To ask opinions on a reasonable budget for a single woman in London?

[LookForSnowdrops]

Background: I desperately want to live in a flat on my own, post-Covid. I’m 30, and have had a really bad year. I am craving a space on my own.

I’m worried about finances, though - and it makes me so annoyed that living on your own is so difficult if you’re single in London.

Here’s my proposed budget. Has anyone else done something similar on this?

Rent - one bed flats in the area I need to live (I say ‘need’ as I walk to work in normal times, so am saving on commuting costs anyway) : £1250 per month

Bills: gas, electricity, water, council tax, internet (I think that’s everything?) guessing: £250 per month max

Fixed extra costs: phone, Netflix, Spotify, standing order to a charity: £60 per month

So - £1560 total per month on rent, bills and fixed costs. That will leave me with approx £890 per month left for everything else. I get free lunch and gym membership through work.

That’s £890 per month for entertainment, food, going out, general fun travel around London. Savings, holidays. Gifts. Lots of friends are getting married next year, so all the costs their weddings (abroad! Gifts! Hotel costs for one. Argh!)

Pre-covid, I used to go out 3-4 times per week: meals out, drinks out, theatre and cinema trips, exhibitions and lots of trips abroad. But I’m finding it impossible to estimate what all that costs now - it seems so far away.

So, anyone else who has been in this situation: what do you think? Is it possible to still have a fairly good standard of living in London with £890 left over per month for food, fun money, some travel and savings as a single woman?

Living on my own has been a dream of mine for so long. It seems so depressing that despite having worked my arse off since graduating it’s still potentially not really feasible.

So...words of wisdom or advice really appreciated. Thank you so much!

No don't worry about that - if you are employed in a regular job, it's fine. I am self employed, so I needed it. I was just listing my bills from my account, and they were on there!
But insurance, yes.

Right, I’m a single female, in my 20s and until recently lived in London. Similar European city now. I only had/have £350 left after bills and it’s more than fine, but with £890 left over each month, I would do:

£290 in savings.
£300 on food and general shopping (I personally include takeaways here and meals out but normally I only do those 2-3 times a month. My weekly shopping bill is £50).

That leaves you £300. £100 on clothes, hair and beauty (if you spend on either of those things). £100 towards holidays/presents. That gives you an extra £100 which I personally would put in holidays or savings. Or call it fun money if you want.

Are you saving for something in particular? I take money from savings for big holidays but I’m not saving for a mortgage as I will be moving countries every 18-24 months for the next 5-10 years.

£890 is A LOT. Families live on that. £300 is enough to live on, £890 gives you a nice cushion for holidays, savings and nice days out. So yes, definitely doable.

That’s plenty for a reasonable standard of living if you’re a bit sensible about it.

No insight into London living, but my DC who run a one bed flat in another UK city pay around £250 a month for bills and that’s with a council tax payment lower than you’ve calculated, plus in a part of the UK where water rates are included in the council tax. Working from home may also bump bills up in the short term which, if you usually walk to work, won’t be offset by drop in commuter costs.

Having said that, it is definitely liveable. The pay off will be between savings and ‘fun money’ at the end of the day - not food or rent.

contents insurance, but possibly other things depending on what your contents covers - e.g., I have also bike insurance (very needed if you're in a place where bikes get stolen a lot), money for bike/care repairs, possibly phone insurance. Little things, often £10 a month, but somehow when you add them all up, it's a lot!

It definitely seems doable on that amount and I would do it. Get a free budgeting app - look at your patterns for a bit and you will know where you can save and where you overspend. You may have to cut back on going out for dinners a lot and invite people home but that seems worth it in the long run.

I lived on pretty much exactly this budget with the same outgoings for around 7 years until my fiance moved in. Totally doable and the peace of mind I got from having my own space made it doubly worth it.

Ooh, as above - I did also have unemployment insurance, just to make sure I could afford to keep up with the expense should I be out of work.

Is £890 per month disposable income enough for a single person to live on? Are you joking OP?

That's roughly what we have as a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 young DC's) and we don't go without. We have to be sensible obviously but we can afford everything that we need and quite a few luxuries. We save at least a couple of hundred a month as well.

You'll be absolutely fine OP. Might have to reconsider how many takeaways you have and how much you go out and how many holidays you can have. You will still be able to afford those things but less often. Still plenty enough money for an interesting and fulfilling life though.

You can live on the but I don’t think you’ll be out 3 or 4 times a week. Maybe once a week depends how much you spend when you’re out? £100? If you do that once a week that doesn’t leave anything for other treats or holidays, savings etc. What is more important to you? Going out or living alone,

[quote LookForSnowdrops]@Thimbleberries income protection and critical illness cover? Can you expand on that? Is that something necessary? I’ve never heard of anyone having that. Mortgage insurance, yes, but not additional income protection for renting?

If I’m ill I have 5 months full pay from my work. Interested to hear more. Is this something people have?![/quote]
5 months full pay from work is pretty good and at your age, its quite unlikely but not impossible that you'd be ill for more than that. Maybe look into the cost of protection to cover rent and bills with a 6 month excess time and have a bit of savings to cover the gap. Or, if you were seriously ill or made redundant, would you be able to move back in with your parents if it came to it?

