To ask about London and money

[Maisy313]

How much do you think you need to earn as a working couple to support a family of four (one year old and reception aged child) in London and have a reasonable standard of living? Would just be really interested in your thoughts... Someone told me it was impossibly to survive on less than a joint income of 100k in London which seems exceptionally high to me...

Yes, a long commute is normal, as is living in a property smaller than you'd get elsewhere.....but lots of people are doing both, so people don't feel especially deprived or hard done by..they just accept it as the norm.

For the OPs sister, as for everyone else who has to choose between moving to London or not, if they can at least afford to live somewhere commutable and make the numbers work, is whether the higher income earned in London, or the experience of London living, makes the commute and/or smaller property worth it. And people reach different conclusions, with some deciding to go for it, whilst others decide to stay where they are. Neither is right or wrong.

One thing I you'll say to the OPs sister, is lifestyle aside and thinking purely about capital growth on property, if they can afford to do it, they are likely to see more growth in value on a London property over time,than elsewhere. So, yes it will hurt,me specially in the early days when childcare costs are high....but the values will only go up in the long term, so it could be viewed as a good investment.

I suspect prices will continue to rise so much, that a thread similar to this will run in 10 years. By then however, we will be saying that whatever the equivalent of 75k is then, WONT be enough anymore to get even a flat further in and the commutes necessary to make it viable will be significantly longer......so sadly, it is going to get worse, not better.

Newname, nope its a redbrick one, subject to refurb, close to the station

Wow. I am amazed at some of these amounts. We live in zone 5, a 2 bed garden flat next to a station, for £32k a year. With change.

The thing is that houses in London are really expensive. Most people live in flats. I actually do have a house and consider myself pretty privileged as a result, but I know plenty of families living happily in flats and I can't immediately see a vast difference in our quality of life simply because I have neighbours to both sides instead of above or below. I think the attitude of "I have a family therefore I need a house" is making London seem a scarier prospect than it needs to be. In many cities around the world flat dwelling is the norm and London is no different. Similarly I have a garden but could manage without. It's north facing and borderline unusable for half the year and in the summer we more or less live in the park.

Good lord there is some weird shit on here.

DH and I own a two bed flat in Zone 2. Bring in 50/60k jointly depending how his year goes and what I'm doing.

We buy pretty much what we want and do pretty much what we want. Having kids might put an end to overseas holidays, eating out 2/3 times a week and some other frivolities, and nobody would be in private school, but we'd be fine.

The idea that unless you're in Richmond or Zone 1 or whatever you're failing in London is fucking weird. I've never stabbed anyone nor been stabbed, where I live, and frankly I'm fed up with this idea that it's 'awful' or 'not fit to raise children'. I come from a very nice place, not UK, somewhere lots of people see as great for 'lifestyle' so I'm not some kind of beaten-down slumdweller. I just, thankfully, seem to have seen a little more of Actual London than some people on here.

I know which one :). Lots of people there love it :). I think it was just turning around when I looked, so it was my second choice. We're the other side of the bridge .

Totally Tokyo, even some supposed Londoners (and I do have my doubts on MN about some) are absolutely tonto.

Richmon and swathes of Zone 1 were out of price ranges of the average family in the 70s never mind now.

The OP did say a reasonable standard of living, and outside of London that tends to mean different things. We Londoners are sometimes blind to how our neighbourhoods look to people not used to them. I think transitioning with 2 kids into London and taking that hit on standard of living would be challenging. I live in a pretty nice area in zone 2. 4 bed houses are 2m and upwards, but my family comes to visit from up north and thinks we have a poor standard of living. Small rooms, postage stamp garden, dodgy surrounding neighbourhoods, undignified scrum to get into a vaguely decent primary. I don't think it's fair to assume a family from outside London will necessarily see the appeal in some of the neighbourhoods suggested up thread, regardless of whether it's possible to fit the family into a flat/ small terraced house there.

Relocation advisers say that the existence minimum for a family of four in London (not including holidays or luxuries) is £4,000 take home a month. A joint income of £100k will give you more take home than one person on the same, but with two working there are nursery costs etc. (but also more security if you lose job). You will probably manage on £70k upwards though.

PS on £4,000 take home a month you cannot buy a house in London without family help.

Tokyo, snap, it's hard to know what "decent area" even means. a lot of nice, characterful neighbourhoods jumped the shark years ago imo and I can't think of many areas of London at all that are in any way no go areas

Longest... we could name them, my old manor of Maida Vale is one, QP is going there, Fulham and Hampstead long ago, Crouch End ( now only prenounced with French inflection), Islington....

