How much do you need to live in London? (I think I have enough!)

[Ethicaldebacle]

I've asked before about moving to London and basically everyone agreed it was a good idea, but we didn't really touch the financial aspect.

I posted about my pension on Reddit (because I think I have a fairly solid plan all things considered) but everybody got fixated about not being able to afford to live in London

So housing and transport costs aside, (because I've done that calculation already), how much do you spend a month?

We shop at Lidl for the most part, and go out twice a month. I don't go to the salon or anything like that, and the gym is out peloton (so cheaper as it's for both). One car.

We're talking about Z3, one DC in secondary school.

For the sake of this conversation we have £7k every month to play around after housing and travel cards.

Yes, we're aware of the grammars which is why we're aiming for a move so he starts Y6 in London

Nothing wrong with it at all - it is Brixton eather than Clapham. It is a pretty busy area - night and day.

Have you lived in London before - the area is ok but let's just say it will be a bit of a culture shock compared with Cornwall.

Nor Wansted!

It’s still quite gritty up Acre Lane end. Every time I have ever been to that Tesco, for example, someone was locking off or talking to themselves or some such, but swathes of London are like that.

Handy for the cinema (which is a picture house branch- very nice) and all the shops, but you couldn’t get a bigger contrast from the Norfolk coast. Seems a bit mad to have £7k pcm after bills and live like that, but that’s me.

Kicking off, I mean.

OP, yes you have enough to live well in London!

IMO / IME once you have housing covered things tend to be cheaper in London than elsewhere. There is so much to do that is free, so many ways to get cheap deals for theatre and cinema etc. wide choice of competitively priced shops. Pub prices are expensive though.

That house in Brixton is great, Brixton / Clapham a great area to live. But secondary schools there are an issue.

If you need to drive to Norfolk regularly (like I do!) it will be better from East or North East. Anywhere with good access to the A12, or the Blackwall tunnel . Stratford, Walthamstow etc.

But I live further SW than Brixton and can be on the N Norfolk coast in 3.5 hours.

The thing is, all of London is a very close mix of expensive housing and social housing, and the mix varies. In that trapezoid area, though, there is an exceptionally large number of housing estates, much higher density than the average, some of them huge, mostly flats, gang activity, etc. Most of the tenants are fine, and great neighbours, of course, but those estates do have pockets of multiple social issues, and the tenancies enable some very dysfunctional people to live very close to expensive housing (or vice versa) and it can cause friction.

There was at least one huge EU- funded regeneration project (Clapham Park Estate regeneration- easy to Google) near there but how calm an area is varies from street to street, almost.

The estates bordering onto Brixton Hill are set in lawns and surrounded by trees but are also a hotspot for clashes between rival gangs, which most of the time stays on the estates, but not always. And so on.

Less colourfully, I wouldn’t like to be doing secondary transfer while living in that patch. Nightmare, actually. Picking a few places where there is more than one hopeful school and working back from that might be wise.

If you shortlist some areas you really need to come ip for a few days and drive around and walk around and get a feel. Do that as well as googling, reading local news and crime stats.

Going back to NE London, Newbury Park and Loughton might be worth checking. They’re not similar to each other, and I don’t know prices, but they should be cheaper than Wanstead or Epping, the schools will be ten times better than in Lambeth, violent crime far lower and Newbury Park tube is on the A12. Easy to get into central London from both. You have to try to limit the culture shock to a Norfolk schoolboy a bit, I would think.

id say we’re doing ok. We live in London and after mortgage/ bills and nursery fees we don’t have £7k. Not even close. We would without nursery fees (3k!!) but I think we’ll consider ourselves to be doing fine even with nursery fees. We eat out, go on hols, have a car etc etc …

Hating where you live and how you work are really good reasons to consider moving. From a frame of “how could you make a London move work out financially”:

1. You said “all the things I tend to like happen in London.” Are they free things? If not, how much would you expect to spend incrementally?
2. You said your mortgage would be £1500-1800. Presumably that is a monthly amount based on a certain amount borrowed, and a certain repayment term, or perhaps even interest-only. To make more granular sense out of it: what are you assuming aboutthe house price, including stamp duty and a refurbishment budget? And what are you assuming about the level of mortgage debt you would take on, as well as the interest rate on your mortgage and the repayment term?
3. What age(s) or year(s) would be the child or children who are still in school, and have you thought about or even perhaps discussed with them the prospect of moving schools?
4. Do you have the ability to start exploring neighbourhoods where you might live, including looking at house prices at least online, so that you can validate your assumption that you’d be able to find a big enough house, within your budget, in a location where you’d be happy to live?

Even if London turns out to be unrealistic, it does not mean you have to necessarily stay put. there may be a “hybrid solution” which is to live somewhere closer to London, from which you could commute in a couple days per week without it being horrible, that would be a decent place to live, with decent schools, and with more affordable housing than London, where in nicer neighbourhoods, even outside of the centre, a 3-bedroom house or flat could easily run you over £ 1 million before stamp duty and refurbishment costs.

They're not inherently expensive, the expensive thing is getting to London (from Cornwall).

We like going to gigs. My DH went to see Spiritualised and that was like £35. I wanted to see Beck at RAH but tickets sold out. There's a French lady I want to see and then tickets are £25. Another band I missed was £25. For the type of music we like, they're never much more than £50 and when it's more it's because they're part of a festival (like All Points East).

I'd also like to go to the Opera, Ballet, and classical music.

We're basing the calculations on a £250k mortgage for 20 years (with current interest rates). I'm aware they can become higher in the next few years.

The location itself is something that we need to explore more. Our son would go to secondary school there. There's also the option of living in North London because our son is already on the waiting list for the Jewish secondary school. We just need to be part of a liberal congregation (which we already are).

