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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To move to London

69 replies

Forestgreen · 09/09/2017 14:04

For hopefully a better paid job.

I'd be on around £40,000 a year. I realise this won't go far.

Which are the cheapest areas? I am from the North and so everywhere seems horrifically expensive!

OP posts:

frieda909 · 09/09/2017 23:15

Good luck with the job applications OP!

As I said before, I live perfectly well here on just under 22k. I don't go out to eat very often (but I do manage to fit that in sometimes!) and I haven't set foot in a cocktail bar in years but I'm far from living on porridge and supernoodles. Unless you have very expensive taste and/or an extremely active social life I think you will do just fine on 40k.

One thing I will say though is that I really love my job, which helps make up for the dire wages. I might feel differently and start to resent being so skint all the time if I didn't enjoy my job.

NoBetterName · 10/09/2017 00:35

How have you reached a take home pay of £2100 from a salary of £40k? Surely a theoreical take home pay should be a little above £2.5k per month?

I studied (post grad) in London in the late '90s and was astounded then at paying £650 a month for a 2 bed flat in Walthamstow (god awful area, but it was what we could afford at the time and close to ex-h's work). I've just had a nosy at what similar properties in that area rent for now and it is around £1200.

We live "up north" now and have a mortgage of less than half that amount for a 4 bed house, so you'd save probably £700-800 per month being up north in a 2 bed flat simply on rent alone. That's £700-800 per month more pocket money, or to put it another way, £700-800 per month less that you need to earn per month for the same quality of life. Then, don't forget, supermarkets etc charge more in London for the same products than elsewhere, so your grocery bills will be higher and for all the wonderful opportunities in London, they are only really accessible if you can afford them (and really, who goes to the theatre/museums/famous restaurants every night?).

Personally, unless I was really desparate, you woldn't drag me back to London kicking and screaming, it's just not my cup of tea, but I'm happy enough with the fact that I can be in the city within maybe 1.5 hours if I wanted to be. I appreciate though that others have different priorities and will feel differently.

ThisIsNotARealAvo · 10/09/2017 07:31

Plenty of people live in London on less than that, and I know lots of people who manage to have cats in all kinds of different housing situations. It might take time to find somewhere but I'm sure you will. House share could even be a possibility with the right people. London is expensive but that's the thing about it, its massive so there are lots of differently priced areas and options. There's been a ridiculous amount of people on this thread trying to put you off. If you move to London you will not regret it and you can always move out if you hate it.

Ragusa · 10/09/2017 19:56

I really don't agree NoBetterName, there are 100&1 things to do in London for pennies or if not free, for very little. Galleries, museums, parks, cycling, Hour to beach, for children literally any activit you can think of there is a club for. When you go out for a meal with a little care it's reliably good. I have spent far more on woefully inadequate meals out oop north near where I grew up. Also if you want to go away for the weekend you have about 5 airports and one euros tar to take you to the rest of Europe.

It has definitely advantages is what I'm saying. It's expensive, yes, but many of us who do live here do it for a reason.

NoBetterName · 11/09/2017 09:31

Ragusa, I did say that I appreciate that others will feel differently - it depends on your priorities.

When you go out for a meal with a little care it's reliably good.
Ditto up north. We went out for dinner yesterday for example, excellent well-cooked food, £55 for 4 of us including drinks.

Also if you want to go away for the weekend you have about 5 airports
Yep. We have 5 airports within an hour's drive

Parks
Yep, we have a national park on our doorstep. The dogs love it.

Hour to beach
Yep, same.

Galleries
I'd rather poke my eyes out with rusty nails than spend my time visiting galleries, I prefer the outdoors life. But we have several major cities on our doorstep, plus London is a 1.5 hour train ride away on the rare occassion if that's what we wanted to do.

It just depends on what your priorities are is all I'm saying. For some people, London is the bees knees and good luck to them, but it's certainly not for everyone.

BananaShit · 11/09/2017 10:24

I must say I'd never have thought proximity to the beach was a particular advantage of London! I mean, I know it's geographically fairly close, especially if you're not on the western side, but if you want a city that lets you get to the seaside on a regular basis it comes well down the list.

