To wander how is cost of living cheaper outside of London

[where2now]

So I get rent/Mortage and childcare will be cheaper out of London especially further north. But what else is cheaper?? Everyone keeps saying cost of living is much cheaper up north. AIBU not to understand this? I mean supermarkets surely have the same price food all over the country right? And even retails stores ie clothes shopping??
I'm really wondering as we are considering moving out of London due to this but I just can't get my head around it.
Can anyone help and give examples I'll be very grateful? Thanks all

Flowerslemonade those prices sound amazing. Do you
Live in Birmingham? Which pet? If you don't mind me asking. I will definitely look into the areas you mentioned, do you think my £350k very max budget would for be ok for those areas ?

AIBU not to understand this? I mean supermarkets surely have the same price food all over the country right?

Not always.

Petrol is cheaper, as are rents, alcohol, pub meals.

Indian food, one big difference I have noted between north and south is rice. In the north of England your curry price will include rice or chapatis or naan bread, in the south rice can add a few£ to your meal cost.

Travel is cheaper

Oh yes, takeaways. The (very nice) Chinese takeaway we go to costs £5 for a meal with chips or rice or £6 if you get king prawns. Fish and chips are also about a fiver. Portions are massive - a starter, a main and a side is easily 2 meals for most people.

In Indian restaurants, popadoms and pickle tray are usually free if you order a meal. I was astonished when a group of us went for an Indian in a small market town in the south of England and they charged us £2 per person for the popadoms and pickle tray that had appeared at the start of the meal - we hadn't even ordered it but obviously ate them, because we were used to getting them for free while we waited for the starters.

But London buses are far cheaper and infinitely more frequent than most other places. I believe it is £1.50 for a London bus, whereas in Leeds you can go a couple of stops for £2 or anything further is £2.80.

B

So I have been checking houses and schools in Harborne and Moseley and I'm very impressed so far. ☺️ will schedule a visit in soon.

We can be on the other side of Wales in a similar time that it takes friends to get across London. Yes when I lived in London I seemed to spend a lot of time travelling to various attraction, museums, galleries and theatre. I lived in Hackney at the time, so not that far out. But still spent a lot of time getting places.

Crunchymint you are very right even for m to get to the motorway just to get out of London it takes me an hour 😮

Here is the Birmingham local site.

There are a couple of threads running into May where people have asked about moving to Birmingham, or of course you can start your own, with your ow particular details, but it might be worth reading through a couple of the other recent ones.

ohhh Mosley, lovely area. from what I remember.

I had a relative live in a massive house there, it was beautiful, and still had all it's serving bells working.

There were whole parts of the house I have no idea what they looked like, because as 'children' where not allowed to venture that way! I remember only being allowed in the drawing room 3 times, for special occasions and only under strict supervision of my parents.

Backforgood thank you so much for the link I'll check it out

Justlikebefore that's good to hear, I'm actually hearing from quite a few people about Moseley.