to think you have to be either rich or poor to live in London?

[manicinsomniac]

After another fantastic day in London yesterday I'm in one of regular 'boo hoo hoo, I want to live in London and I'll never be able to' moods.

Please tell me it's possible. Is there anybody in the middle income bracket living there?? (I know logically there must be!) Please tell me how you do it!!

I'm a single parent of 3 children and earn too much to get HB or WTC. There's no way I could pay more than 800 in rent and I'd need a 3 bed house in order not to be squashing my children in for my own selfish reasons (I'd put us all in a 1 bed to be in London if they weren't actual real people!! )

Ugh, it sounds even worse written down - it's not going to happen is it :(

Maybe if I save for a deposit to buy a London house instead of a reasonably priced one then I can eventually become a cool child-free Granny living it up in the capital!

I'm mainly just on a bit of a lighthearted but totally jealous of all you Londoners rant but, on a serious note - is there a danger of our capital city becoming completely out of reach to the majority? Has it happened already?

Most people I know who live there are either very wealthy or single people in houseshares

[NigellasDealer]

manic - it is worth investigating anyway

[FidelineandFumblin]

Ahem, worra and roulade South Woodford is proper London postcode (E18) AND Redbridge

[littlegreengloworm]

In a dream world I I'd live in Camden

I wouldn't see the point of living in Redbridge if I wanted the London lifestyle (and I do like that area of Essex)

[WorraLiberty]

Fidelin I was born and raised in Redbridge and my address was Ilford, Essex.

[manicinsomniac]

really Jellybelly? It seems like an amazing place for children, especially those into artsy activities like mine.

My cousins' kids (admittedly they are seriously well off!) have both green space and a safe shopping area (Chiswick!), seem to go almost weekly to a huge variety of plays, musicals, dance shows, concerts, exhibitions etc, do hours of dance, drama and gymnastics every week at exciting places like Pineapple and Sylvia Young, have a massively broad private education for surprisingly little money compared with big independents outside of the capital and are just so, I don't know, ... cosmopolitan?

I guess that's incredibly rose tinted and outside of the norm though. If I did it to my kids they'd be losing their fairly comfortable rural lifestyle and 'gaining' a cramped flat on the outskirts with a theatre trip and a dance lesson per year or something!

I need to stop being jealous of what other people have (or even what I perceive others to have when they probably don't) and get on with my (pretty good!) life!

[WorraLiberty]

It is a brilliant place for children imo

Free bus travel
Tons of free museums
Free street and park entertainment
Free workshops
Free music lessons

And that's just off the top of my head. Until a couple of years ago, kids swam free too at the local council leisure centres.

[manicinsomniac]

oh yes, littlegreen Camden would be AMAZING!

Thanks nigellas, I will.

[FidelineandFumblin]

Yes me too Worra but then I moved to South Woodford which was still in Redbridge but had a London, E18 address.

(Just emphasising the London/Essex borderness of Redbridge for the unfamiliar)

[FraidyCat]

Just out of interest I had a look at how much housing benefit we (couple with one child) would get if our circumstances warranted it. We would be entitled to funding based on a two-bedroom flat, think the actual amount allowed was about £1200 a month. There was only one flat on Rightmove anywhere near our vicinity that would cost that little.

[WorraLiberty]

My Dad still lives in the house I was born in but it's a very different place now.

[Geraldthegiraffe]

I think it would be an amazing place for children IF you were either loaded or inherited a house/bought before they got expensive. There is no way it would be an amazing place for us now - we'd be struggling in middle class jobs in order to live in a dodgy flat with no garden and damp, wouldnt be able to afford the extra curricular we can now, etc.

[KeepingUpAnon]

My cousins' kids (admittedly they are seriously well off!) have both green space and a safe shopping area (Chiswick!), seem to go almost weekly to a huge variety of plays, musicals, dance shows, concerts, exhibitions etc, do hours of dance, drama and gymnastics every week

This is what I never understand about people talking about London. There are all of those things in other areas of the UK too. For a lot less money.

Personally I can't understand it. £800 a month rent where I live would get you a 3 or 4 bed in a lovely area, with fantastic schools. Why pay that much to be crammed into a poky high rise flat with no garden 'just' to be in London?

I agree with a pp, London is a fantastic place to visit, with and without dc. It's not somewhere I'd consider raising dc in a million years though.

[FidelineandFumblin]

My Dad still lives in the house I was born in but it's a very different place now.

Yes indeed.

[SqueezedMiddle]

People have different ideas about how they want to raise their families, but I think London is a great place to raise kids.

The worry is - how will they afford to stay living here into adulthood?

[terracottastone]

We live in London and most of my friends here are middle income. Many of them don't have dc and are in flatshares (even in 30s/40s). Mostly living in boroughs like Hackney - not ultra central but still very much part of London. We are a bit more well-off than them, but not rich. We have a 2 bed flat (no garden) in zone 2, only one dc and not having any more. Other families here also have just one dc and that is how they manage, or have bigger families but bought years ago.

I do know some families on lower/middle incomes who live in RTB flats bought from the council, and some friends in council flats on benefits (2 single mums who experienced DV, one family with a disabled family member). And families living in million pound houses, who are on good lawyer salaries, though they all bought at least 10 years ago. Not celebrity type rich but certainly not middle income!