Barbara makes a salient point about checking whether you'll be better off with better pay OP. I wouldn't move to London for 40k specifically to get a better paid job, as you say in your OP, unless I was on less than 25k now (that assumes you're in somewhere cheaper rather than eg the south west or Oxford though). Obviously there are many reasons why one might choose to live there, but not sure you can presume earning 40k and thus being better off is one of them.

Maryof1993 · 11/09/2017 10:26

I don't think you can afford in London then I'm afraid.
What do you spend your money on, then?

Original poster

Forestgreen · 11/09/2017 10:34

Thanks for your advice.

I mean this nicely but honestly if there were positions available in the North I would obviously take them ! It isn't like I am set on London to be awkward.

Hopefully I can live in London for a couple of years and then once my career is on track I will be able to get positions up north and so on.

OP posts:

Maryof1993 · 11/09/2017 10:36

How have you reached a take home pay of £2100 from a salary of £40k? Surely a theoreical take home pay should be a little above £2.5k per month?

Deductions? I'm similar. Pension, childcare vouchers, company sharesave. These come out of my pay before I get to take it home. Depends as well on the OP's tax code. Not everyone gets the same take home pay for the same wage.

frieda909 · 11/09/2017 10:40

Back when I was on 40k my take home was about 2300 a month. I had pension payments and student loan repayments which knocked off a couple of hundred quid.

2100 does seem very low but as Mary says, there are lots of reasons why more might get deducted.

Disn3yN3rd · 11/09/2017 10:42

We live in north London and have a 2 bed for £1200pcm. Definitely doable.

BarbaraofSevillle · 11/09/2017 10:44

The OP doesn't mention DCs and sharesave is optional, and wouldn't be a priority if she doesn't have enough for rent/basic expenses/some sort of life, so her take home on £40k is unlikely to be £2100, more like £2300 to £2500 depending on student loan repayments and pension contributions.

nodogsinthebedroom · 11/09/2017 10:45

I (and thousands of other people) live happily in London with that salary or less!

More to the point is do you actually like London? If the answer is"yes" then go for it. I'm sure lots of people here can advise on where to live if you give us a budget and your preferences.

BananaShit · 11/09/2017 10:57

I mean this nicely but honestly if there were positions available in the North I would obviously take them ! It isn't like I am set on London to be awkward.

Well fair enough but you hadn't said that! You mentioned wanting to go to London for more money, rather than for a job full stop. Obv if there's nowhere else you can work in your field, it becomes a different question. You're not asking if you'd BU to do it, you're asking how to make it work.

I also don't think it would be 'awkward' of you to want to live in London even if it was going to make you financially worse off. Maybe you just really want to be close to something that only exists there, and that would be a legitimate life decision.

Maryof1993 · 11/09/2017 10:57

The OP doesn't mention DCs and sharesave is optional
The OP hasn't mentioned anything specific about pay. Therefore I have pointed out, that for a given wage, everyone will have a different take home pay. Depends on tax code (under or over payments from previous years, company car etc), pension contributions, other deductions from pay, previous employments, or a myriad of other reasons.

Ragusa · 11/09/2017 21:49

I stress again there is loads to do in London and surrounds for peanuts or nothing. Including countryside stuff. The reason I mentioned the beach being near is I grew up in the only place in England that was 2 1/2 hours from a beach.

If I had to think of somewhere that offered all London had but with cheaper housing and fantastic outdoorsy stuff + beaches it wouldn't be in the UK. It'd be either Vancover, Barcelona, Stockholm, Gohenburg or Marseilles. But am straying off the point there....

OP would you consider overseas? I'don't seriously consider this if you have no ties here, which you might.

BananaShit · 12/09/2017 11:48

Sure, of course there's loads to do in and close to London, lots of it very cheap or free. I'd just never have put beach proximity in, like, the top 100. Especially as it would cost to get there. And of course there isn't anywhere in the UK offering the same opportunities that London does for cheaper. What other places offer is a quite different set of opportunities to those in London.

rightsaidfrederickII · 12/09/2017 13:25

Re the cats - I'd try looking for flatshares. Spareroom.co.uk lets you quite literally advertise yourself and, for some, cats will be a bonus feature. I have been known to pick a flat on the basis that my flatmate has a pet I love...

Landlords, of course, won't be keen on cats in their property - but if your flatmates are happy and the cats are made to vacate the premises when the landlord does come around then you're unlikely to have a problem.

ExConstance · 12/09/2017 13:30

DS2 manages in London on £18k.

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