To think we could live in London on £55k?

[Londonline1]

DH has been offered a job in London on a salary of around £55k. I'm mainly a SAHM; I do some pt work from home earning around 4k a year or so, but we're about to have baby #2 and I've no idea if I'll get back into it / if the work will have dried up etc.

We currently live in the North East and survive comfortably on an income of around £50k (including my earnings and CB). We have a fairly modest lifestyle and put most of our money into our mortgages which we were hoping to pay off early - we don't do holidays other than to visit family elsewhere in the UK; we live in a small house in a cheap area, and we have a flat we rent out in another city (income from that adds towards paying off the mortgage so it's effectively building up a savings pot but I haven't included that in the £50k above).

My question is whether we could realistically relocate to London with a £55k budget. Would expect to have to downsize and rent. Would prefer not a crazy commute for DH (to Battersea). Don't need to live anywhere fancy, but would like to feel safe and have some green space nearby for kids.

Please feel free to tell me it's ludicrous. I genuinely have no idea.

Do you have reasons in your mind on why you’d like to?

I don’t think it’s an easy move and your lifestyle won’t be as nice

I bloody love London but you need a proper wage to enjoy it if you're supporting a family, and £55k wouldn't come close IMO.

Don't mean to put a downer on things, but I've lived in London on a small salary, when I first moved here, and on a good salary (now), and I only really enjoyed it when I started earning decent money.

London is just no fun unless you've got money to do fun stuff, I think.

You definitely can, at one point we were living on about that with us both working and our child in nursery. We rent a 2 bed flat in a very nice part of London and although we had to cut back on things like holidays, it was still very doable and we never felt hard done by. 2 children is a different story but if you're a SAHM then you won't have to pay for nursery, which can be a killer.

We moved away from London because we didn't want to bring up children there.
For starters, it can be hard to get about. Some tube stations don't have good access.
We had a much higher income than 55k and lived in a rented one bed flat in zone 2. We had to rent a parking space on someone's drive.
It was fun for two people with no kids, but we are much happier in Manchester.
Just my opinion. Others will love London life.

That’s true but still would mean a loan of 6.5 x salary which I think is pretty unrealistic.

We live in London on less but have a tiny mortgage.

The main issue is the cost of housing.

You won't be able to live anywhere amazing or trendy but you can easily manage in unfashionable parts of south east London.

Is the move a great one for career opportunities so that £55K is likely to increase?

Most of what he earns extra with the pay rise will be taxed at 40%.

You might not lose much CB, because the lower threshold to start losing it is £50K net of pension contributions - which may be a chunk of the £5K.

I wouldn’t leave the NE on £45K for London on £55K (and 40% tax) for money alone. There’d have to be other factors, like career or wanting the adventure!

I’d also consider long term... is he over paid for the NE so that if you returned, he’d have lost a great pay deal?

Bear in mind that everything costs more! I got some passport photos printed at Timpsons - £8.99 for me in Birmingham, £9.50 for my friend in Guildford. It all adds up!

People on this thread are ridiculous. Plenty of people manage in London on less money. The only thing more expensive is generally housing. As for everything else, supermarket food is surely the same as everywhere else in the county? Museums and galleries are often free. Public transport is pretty good value imo. Children travel free on buses. There's loads of parks. I don't get why everyone says how expensive it is. Sure, in Mayfair it is, but Catford, nah not really!

The point the "ridiculous" people are doing is that the OP and her family won't be better off in London than they are now.

Of course people manage. That is not the point.

Formerbabe agree housing is the issue, and childcare if you need it. The rest isn’t so different.

Although unless there’s a big reason to downsize I’d probably not do it

The only way this will work is if it's a HUGE career springboard for your DH. And pretty soon. Which is not unheard of in London. Be careful London is addictive.

I moved out of London due to divorce and regretted it, that I had to move back very quickly. I am a big city girl, I had to admit. Fortunately, so were my kids. They begged me to move back (although admittedly, we did move to a cheap, but sink town).

If you move, bide your time and look for bargains in naice areas - hopefully you can trawl the internet as a sahm. Your husband can travel, but less so your small kids. So look for good schools, families etc. stay away from knife crime ghettos etc. - a cheap place elsewhere may not be as rough as London, so do take care. Look for quiet places with good transport links like Wimbledon etc.

It can be done, I wish you all the best.

I earn roughly this in London, have a very nice life and save £850 each month for a flat I’m planning to buy.
HOWEVER I am single late twenties and live in a shared flat in zone 1 with 2 other girls. No way would I be able to support a family on that. Even commuting from outside london I think you would really struggle, £55k just isn’t enough

See my example of photos from the same company, £8.99 vs £9.50.
My sister lived in Birmingham like me, and now lives in Croydon.
Many things are more expensive - theatre tickets for example, same production touring different theatres. Children’s activities - her local tennis club charges 50% more than mine for lessons (and we’re both average for our area).

Yes, housing and childcare are the biggest additional costs. But because these cost more, people are paid more, so businesses charge more - filtering down to tennis lessons etc.

I’m not saying OP shouldn’t move because of that - but she should be aware of it.

What about moving somewhere in the south east that is on the train line to battersea like Haywards heath which would be around 40 minutes. Or croyden area. Cost of living would be more affordable.

Sorry but you choose to be a SAHM, have a household income of £50k plus additional income from rent and own two properties... And claim child benefit?

What’s your point?
If she’s entitled to it, she’s entitled to it.
Her husband earns £45K. If the rental income is genuinely from her property not his, they’re very likely under threshold.

What do you personally think the cut off should be then?

I claim CB that I don’t “need”. I also make charitable contributions greater than it, but that’s by the by - my choice. I have no issue with claiming it.

CB has been around for decades & if I recall never even used to be means tested. Whoever’s entitled to it should claim it.

I think you’d be nuts. One of the main reasons for moving to London is the ease of getting a well paying job. If your hisbsnd’s Job is secure, your quality of life in the NE on £50k would probably by higher than it would be on £80-90k in London just because of the difference in housing costs.

Depends how you define quality of life. You don’t have all the shops, museums, theatres, galleries, cultural and sporting activities in the NE, you don’t have so much access to world cultures and nationalities, really diverse food, great transport links etc.

As a Londoner I’d far rather live on 50k in London than 90k in the NE.

CB has been around for decades & if I recall never even used to be means tested. Whoever’s entitled to it should claim it.

Since 2013, child benefit rules changed, as has been stated above (although at over £50k, only a percentage is taxed which of have to pay back-over £60k and all of it you need to pay back so no point in getting it)

Apologies, just re-read and i’ve come across as abrupt fancy-just wanted to say when the rules changed.

Absolutely agree that all should receive it if they are within the money bracket (even a couple on £49k each as much as it pains me to say it!

To live comfortably in this...erm lovely city...you really need a household income of six figures. Social housing will probably be less, but buying or renting and with kids...forget it. It's so expensive that it's ridiculous now and pricing so many out of London.

@TatianaLarina where in London do you live and without giving it away, are you on a five figure or six figure household income?

@RedSuitcase the system is what it is, doesn't seem right but then most things in this country doesn't lol not the OP fault.