To think on £30,000/year I should be able to afford to live on my own in London?

[kjhgfdfhj]

I earn £30,000, which I know isn't high by any means but I think it's decent. But I still can't afford to rent my own place in London. Lots of my colleagues who must earn around the same amount somehow rent flats in London and I don't get how. The only ones I understand are those who live with partners as there's two incomes to pool together for rent and bills.

I really don't see myself ever getting into a relationship, and feel like because I'm single I'll never be able to give myself the kind of home and lifestyle I want. I never really realised before how much being single negatively impacts you financially.

A close friend was an A&E doctor in London. They left as couldn’t afford to live near enough to the hospital without being in a not so great flatshare. They had more than a decade of experience, but the pay wasn’t enough even so. (A&E doctors can’t live more than a certain travel time away in case they have to come in during an emergency). How on Earth doctors, nurses, teachers etc are expected to cope I do not know.

Our youngest has a flat share with two others. She’s on about £42k but struggles to go beyond everyday living. We still help sometimes with bigger expenses.

A few years ago I would’ve said you might have had luck finding a place by yourself in some of the outer areas (maybe zone 5/6) on 30k if you were good at budgeting, but the demand is so high now that everywhere is high - even the edges of Kent/Essex.

You’d be looking at a tiny bed sit somewhere not very nice.

My brother is currently paying £1200 for a room with 5 housemates, shared everything in the not even good bit of Finsbury Park.

London is far, far pricier than you are assuming.

Not Unreasonable just Unrealistic.

I doubt it! In my first post-study job, in 2014, I earned 28k and was living in an expensive city but not in London. I rapidly discovered that I was on the margins for living alone. Fast forward the best part of a decade and look at London? It shouldn't be a luxury, but it is.

Nope don't be silly. Flatshare is the only way you'll make that work financially.

I shared a house until i was 34, one way or another. My now-DH and i shared a tiny L shaped double room in a big house share when we were saving up a house deposit. And then we moved out of London, got a 2 bed house and let one of the rooms out so even when we bought a house we had a lodger for a few years (and no we weren't strictly supposed to under terms of the mortgage).

We are now mid 40s and nearly mortgage free so... play your cards right and it could work out!

London has always been expensive. When I worked and lived there in the 90s, no-one I knew was living on their own. Most people lived in shared houses or bedsits.

You could find a lodging in one of those rambling houses people bought for nothing on Caledonian road. My now DH got a great one where they had let out the top floor with its own separate kitchen and bathroom

I'm on about £32k when I take into account child maintenance and a couple of other small sources of income (my primary income is significantly less). There's no way I can afford a place anywhere in London, not even somewhere dodgy and run down. I don't know how your colleagues can.

Yabu. I earned £17,000 in 1991 and couldn't afford to live on my own in London, nor did any of my similarly earning friends.

I'd be surprised if you could.

When I earned that amount 20 years ago I rented a lovely one-bed flat in Crystal Palace for £650pm. The rent for that flat is now £1800pm. With the best will in the world, I don't think you'll be able to rent alone.

This is what I thought! Childcare workers, hospitality, cleaning staff. So many people in London earn less.
All these people saying it's a terribly low salary are insensitive and out of touch!
A flat-share is affordable and fun.
By the way OP, just because you're single now doesn't mean you won't meet someone in 5 months or 5 years.

Well I suppose that you "should", but in reality, London is massively overpopulated and therefore prices have rocketed so in order to live there, you'd need a partner/houseshare etc.

£42k and needs your support? How much is her rent.

My job is in London, so ideally I'd need to live there. At the moment I'm living with parents in the south-East and commuting into London twice a week which is manageable, I always have colleagues asking when I'm moving to London and I just can't afford it.

I have older family members on £30,000 who are homeowners and have a nice standard of living, but I guess they would have gotten on the property ladder in the 80/90s which would have helped.

I earn just slightly over 30k and work in London. (30k isn't much in London but I don't think it's a "very low" salary 🤨) If I was still single the only way forward for me would be a houseshare. Just had a nosey on Rightmove and most of them appear to be about £800-900 a month, or at least the ones I saw were.

I’m up north on the outskirts of a city and there’s no way you’d be able to rent on a single wage of £30k here either. The people I know who rent by themselves work two jobs!

Are they definitely living alone and not in house shares? I earn around that and live in a much cheaper part of the country and it’s a struggle, it would be very tight without the CM I get from my ex.

All my DC’s friends are in house shares on that income.

I was earning about £34k in london when I moved out about 10 years ago, there’s no way I could’ve had my own rental place. I was in a flat share with two other professional women in an ‘up and coming’ zone 2 area

What are you working as in London on only 30k?

I agree it’s a fair salary but London is batshit expensive. When I lived there 20 years ago, I and all of my friends on that kind of salary were in flat shares. You would struggle out of London to live alone with the price of housing and bills these days, it’s rubbish and sad as they reality is most people aren’t on 6 figures and that’s a pretty average salary, it should be enough to live in a one bedroom flat in a semi decent area. Sadly it isn’t.

I haven’t seen a one bed for so much in CP?

is it huge?!