Unhappy due to lack of money...

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People's assumptions about London are so out of whack.

I moved down here from Manchester for a job on 22k, found a flat in Zone 2 that is 4th floor, wooden floors, balcony which you can see the shard and the gherkin from, tube stop outside the door and less than 15 minutes to Oxford Circus.

It's not hard, I'm not talking about budgeting every last penny, living in London is only slightly more expensive than Leeds and Manchester in my experience, as long as you can budget just the slightest little bit.

I'd be interested to know where you're living. I certainly couldn't get by on 21k when I first moved here and I still find it tough earning significantly more than that now. Paying £1,400 pcm in rent hurts a lot.

Unless you're living in one of the rougher areas, living in this city ain't cheap and it's a bloody sight more expensive than the rest of the country.
 
Soldato
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£1,400 pcm rent? Where do you live? Hempstead??

London is notorious for high rents, moving to the outskirts isn't too bad. I feel sorry for the students that come from overseas. They think they're getting an a good deal but the living conditions are worse for the rent they pay.
 
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I've been here almost 11 years.

2002-2004 I had a few jobs all paying under £16k, and it took until 2007 before I broke the £20k mark. Only started earning more than the national average 4 months ago, but I certainly never felt like I couldn't enjoy myself before then.

House-shared until 2010, and my last house-share was a 3-bed flat in Tooting (very nice flat) 10 minutes from the tube, and I had the biggest room for £700 a month all inc, which is also the most I have ever paid for a room.

None of the places I have lived in have been fantastic (Bermondsey, Deptford, Surrey Quays, Manor House, Canary Wharf, Island Gardens, Tooting), but only Deptford was really dodgy.

Maybe rents have risen dramatically since 2010, but I never struggled.

I'm below the 16k :(!

Yes uni is going to teach me a lot but I don't need it for this current job because I have researched so much in this particular field of electronics.
 
Soldato
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Thanks for the advise. I decided to pay a little more on the housing to get closer to the city and less on transport to minimise the commute I have been very lucky to get a great place in Lewisham for £600 pcm. I'm an electronic engineer and only 18, I managed to get the job by impressing them but they only put me on my current low wage due to me not having gone to uni. I'm gonna go to uni next year now and be poor for another 4 years just to get a price of paper saying I can do the job I do!

I was all over west london for four years and paid between 400 and 600 pcm w/o bills. With a bit of work I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a share closer to your work for 4-500 pcm.

Edit: also learn to cook with cheap food. After a few years of independence the food bills can drop considerably. Sorry if I'm making unfair assumptions.
 
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I'm paying 375 a month for a beautiful property in South London.

Admittedly it is in Eltham, but the house is amazing!

Interesting... When you say beautiful do you actually mean nice? (maybe my idea of nice is different to others though). Also how long would it take to get to somewhere like regents park?
 
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I think it is a lot more expensive if you want to maintain a central location. In Bristol I pay £500 a month excluding bills for a 2 person share with a 'premium postcode'. Most of my friends live in relatively grubby apartments in shortditch and clapham for circa £750 a month for a 3/4 person share.

Sure you could get a place for less in London, just as I could get a flat for less in Bristol, but I'd compromise a lot in terms of convenience and environment.

That sounds about right. One of the reasons some postcodes are so sought after and others not is commuting time. Just living on a slightly different line can make the difference between a half hour commute and an hour commute. When you start talking about an hours commute it suddenly makes no sense to live in London... An hours commute to central London can allow you to live in most of the south east, on a mainline. Where I live I could get a 3 bedroomed house for the same price as a single room, obviously the commuting costs would be more, so I'd have to get a flat to myself or something. The last train home is way after the tubes shut down anyway and as much as some people love night buses they really are rubbish if you don't live on a specific route or want to get anywhere fast... May as well just spend a couple of hours outside the station and get the first train home in the morning...

So an hours commute to live in a fairly poor shared flat or a nice 2 bedroomed flat. Or less than half an hours commute and live in central london and pay through the odds for a fairly poor shared flat... It's ****, and the only way you can live in a nice place in london is if you have a partner or earn something like £60k a year...
 
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I don't think I've skimped at all though, I went and saw about 12 places when I was looking, ranging in price from about 400 a month to 650ish and this one was easily the best.

Actually there was a better one but I would have to change after 3 months.

I pay £450 a month now without bills and can get most places in under half an hour. The people I know that live in Shoreditch and other 'cool' pockets in east London live in places that are absolute holes except for their street and the six others around it and they have to walk for 20 minutes to get to the nearest overground stop.

My nearest tube stop is literally less than 200m from my balcony, and I have a 4th balcony.

No lift though.

Where do you live? Sounds interesting... Although having looked at about a dozen places myself I don't think there is necessarily much correlation between the quality of the room/house and the price... The best place I've seen was one of the cheapest and the worst places (mould on walls etc) were some of the most expensive, all in the same area.
 
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I'd be interested to know where you're living. I certainly couldn't get by on 21k when I first moved here and I still find it tough earning significantly more than that now. Paying £1,400 pcm in rent hurts a lot.