I would have thought utilities would be less in a flat than a house, especially if you're out a lot, but it depends on things like insulation and how warm you like it. Water should be cheap on a meter and yes, council tax in London is often below average.

You don't mention things like clothes, hair and beauty treatments. Some 'young single professional women' spend hundreds of pounds a month on this sort of thing and regard it as a basic essential.

Likewise your going out budget. If you're the type to have most of your food out of the house - breakfasts, coffees, dinner, cocktails, at the extreme end, people will be spending £20/30 a day and £50/100 on a night out that involves dinner and cocktails. So you need to think about how much you'd expect to spend on these sorts of things, and if you're not a 'cheap and cheerful' sort of person, this could be quite a lot more than you imagine.

What do you currently spend your money on and do you have savings? If you're currently earning £2.5k pm and living much cheaper than a 'post covid going out a lot and living in your own flat' lifestyle, you should have thousands saved up. Do you?

You earn a good wage and your budget is fine.

@Playnoh

You can live on the but I don’t think you’ll be out 3 or 4 times a week. Maybe once a week depends how much you spend when you’re out? £100? If you do that once a week that doesn’t leave anything for other treats or holidays, savings etc. What is more important to you? Going out or living alone,

This. Living alone, going out a lot, bigger treats like holidays and being able to save - pick 2.

While you'd have enough money to live, you might not have enough to live as much as you might imagine, especially if you you aren't careful about budgeting and controlling costs.

Do you have savings?

What are you current biggest outgoings outside of rent and bills? Can you look at your outgoings pre Covid on food/entertainment etc.

£890 sounds a lot, it is a large sum, and I would absolutely go ahead but don’t get lulled into a false sense of security that you have all this spare money. It isn’t that spare.

I always work on a 90% basis with my disposable money so there is a cushion, so say you have £800. Work out how you will spend that and test it where possible. Your actual food expenditure etc.

To be honest the main factor is whether you and your friends have expensive tastes. If you're happy to go to the cinema and have a curry afterwards it should be fine. If your tastes are for fine dining and Ubers everywhere then it will be harder.

Hi OP,

This should give you some good advice to ensure you don’t miss anything and also has some useful budget planning tools:

www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

Thank you so much for all of this advice, everyone.

@BarbaraofSeville yes, I do have good savings from the past year in an ISA. Ideally I wouldn’t have to touch them but they are there as a cushion.

I don’t spend anything on beauty treatments. Do you mean things like acrylic nails? Nope - have my haircut like twice a year max, and that’s it. Hardly ever buy new clothes either.

Pretty much all my spending was on travel, theaters/cinema and meals out before. Vast majority on travel really, so I’m aware that would need to be pared down.

That ‘pick two’ idea is useful food for thought. Thanks.

Have you thought about shared ownership? It sounds like it would be a good option for you. I'm in Brighton (so reasonably expensive) and deposits for a 1/2 bed flat are as low as 4 or 5k.

Yes, nails, hair, eyebrows, make up, lotions and potions, waxing, all that sort of stuff.

I don't have any of those either, but you only have to look at Style and Beauty on here to see that some people spend a lot and would regard it as an extreme hardship to give it up.

Likewise eating out and cocktails. If you expect fine dining, cocktails, ubers everywhere and the best seat in the house on a Saturday night at the theatre, it's going to cost considerably more than Nandos and a Coke followed by the cinema on 2 for 1 night at your local high street.

But you do sound more grounded, although it's not obvious in your first posts

Do you pay into a private pension via your employer ?

I have £1000 discretionary money left after bills etc. you won't have much less than that. I think you will be fine.

I'd negotiate really hard on rent as others have said they are coming down. In some blocks the heating/ water will be rolled into the landlords service charges which is worth looking out for as it will save you other costs.

I live in z1 and walk to work. Pre-covid i usually spent £40 a month on travel (usually tube home from the theatre). However, I can now count the number of times I've been on the tube in the last year on one hand. Combination of walking to places I might have got the tube to before, or choosing to get my bike out for the more far flung locations.

@RainingBatsAndFrogs

Could you manage in a studio flat. which might be cheaper?

£1250 is very cheap anyway and so can't be in a great area

I worked out my own outgoings recently.
I live in a 1 bed flat in London.
I own it though, so some of the bills are included in the service charge ie water, so I can’t help you with those. All p/mth.
Food £300
Leccy £22
Council Tax £80
TV licence £14
Savings £480
Broadband £25

I think your own estimates are do-able.
However, there will be some months (ie the wedding months) where it will be tight.
Also, in a ‘normal’ month (ie pre-Covid) I’d easily spend £600 + on socialising.
But if you need / want to spend less than that you could open a separate ‘socialising’ account and transfer whatever your budget socialising spending was at the start of the month, and only use that account for going out stuff.

Oh and also, look for a new build if you can. I barely need my heating on it’s so well insulated. Ie Saturday, bloody freezing. Didn’t have my heating on. So obviously that helps hugely with bills. Plus modern flats can be electricity only, which also helps for budgeting.

I would account more for utilities depending on the property. Will it have double glazing for example?

I never lived in London single but with my partner. I think that money will be fine to live off of. We live off less spare cash a month for a family of five 🤣 but then I remember when I was living in London in my 20s we could easily spend all we had spare and it seemed like it was never enough!