Want to move to London - Help me convince DP!

[Flowermum]

I want to move to London some time within the next year. However I have a problem: DP.

I'm living in Dublin, from Cork but never wanted to move here. I had planned two years to move to London but DPs dad got sick so he wanted to move home to Dublin to be near him. Of course as soon as we moved his dad was fine and we ended up barely seeing his parents adn I was stuck in a job I hate hate hate!

SO now we've just had a DD and I've decided I'm not going abck to horrible job. DP has agreed he'll move if I do all the organising so this is where I need help. Here's a list:

1. Where in London is a nice place to live? WE don't want to be out in suburbia (eg his sis lives in Sidcup ant thats too far out for us).
   WE don't have a lot of money but would like to live in an area with nice shops, restaurants etc.

2. How does he go about finding a job? He's training as a CAD technician and wants to specialise in 3D presentation (or something!).

3. AS I will probably not ber finding a job straight away how do I go about meeting people? Should I join a group? Do a course? I'm 22 so often don't fit in

4)Even though we'll be doing a trial period of a year, should I try to enroll DD into a school/nursery? She's 5 months now so it'll be a while before she needs to go to one but here I'm already too late for most schools to get her in so I tend to panic about education!

5. IS this crazy?

Please share your wisdom!!!

A

Why London? I moved here from Mayo in 1987. It took me a long time to settle but I didn't have a partner or child. A child should give you an 'in' to getting to meet people.
Are you looking to rent? I'm not sure about now but when I used to rent there was little difference in the rents charged accross London.

I have lived in Ealing (worth checking out)
I would deffo check out Clapham (no idea of rental prices)
I live in Streatham which is ok but I wouldn't rush to live here.
Crystal Palace always seems nice to me.

Check out www.findaproperty.co.uk for more info.

I'm sure someone else will have nore uptodate info.

1 - lots of nice places, The London Property Guide book is well worth reading - summarises the areas, rent/buy prices, schools etc

2 - probably an agency

3 - you'll meet people at baby groups

4 - i wouldn't bother about schools if it's only a trial move

5 - not crazy, London is great

Sorry to be so negative but I'd stay in Dublin if I were you

Lapse are you living in London now?

Lapsedrunner why do you say that? IS it because of the whole price thing?

Drosphila I reckoned London because it's a big city so I'd get the excitement of living somewhere that was the opposite of Cork adn also even though I'd love to try the US too it's easier to get home from London - when Ryanair do 1c flights I could be home for as little as e40.

We nwould have to rent, with me not working we wouldn't be able to get a big mortgage. For example the only thing we can afford in Dublin is a one bed flat in a really dodgy area in west dublin... I don't think so!

Thanks for your suggestions! Keep 'em coming!

London is great and lively if you have no kids but it is pretty hard to have a social life with a baby and limited money in London. Everything is expensive. If you have no family or friends nearby it would be tricky to find a babysitter and they are not cheap.

Don't want to say don't move to London but I think you will find the reality of renting in a great area will not come cheaply.

If you havent got a lot of money you will find it difficult living in London and it wont be an exciting and wonderful place. Nice places with nice shops etc are HUGELY expensive and if your dp is a trainee CAD technician I cant see him earning enough to live in an area like that.
We live on the outskirts of London on one salary and we manage but we dont do shops, cafes and going out and I cycle to work.

I'm sorry to also sound a bit discouraging but if you can only afford rent on a one-bed in a grotty area of Dublin at the mo, the chances of you finding something in your idea of nice/central in London are pretty remote tbh.
There are trendy but "edgy" parts of inner London (Hackney has recently had a bad press but lots of Mners live in it/nearby and love it) where you might strike lucky but it is a big gamble IMO.
Get your dp to register with the Evening Standard's London jobs web thingy so he gets sent some relevant ads and you can get a view on what he might expect to earn over here. I'd also get him to contact some job agencies.
I don't think it's crazy - but it will be a lot of work for you and you'll need some lucky breaks.
And there is a reason why your SIL is in Sidcup - it is called schools. It's actually one of the few parts of SE London where affordable housing and good schools can be found together. As you will have seen when you visited though, you compromise on other things (like shops, culture, architecture!). We live near Sidcup so I know it well.

I've been in London 7 months now. I wouldn't recommend it with children and without loads of dosh. We are renting in South Hampstead which is very nice. My son's nursery is fabulous but the school gets low results because most of the children have English as a second language etc etc. You do need to book most things heaps in advance. I thought I found a gym class for him but they have closed the waiting list because it is already two years long. So if you do come you have to think about nurseries immediately and then schools etc, just in case you stay. Then you might be allocated a school that is miles away from where you live.

The good thing about London is there is heaps to do in the weekends, Science, Natural History, Airforce Museums etc. etc. and of course a choice of zillions of parks. While lots of things are free to get into even public transport is pretty pricey. Doctors can be hard to get into, as well as dentists. The maternity services I've experienced are horrendous - you just can't get through on the telephone for a start (did a four hour stint on hold once - to no avail).

Trying not to be too negative, the place certainly does have a buzz and it's wonderfully multicultural. It sounds like you need a chance to get it out of your system!! Good luck.

For your information - our rent is £375 per week in a nice but not flash area - garden flat with two bedrooms, nice lounge, tiny kitchen - we were lucky to get it at this price.

I used to live in London (but a LONG time ago). I wouldn't want to live there now though with dc. Mind you I'm a lot older than you so I may just be staid.

Have you been to London before, stayed there a while? Or do you have friends already living there?

