How much to live well?

Mezcita

Appreciate that this question is a bit subjective but I'd be interested to hear a few locals thoughts.

I've been offered a job in Old Street and am considering moving over. Ideally, I'd like to live somewhere where I could cycle to work and therefore avoid the tube related hassle.

The worry is obviously the cost of renting somewhere relatively near by but I'd have no issue house sharing with other peeps. Therefore how much do people think that you need to earn in London to have a relatively decent lifestyle? By "decent" I don't mean having lunch at the Ritz every day or touchline tickets to Chelsea games every other weekend. More along the lines of having money to go out a few times a week and basically not have to worry about the cost of living over there.

Opinions welcome!

breadmonkey

>35k imo

shrapnel222

i'd say 40-50k+ tbh

BrokenArrows

breadmonkey wrote: »

>35k imo

Ya i was very comfortable in Ealing in a shared house when i was on 35k.

It seems that every time i get a pay raise then more expenses come along with it. haha.

But ya, if you want to eventually rent your own place then 42+

I-Shot-Jr

OP, I work on Old street. If you plan on living within cycling distance I'd say budget for roughly £900pcm for rent. I think a salary of £35k would be tight if you weren't prepared to live a bit further out. £40k would be certainly be doable, about £45k if you plan on being comfortable, and saving a little. Based on my experience at least.

rainbow kirby

I work in the area as well. Would agree with 40-45k if you want to live within cycling distance - the surrounding areas are quite expensive and popular.

theteal

OP, live a bit further out and you can live on substantially less than some of the figures posted above. I'd say 80% of the Irish people I know are nurses/teachers and live between Stratford and Romford who would not be breaking the £30k barrier - most of them would share but they are in no way slumming it (some of them are always out on the lash!)

Mezcita

Cheers folks. Much appreciated.

RDM_83 again

I would say 28k had that salary for a while here and was able to go out a lot (like pints or food twice a week and blow out at weekend).
I would point out that London has an infinite capacity to drain your money though so depending on how you spend when enjoying yourself that figure could be too low.
Also keep in mind rent is always terribly high but view a few place s and you will see what you get for your money really varies.

Asaiah

I would recommend renting a room for 400-500 in zone 4 and getting the Tube in. It's about 20 pound a week with an Oyster and weekly travel card add on, and takes about 35 mins. That's the only way I can see you having a decent quality of life on that salary to be honest.

RiseToMe

Im not long back from London was working on Old Street and had a 15 min walk to work but had my own place. I was on 45 basic but on that was happily able to pay my rent and bills and not worry too much at all about when the next payday was.

It all depends on what you think is an acceptable commute on your bike, if you want to share or have your own place and then where out of those places you want to live really. For an idea my place (on my own) was £1465, per month plus council tax and bills.

As already said, rent is the biggest cost in London really, I found everything else quite reasonable.

RDM_83 again

Asaiah wrote: »

I would recommend renting a room for 400-500 in zone 4 and getting the Tube in. It's about 20 pound a week with an Oyster and weekly travel card add on, and takes about 35 mins. That's the only way I can see you having a decent quality of life on that salary to be honest.

It doesn't have to be zone 4 though, if the OP, who apparently doesn't have an issue with sharing looks in the south he could probably get a room for 500-600 in New Cross, Brixton, Peckham, Clapham, Deptford, all these areas do have rooms popping up at that price, are within cycling distance to Old Street and have good nightlife, arguably a better nightlife than a lot of the North as all the creatives, students, and others on a budget actually live in these areas.

Asaiah

RDM_83 again wrote: »

It doesn't have to be zone 4 though, if the OP, who apparently doesn't have an issue with sharing looks in the south he could probably get a room for 500-600 in New Cross, Brixton, Peckham, Clapham, Deptford, all these areas do have rooms popping up at that price, are within cycling distance to Old Street and have good nightlife, arguably a better nightlife than a lot of the North as all the creatives, students, and others on a budget actually live in these areas.

Yes but the majortiy of those areas are rough as fook.

Monkey61

Asaiah wrote: »

Yes but the majortiy of those areas are rough as fook.

Err...they are really, really not!

Clapham is quite posh.
New Cross is student-y.
Brixton, Peckham and Deptford are super "trendy" (for want of a better word), with Brixton, like Shoreditch being ridiculously gentrified to the point of unaffordability for most now.

Asaiah

Monkey61 wrote: »

Err...they are really, really not!

Clapham is quite posh.
New Cross is student-y.
Brixton, Peckham and Deptford are super "trendy" (for want of a better word), with Brixton, like Shoreditch being ridiculously gentrified to the point of unaffordability for most now.

One only has to look at the crime rates.

RDM_83 again

Monkey61 wrote: »

Err...they are really, really not!

Clapham is quite posh.
New Cross is student-y.
Brixton, Peckham and Deptford are super "trendy" (for want of a better word), with Brixton, like Shoreditch being ridiculously gentrified to the point of unaffordability for most now.

I don't know the areas all that well but they definitely contain rough parts, like there is a halting site in/near peckham (agree that clapham seems posh though) but they have a lot going on and are really nice in parts.

BrokenArrows

Clapham is actually quite a nice area mostly.

However others are not. Gentrification is just the beginning of fixing an areas problems. It takes a long time for the areas themselves to improve. The bad people in these area still live there with or without gentrification.

My main problem with Brixton is the area is always filthy. Regardless of the time of day the streets are covered in rubbish.

FTA69

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Clapham is actually quite a nice area mostly.

However others are not. Gentrification is just the beginning of fixing an areas problems. It takes a long time for the areas themselves to improve. The bad people in these area still live there with or without gentrification.

My main problem with Brixton is the area is always filthy. Regardless of the time of day the streets are covered in rubbish.

I wouldn't necessarily say gentrification is "fixing" things for the people who were there for years and are now being forced out of a given area to make way for luxury property developments.