Single person living and working in London....

[BertrandRussell]

About how much money, after paying bills, rent, travel and council tax would a single person living in Clapham and working in Central London need to have a pleasant, but not extravagant life? I realize this is incredibly subjective- but ball park figures?

A flat share or self-contained studio/one bed?

Huge difference!

Whatever you think you need and then double it

A room as a lodger is free of bills if the homeowner is using the tax scheme which allows a very generous allowance for a rented room in own house. But Clapham is on the expensive side so maybe £800-£950+ for a pleasant room.

Fares would be around £6.60 a day.

Food can be bought more cheaply if person is prepared to use the many markets around London. Maybe £40 a week to include a packed lunch/soup lunch?

Any eating or drinking out is expensive and it’s so hard not to indulge in coffees etc. How disciplined is the person?

Pleasant and comfortable single life in nice shared place in trendy area like Clapham = maybe net £1800 which is I think is around £25000 earnings?

But you could manage on much less obviously.

The OP asks how much AFTER bills, rent travel etc!

About the same as anywhere else really.

Drunks out are very expensive and a pint in central London can be £6.

But there are so many eating options, many of which can be cheap, and so many free activities.

£100 a week = loving the life of Riley, if a young person.

I’m so sorry - I didn’t read it properly.

I'd say £300 a month or thereabouts

Thank you! Dd is trying to decide between a couple of accommodation choices, and she is a first jobber and I am old and haven't lived in London since the 1980s so neither of us have much idea! She wants to have a slightly less frugal life than her student years!

I work in Shoreditch and have worked in Croydon. You can make life as cheap or expensive as you like, barring rent which is eye-watering. Nights at the pub will come as a shock to non-Londoners, but with a bit of local knowledge you can blow off the £10-a-pint place for an equally nice one that charges half that. There are a vast array of eateries for every budget, and ditto clothes shopping, etc.

Yes, the rents are mind boggling- as is the council tax. I imagine she will be turning up on the doorstep regularly at Sunday lunch time!

I shared a one bed flat (£1300) there with an ex when I was on £26-29k 2-3 years ago and was quite comfortable. Could certainly have done it on less as I was saving up and went on holiday abroad.

Wandsworth has one of the lowest rates of council tax in the country (along with Westminster) which is a nice bonus. It used to be about £550 total for the year and it wasn't even a band A property

If you are just thinking about food and entertainment / going out etc. I am going to say that 1) yes drinks in pubs etc will be more expensive - possibly much more so , depending on what she is used to 2) If there is a Tesco / Lidl / Aldi etc nearby then I would have thought food made at home will not be significantly if at all more expensive. 3) There are a great many things to do - many free , obviously , and Oyster card will get good access to those. I think the main things are the rent / bills / & drinks and possibly meals out will be the main expenses. Also checking out e.g. TK Maxx ( I think there is one near Clapham Junction ) which I would have thought would be similar price to anywhere - so not shopping at Harvey Nichols Apart from some pubs & possibly cafes which have eye watering prices ( but she will get to know the better ones) I think the things on your "apart from" list are the major culprits in making London more expensive , so unless you are somewhere preternaturally cheap I would work out what it would be where you are ( or perhaps where she went to university ) and then add on a bit more for London / less frugality / finding her feet for a little while before she finds the better value places to go. Sorry not to give a figure but as I say her rent / bills / travel will be the worst bits IMHO but the travel card will be good value if she uses it a lot ( not just for work) Not sure that has helped hugely Bertrand - sorry !

The grad I have working with me is on £34k and still pretty skint by the end of the month. He walks to work & brings his lunch most days so doesn’t appear hugely profligate. I’ve just worked out he’s on about £2k a month after loans and pension.

The problem with London is that you get trapped into a vicious cycle of never being able to save more than £100 a month because accommodation is 40%+ of your pay for a shared room, and you get disheartened with you realise it will take 400 months to save a deposit - so you don’t bother. Beating that mindset is really important.

Blimey- dd's earning quite a bit less than that! And will have fares to pay. Eek!

You'd have to be fairly bad with money to be struggling on £34k in Clapham when you're in a shared house with no kids or big debts.

I'd recommend cycling - there are some quite nice cycling routes from there into central London - I used to cross over the bridge at Battersea Park and cycle along the north bank of the river. There are vast numbers of cyclists taking the same route at rush hour (safety in numbers is a thing!) and from Westminster onwards there are world class protected cycling routes. Cycling alone will save her £6.60/day, which all adds up.

How much will your DD be on?

Personally I'd say £500 in Clapham but into that I'm factoring things like clothes, shoes, gym membership, bit to save for a holiday etc. It can be done on much less if disciplined though.

While Clapham is cool, central and buzzy, there are far cheaper places to rent in London that are lovely so she has more disposable income. London is amazing but expensive. Went to the theatre last year in Wimbledon and two glasses of white wine was £16. Standard size too.

It also depends if she will be alone in London or if she knows people already. Sometimes it is hard when your new friends make more money than you and you can't afford to join in with them on more activities. However if you are all in the same boat it helps.

The key will be to be thrifty in some areas to enjoy others. If she takes a packed lunch to work and her own tea /coffee that will save £££. I only pay £21.50 a month for my gym membership but go to a big brand and you could easily pay £40 to £50 a month. Smart grocery shopping saves money rather than just going to Sainsbury's each week.

If you can afford it, a gift of a years travelcard will help enormously. An annual travelcard zones 1 to 3 is £1600.

Does she want money to travel in holidays etc or just enough to have fun in London? Are her clothes and beauty choices expensive?

Just asked my London dwelling 23 year old niece. If she wants a non frugal life, a bit to spend on clothes and beauty, a bit to spend on nights out and the occasional meal out, but no holidays and no extras like Uber’s etc then she would say after all bills, including phone, she needs about £145 week. That should cover the commute and other in-London journeys, a biggish fun night out each week, another smaller drink after work, food, occasional clothes purchases, hair cuts, waxes etc.

She could live much more cheaply but you said she doesn’t want to be scraping by.

"Wandsworth has one of the lowest rates of council tax in the country"

Clapham isn't in the borough of Wandsworth, it's in the borough of Lambeth where the council tax is considerably higher than Wandsworth.

Is she planning on moving to near Clapham Junction station? If so, not only is it not in Clapham it's in Battersea! But the CJ area is in the borough of Wandsworth. If she's talking about Clapham proper, then she'll be in Lambeth.

I have lots of young first jobber colleagues who live in Clapham (it’s definitely grad central)
Living in a nice shared house with a few people, £25,000 upwards would be fine, she could rent a pretty nice room with bills combined, go out, eat pretty well and save a bit for holidays if she’s sensible. I think £25,000 is the bottom though. London is silly but it’s a fun place to be young and working for the first time. Remember all her friends will be in the same boat.

That’s £25,000 gross btw, which is about £1600 net

Oh, and just to clarify/add to my reply above. Clapham proper is around the tube stations of Clapham Common and Clapham North.

But if she's looking at somewhere near the tube station at Clapham South it's really in Balham, which is in the borough of Wandsworth. But the border between the two boroughs runs close to there - so it could depend on which side of a road she might move to!

Her money will go much further if she's prepared to live somewhere other than Clapham. Clapham is where people not from London often move to when the first get here. It can be much more expensive than other areas. (Plus I wouldn't want to live in a northern line station)

It's Wandsworth, I think. SW11.

I have warned her about the Northern Line-but she is blasé about it. She will learn!

SW11 is definitely in the LB of Wandsworth - so that's a much lower council tax than if she lived in Clapham/LB of Lambeth!