My instinct is to say you are barking! All my mum's family come from Co Cork (so I'm a regular visitor) & I'd say you'd have more fun in Cork or Dublin than you ever would in London.
Rental prices are absurd here. You'll have no money. Public transport is improving but is still a pile of nuts in many parts of the capital.
There are very few local authority nurseries for little ones. State primaries have nurseries attached to schools but you can't enrol your child in one of those until after their 3rd birthday, so prior to that if you wanted your DD to go to one, you'll be paying yourself.
Think really hard about this. Have a look on Monster.co.uk to see what sort of jobs your DP could get & the wages he'd bring in too.

I just convinced my DH to move away from London!

I have a friend who did move from Ireland to Croydon so outskirts of London. She really hated it at first, took her over a year to really get used to it. You do make friends easier in London I think, because people are always moving around there seems to be more people to meet. It is possible to have fun cheaply - loads of good parks and museums to go to. But it is still exp, I was paying £900pcm for a two bed flat, no garden. I got into a lot of debt living there, because the shops were such a temptation! My Irish friend missed the friendliness of Ireland, the pubs with live music that were family friendly etc. She also missed the country side a lot. I don't really think that London is the best place to raise children because it isn't safe. It might have been the area where we lived but most places in London have high crime rates and heavy traffic. It takes forever to get anywhere. My friend has settled a bit mroe now, but still intends to return to Ireland when they can (they moved over for her dh's job).

Oh poo!

MArina we live in one of the more expensive areas of Dublin, Monkstown, but are renting. An example of how expensive the area is: A house a few doors down recently went up for sale at 6million. WE could afford more but I don't want to sacrifice savings for now. So we're not that badly off, just not at the 6million stage!

Tarantula DP also cycles to work (though won't wear a helmet argh!) and we don't really eat out unless someone else is paying! What I'm trying to say is that we don't actually spend a lot of money. I go for lunch with my baby group once, maybe twice a week and shop in Tesco so try not to spend a fortune on food. I even do things like buy moltex nappies in bulk to keep costs down. I'm quite used to not having money, couldn't afford to buy food in college so had to "borrow" from housemates.

MArina, DPs sis has told me about the schools. They were living in same area but not Sidcup and moved to get into better schools. Now her DD1 is in a really good secondary school and DD2 is in a great nursery so I can understand her reasons why, and yours, but the for now we didn't think we'd need to scarifice all the thinggs you mentioned for schools etc.

POppynic I think that'sa ll I need - to get it out of my system. I'm still a bit sour that we moved to Dublin in the first place and don't want to give up on all my dreams just because I had my baby young. (How soppy does that sound!)I've always wanted to travel, but I met DP when I was 18 and he's not into travelling at all, just happy to mooch along. I even had to push him into finding a better job when I was pregnant as he was working in a video shop (?!?) I do love him though!

Bugsy2 I do love COrk and want to settle there eventually but as I said to MArina, I just want to get this out of my system now before I'm too old.

I really sound desperate now! I know that it'll be tough going, that rental prices are high and DP is only a trainee. He now earns just over 14000pounds but works with his brother who literally throws work his way and is already very highly regarded in the company as bright spark so should have loads of experience by next year.

Are there any positive reasons to do this?

Flowermum, that kind of income will not leave you in a very comfortable position living in London. Unless you live in a rough part of town, most of your annual income will go on rent (well tbh, even living in a more dodgy area that'll still be the case).
I don't know what the situaiton is regarding family tax credits for EU nationals, but on that kind of income you'd be eligible if you can get it.
I can understand how you want to travel, but surely part of the reason is to enjoy it a bit, & I'm not sure you would at the moment. Do you have any friends in London?

How much can you afford ... roughly

Um... rental wise on that wage we could afford about 670 pounds a month and are happy in a one bed, which is what we have now. THough he will be qualified soon, def before we go so should be earning well above that by then.

Umm, looking for a positive reason for you ... maybe it would be good for your dh's career to have a few years in the big smoke? But to get a start here I imagine he would need to build up a decent experience first, which he can then capitalise on to make further progress here. It sounds like you are the ambitious one and he's probably a bit unsure of himself. Let him establish himself where he is and feel confident and then he will be in a much better position to get work and to move here. Don't worry, you still have plenty of time to be young and funky in London. Actually, if you want to do young then maybe some of the less expensive areas would suit you best.

this might help there's a colour coded chart in top left-hand side that tells you rental cost approx by area in London

Please note this is per week (so you need to times by 52 and divide by 12 to get monthly)

or bear in mind you have about £155 a week

Personally I think SE London would be a good bet .. I reckon Brockley is going to go up (it hasn't yet)

Dublin is really expensive, though, isn't it?
I think if you want to make a move when you're young, flexible and poor is the time to do it! I thnk a job for your DP will be the lynch pin you need to get in place first - and then look at where you would need to live and the salary you would have available based on that.

Yes, all us Londoners love living here (burbs or not), so I think we need to balance caution with the fact that it is a great city to bring children up in Flowermum. There are lots of free events and attractions for families - you don't have to spend £££ to enjoy our wonderful museums and parks eg.
The current salary your dp gets won't go very far in London, as others have said, but with good IT skills I am sure he can earn more than that here. He really does need to suss out the market before you decide whether to come over.
Twig's advice re Brockley is good IMO. It's zone 2, lots of Victorian conversions, quite vibey, but not ££££ yet. Avoid the Prendergast School catchment area towards Hilly Fields if you start looking there though - it has a preposterous effect on the local prices.