Also I know a couple of teachers who live in shared ownership flats. And quite a few who had 1/2 bed flats in zone 2 who now live in houses in zone 3/4.

[nicename]

Kids swim for free in westminster and its about £2 for adults. Clubs and classes seem expensive though compared to outside London.

You usually need to compromise on size of property, location, size of family etc if you aren't mega rich or very poor in London. Most around us are expats on generous relocation packages - its very hard not to be jealous!

[manicinsomniac]

I know keepingup - rationally, you're absolutely right. I'm just obsessed with London. And I don't believe the quality and the variety (especially the variety) of the arts opportunities is the same anywhere else in the UK. Just looking through TimeOut blows my mind. But yes, it would only be like that with money. I agree there's no real point in struggling just to be there and observe it going on around you (though, if I had no kids, I'd totally do it!)

[cricketpitch]

I agree with you OP. I couldn't move here now.

Luckily I already live in London - and love it. But I can only afford to because I didn't have my kids until very late and so had bought a flat when I was single and earning more in the 90's. I traded up when I had children.

We have no money for holidays, decent car, clothes, "stuff" and we live in a very small 2 bed house which we have extended, (tiny courtyard garden). Worth it to me as the work is here and I am a Londoner so friends, family and places I know are here.
Great for teens as they get independence as public transport on the doorstep which takes them wherever they want to go. I yearn for a garden though and space......

[SqueezedMiddle]

KeepingUP - many people living in London arent Londoners by birth. They come here for work. Thats the reality. A sixth of our national population love here primarily for that reason. And we have a huge public sector here - where are they supposed to live?

Our modest London semi house is worth 800-900k now. I could buy a mansion in Lincolnshire or. Nottinghamshire etc for that, but neither I or my DH could find jobs there.

[FidelineandFumblin]

Personally I can't understand it. £800 a month rent where I live would get you a 3 or 4 bed in a lovely area, with fantastic schools.

It is the state education situation in London that has aged me over the last few years. If I conceived again I would scarper.

[CoffeeTea103]

I live in central London and I love it.
I'm very aware how lucky I am. There's so much happening and right at your doorstep.

[RatHammock]

We're middle income, DH earns about 44k and I have been a SAHM for four years and have recently returned to work (very) pRt time and probably earn about 6k.

We live in a Victorian conversion in one of the shabbier areas of North London. Zone 3 and about 14 mins to Oxford Circus.

It's only possible for us because we moved out of London and bought a house two years ago. I was utterly miserable living out of the city but thought we couldn't afford to move back. Luckily we made quite a lot on our last property (also SE) and managed to find a similarly priced property here. We came back in February and I will never live outside London again!

However we moved from a 3 bed house with a large garden to a two bed with a much smaller garden, although the house isn't actually much smaller by square foot. DH misses the garden a bit but DD (3) couldn't care less. We are about 20m from a huge park so she goes there every day.

Of course, things are much easier because we have only 1 DC and no desire for any more. We will also be far better off once I return to work. We save a fortune by not needing to run a car, and our transport costs are almost nil as one of the perks of DH's job is free London travel for us. Children travel free until 18 here.

[SqueezedMiddle]

God, the tube. Thats what I love about. London. It might be packed and expensive, but its freedom!

[BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted]

Even poor people in London are getting the sticky end of the stick these days. I reckon in a decade or less there won't be a single working-class person left in London who isn't in social housing.

When I left home at 18 earning a REALLY modest salary I went into shared accommodation in Kew, then moved to Chiswick and after that West Kensington. Those areas are completely beyond the reach of normal people and have been for over 20 years.

I'm in Tottenham now and young middle-income marrieds are starting to buy here. This is truly not the area any sensible person would want to raise kids as most of the schools are truly appallingly bad. And if they could afford private education they wouldn't be here in the first place.

[CurlyBlueberry]

I would say we're reasonably middle-income... £34k-ish pa between us (I work part-time, husband works full-time) with one child. We were very lucky to have met each other young, lived with parents and took gap years during which we worked and saved up all our money, continued to work and save through uni (he dropped out so could work f/t but living with parents)... and bought a 3-bed flat ourselves, no garden or outside space but within easy walking distance of a few parks/commons. We have one child and another on the way.

We live in a London postcode, but I wouldn't consider it particularly central. Still though, we have a mortgage but to rent our flat would probably cost in the region of £1500pcm I would think. Our mortgage is much less than that (about £100 more than your budget for rent), but it is a squeeze, and we don't have 3 children. We are getting help from parents to buy a house next. Couldn't manage it otherwise... we could stay in our flat if we didn't have that help, but it's a bit of a PITA getting up and down the stairs with one small child let alone two, and I'd like a small garden for them.

There are huge advantages to living here... I love the easy availability of so many different types of cuisine, I think the transport system is actually pretty good compared with other places in the UK, we have lovely green areas. I like the cultural variety of where we live, especially as my own background is very mixed. Although we don't often go to the museums and art galleries, we do sometimes, and I just like to know we could if we wanted to . Our families are here too.

However. There are disadvantages too. The huge cost of housing, the lack of community feel in many areas, the crowding and the pollution. It's not just housing that is more expensive either, lots of things are more expensive right down to places like Greggs and Boots charging more for the same items in their London locations. If we lived elsewhere we could have a much higher standard of living even if we lost the London living allowance we get in our jobs.