My DH doesn't necessarily want to love centrally because he's never lived in a city and he's afraid it would "eat him".

I, on the other hand come from one of the biggest cities in the world, and miss being in an urban setting (or at least having access to it). I'm a city rat, he's a country mouse type of thing.

The other big question is what would he do for a living, because most likely he'll end up having to go into retail but not actual sales. He's been doing manual work (valeting and finishing) for the past 6 years and he enjoys it, but without any qualifications I doubt it could translate into much.

Have you looked at Barkingside? King Solomon High, Shul, green spaces?

@Ethicaldebacle

Some gigs in smaller venues are not so expensive, including some classical music, but just be aware that opera costs a fortune and ballet is not so cheap either.

It sounds as though the location is the key thing for you to explore, because it will determine the affordability of house prices, the question of whether your DH can be happy living there, and also the question about schooling.

What sort of work your DH would be willing and able to is also pretty key, and a really important question is whether he is willing to make some level of effort to find a new sort of work in a new location. Some types of "manual work" can pay really well if they are in skilled trades (think: heating and plumbing, or carpentry, or even being a handyman if he is entrepreneurial enough to go out and get clients), but if he wants to just do what he is told without having to think too much (eg stack shelves in Tesco) then he is unlikely to contribute much financially to your household.

With a budget of £750,000 including refurbishment and stamp duty your house budget is really only £600,000 or maybe £650,000 if you or your DH are good at DIY, so my high level guess is you would either need to take on a bigger mortgage than £750k, or live in a 1-2 bedroom property which may not be big enough, or find somewhere to live that is outside of London but nearer than Cornwall.

Unless you tutored your child for at least a year there's no chance for a grammar place.

Unfortunately he doesn't really have the will to learn anything. I think he has to have no other option but TO ME seems very unlikely. He also has a very bad back and I've told him repeatedly that manual work is not good for his help, but even whe he has to be on super strong painkillers, he won't listen.

Before he got a decent pay rise, his net income was pretty low due to the expensive commute for him. I told him it was more profitable at that point to work in a supermarket. The only reason we ended up sticking to it was that he has normal working hours.

The whole re-invention is something that is inevitable, which is why he's even considered moving to Mexico as to him it comes with similar challenges.

I think we could have a bigger mortgage, it just depends on
a) what salary I can get
b) how comfortable are we with "less money" to play around.

We're fairly frugal though, we just make "extravagant" purchases like designer bags / jewellery and 5 star holidays. But our day to day is super frugal. I'm happy to not buy designer stuff, but we'll always spend on holidays.

We're basing the calculations on a £250k mortgage for 20 years (with current interest rates). I'm aware they can become higher in the next few years.

So with equity of 500 (if your property sells for what you think it’s worth and many people inflate this figure) and a mortgage of 250 you’ve still got a low budget for a 3 bed house.
Honestly if you’re looking at a £750k budget in 5 years your options are going to be extremely limited.

Most properties in z3-4 still need renovation at that price bracket.

Do you have a big pot of savings to top the house price up? You keep saying you life very frugally but unless you literally spend way less than your income and have huge savings you aren’t actually living that frugally.

Obviously I can't see the future! But all of my houses have sold for at least the figure I had in my head.

I think we have to sit down and explore if we want to save for the next house, or be comfortable with a bigger mortgage or if we want to focus on the pensions. Or if we're actually just moving to Mexico, and then it's a completely different proposition.

Part of it will be the location in the end. Like I said for my DH Z3 seems to still be too "urban" for him. I've lived in Beaconsfield and always thought Amersham was a decent place with decent transport links (I'm aware it's like Z7). (And the houses seem absolutely within budget).

How can something free be more expensive?

How much time do people spend going to museums, really?

Childcare is more expensive, restaurants are more expensive, a pint in the pub is more expensive, a coffee is more expensive, taxis are more expensive, even supermarkets can be more expensive etc etc.

I don’t think London is cheaper to live in other than housing, many costs are higher than elsewhere.

I think a lot of things are still cheaper (believe it or not).

Ubers are cheaper than our taxis. £20 for a 10min ride, really? Closer to £30 if after 10pm?

Restaurants are expensive here because of the holiday pull. Pints yes are cheaper but I wouldn't say substantially. (Local pub is £7 these days).

Ubers can actually be really difficult to get, I wouldn’t rely on them, far too inconsistent. On multiple occasions have I had to get a black cab home because 0 Ubers available in central London.

Yes, if you live in a holiday area with a premium that will be expensive. But - my point still stands that London is generally more expensive than elsewhere.

Try getting any kind of tradesman for example, rates seem to be double or triple other areas.

You keep moving the hoops! Your OP says Z3, some posts say 3-4 and now you’re talking about Amersham! Which is zone 9.
Thats a long commute to central.

I live a train ride into London. Not only museums areas galleries but street shows on the south bank, free tickets for ideal home show, pop up exhibition s etc. The train fare in is the biggest expense

In East London the food tends to be a damn Sight cheaper than where I am in Essex

Never bought a coffee out in my life but do know a Tesco meal deal is the same price

Why would you need taxis with such frequent cheap public transport. And it's free for kids under 11

I still want to love in Z3! (4 at a push really!) But I'm not the only decision maker here. My DH still thinks that commuting from say MK is not as bad.

But I've lived in Bucks and you end up not going to central that often, so it defeats the purpose (to an extent).

If happily live in Ealing too, but I don't think the budget stretches that far there (haven't checked).

All I know is that I want to be able to "run" to central in less than an hour (so around 10k, ideally 7k).