anything else in to this calculation is that I want to know what are the most basic expenses before any extra or luxury expenses are consider.
According to listentotaxman website 27k per year will give you 1673.26 per month after tax and national insurance. This means that it is the absolute minimum one will have to earn in order to pay the very basic bills. It is obviously unrealistic to say that if you make 20k you’ll be able to survive, as there will always be other expenses no matter what. Yes it is possible to cut some of the expenses mentioned above but it still will not give you much to play with.
As for the 2 people figure – a salary of 44k will give you 2636.13 per month which means you will once again barely cover the bills. The situation is a little easier here if both people work since they have to each be making about 22k to be able to manage the bills.
Ok now I have a few questions for anybody who is living in London (or has lived there recently). I am looking for opinions, if possible backed up by facts or experience. So please if you don’t have anything meaningful to add – don’t post things like “Well, it dependsâ€