Newname, i will be wondering who you are nw when I walk the streets:). I hope ds will settle, have also hear many happy parents so fingers crossed x

But I think you must need to have the imagination of a gnat to think you can buy a nice family house with a decent garden (rather than a courtyard which is, let's be realistic, what most inner city Victorian terraces come with) in the most famous city in the world without earning a bloody fortune! If I wanted to move to Manhattan or Sidney or Tokyo, I would expect to be living in a miniscule flat about an hour away from work.

longest and longtime oh gosh you're talking ritzy. QP is well goneand DP gets laughed out of the kitchen for daring to mention his dream of a little terrace in Barnsbury.

Hackney - anyone seen it recently? Leafy as all hell, all little Obans and Ethels. You should see the queue out the door at Ginger Pig on a sunday, everyone spending their £60 on pilates-lamb or whatever. Crystal Palace? Charming (though it's quite a long way into town, I'll grant). Peckham? Went, even I was surprised how quickly it went.

Genuinely, the only place I've been in London recently and thought 'hmmm.... not sure this would be nice to live in' was Ilford and that was the high street and there are probably perfectly nice bits.

I also just loathe this 'oh well my job is so complex and special that I simply must live in Notting Hill' nonsense. Notting Hill is a pain in the arse for transport. And loads of us work weird freelance/multi location jobs. Just own up! You want to live in Notting Hill because it's fancy! That's fine! But stop pretending you have to, or that it's because other places are in some way terrible or unsafe.

The other day on here someone compared Stratford to Beirut. That was my favourite ever, I think. Beirut. Westfield Beirut.

Totally agree Tokyo, far too many people have ideas and are disappointed that actually they are quite average (just like everyone else).

Oh and when I moved to Kilburn/QP we still had people collecting for the IRA in bars, a serial killer had been at work up in Cricklewood, the high road wasn't nice at all at night. But the houses were, the community that developed was nice.

The people who settled QP in the 70s/80s and 90s have raised their kids and moved on, hurried by the huge amounts of dosh offered, but sadly what we had here with community associations and all sorts of groups has gone. A lot of the newbies think they are a cut above.

I remember the IRA pubs in Kilburn!

But that's the thing - these things did/do exist, but the idea that there's a serious and constant threat to the safety of the average person - it's just not true. And the idea that you have to earn over £100k to 'survive' in London seems to go along with it. It's not realistic and it's not the city I know. And the city I know is better for not being like that.

I live in Richmond. I was fortunate enough to buy some time ago and with a smaller than average mortgage but it's certainly not the case that it is some mythical place that is totally out of reach for people who have reasonably well-paid jobs (although property prices have gone up a lot since we bought, I am sure that with a 100K deposit you could get somewhere perfectly OK nearby if not actually in Richmond). We do not and never have earned £100K a year between us. I don't suppose we ever will. DD does violin, piano, Science Club, French Club, Art Club, drama, tap, choir, orchestra, and has done loads of other things in the past too. Most of these activities are either free or v cheap as the wonderful thing about London is that there is something to interest everyone of every age in every area you can imagine and an awful lot of it is heavily subsidised. All you have to do is get yourself to wherever it is going on, which is not exactly hard in London, what with the fact that our transport system is actually pretty good. BTW, DD did actually ask to do all those things and would be really upset if I made her give any of them up. I would personally like a quiet life where I got to stay in bed on Saturday mornings but she has other ideas.

I've lived all over London, btw, north, south, east and west and have not so far encountered any areas where I would be unhappy to bring up a child. It's the best bloody city on earth to me and even the less salubrious parts of it have TONS to offer.

Oh I miss London. So so much

Oh yes tokyobananas. We had an IRA pub down the end of our road in Tottenham (and that was only a few years ago). And I loved living there- it was fab- so busy (and felt safe because of it), brilliant green spaces etc. And only about 16 mins to Oxford circus.

I once saw a thread here that said you couldn't possibly walk around in Tottenham. It's so dangerous!

But I have also lived in Beirut/Stratford (great little cinema).

(I can think of worse places than Beirut though so maybe that's a backhanded compliment?)

Quite a few of my friends have recently left Hackney because of the Oban and Ethel factor, and are now keeping it real Southside with us. There's only so much sourdough microbrew a person can take.

I saw one in Penge the other day. The end is truly nigh.

And Dalston, too, when going to Ridley Road market once meant gingerly stepping over (or skidding on) the bits of offal left all over the pavement by the butcher's.