Unless you're living in one of the rougher areas, living in this city ain't cheap and it's a bloody sight more expensive than the rest of the country.

wuut 1.4k for rent? cmon now :) i live in one of the "Worst" areas in london - tottenham and i really find it fine! ?! tube is less than a mile away! :) central london takes me 50mins on bicycle.. ~40mins with tube.. and rent is 1.2k for the whole house with 5 rooms, garden etc..
 
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That sounds about right. One of the reasons some postcodes are so sought after and others not is commuting time. Just living on a slightly different line can make the difference between a half hour commute and an hour commute. When you start talking about an hours commute it suddenly makes no sense to live in London... An hours commute to central London can allow you to live in most of the south east, on a mainline. Where I live I could get a 3 bedroomed house for the same price as a single room, obviously the commuting costs would be more, so I'd have to get a flat to myself or something. The last train home is way after the tubes shut down anyway and as much as some people love night buses they really are rubbish if you don't live on a specific route or want to get anywhere fast... May as well just spend a couple of hours outside the station and get the first train home in the morning...

My old commute was 1.5 hours each way, from zone 4 SW to zone 2 W. Cost £160 a month.

My new commute is 1.5 hours in, 1 hour back, from zone 4 SW to Addlestone, and costs me £230 a month. But the new job pays more, so the relative increase doesn't really matter.

The things annoys me is that there isn't an equivalent of the M25 for trains. We were looking at moving to Kent in a few years, but it would mean catching a train in to London, and then back out, at a huge cost in time and money. The alternative is an 80 mile car journey every day for only slightly less money. :(
 
Soldato
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Wow, guess I should think myself lucky - never needed a car.

1993-1995 - job 20 minute walk away.
* 1995-2007 - job 10 minute walk away.
* 2008-2009 - job 8 minute walk away.
2011 - job 20 minute walk away.
* November 2012 onwards - job 8 minute walk away.

* These three jobs at various companies all on the next street, always gone home for lunch.

I live more or less on top of an industrial area, Chemical / Pharmaceuticals, Food processing / exports, Electrical/Mechanical Engineering, privatised housing sector head office for N/E Lincolnshire all around me lol.
 
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Caporegime
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My old commute was 1.5 hours each way, from zone 4 SW to zone 2 W. Cost £160 a month.

My new commute is 1.5 hours in, 1 hour back, from zone 4 SW to Addlestone, and costs me £230 a month. But the new job pays more, so the relative increase doesn't really matter.

The things annoys me is that there isn't an equivalent of the M25 for trains. We were looking at moving to Kent in a few years, but it would mean catching a train in to London, and then back out, at a huge cost in time and money. The alternative is an 80 mile car journey every day for only slightly less money. :(

For some reason the trains south are rubbish. I used to go to uni in Egham and it was a 40 minute journey into Waterloo...:confused:

Go north to somewhere like hertfordshire or bedfordshire and 20-25 minutes will get you 20-30 miles outside London. I think Brighton is also less than an hour away by train as well. Why the **** would you want to commute an hour and a half when you live in London! It's why the rent is so cheap.:p

As an example I live in north Herts and it takes me (inc walk to and from station) less than an hour to get into work... It takes a friend longer to commute from Clapham (because we work north of the River)... It's one of the reasons I won't look outside Zone 1 and inner zone two for housing and would prefer to live within easy cycling distance of work...
 
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My family live in peterborough but the commute is 2 hours one way and still costs getting on for £700 for a months ticket.

2 hours from boro to London? It's a straight line to Kings Cross etc, takes 50 mins max. Where in London do you work?

Last time I checked a monthly ticket was around £250. Have you even looked into it?
 
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2 hours from boro to London? It's a straight line to Kings Cross etc, takes 50 mins max. Where in London do you work?

Last time I checked a monthly ticket was around £250. Have you even looked into it?

I work in borough, I have to get to the station at peterborough queue in the morning to get onto the tube platform in the mornings 15mins on the tube then the walk to work. :( I have done tho for two months!
 
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I think Brighton is also less than an hour away by train as well. Why the **** would you want to commute an hour and a half when you live in London! It's why the rent is so cheap.:p

Brighton is indeed around an hour away on the train (to Victoria/Blackfriars/London Bridge) but from having a few mates who live there I don't think it's all that much cheaper. I know there's lots of people who commute to Brighton but the prices are why it's sometimes known as London by the sea.

For the original post - I suppose my first thought would be that if this is a good job which offers good prospects then how long is it until you'll see the benefit of them? It tends to be a lot easier to put up with a less than ideal situation if you're aware that it's for a limited time and you can focus on when it will get better.
 
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£1,400 pcm rent? Where do you live? Hempstead??

London is notorious for high rents, moving to the outskirts isn't too bad. I feel sorry for the students that come from overseas. They think they're getting an a good deal but the living conditions are worse for the rent they pay.

wuut 1.4k for rent? cmon now :) i live in one of the "Worst" areas in london - tottenham and i really find it fine! ?! tube is less than a mile away! :) central london takes me 50mins on bicycle.. ~40mins with tube.. and rent is 1.2k for the whole house with 5 rooms, garden etc..

Are you renting a place on your own?

West Hampstead, alone, and it isn't a flash area at all. £1,400 is the going rent round here (W Hampstead/Finchley Road/Swiss Cottage) for comparable digs though.

I know I could get much cheaper rents living South of the river *shudders* or in East London - but why would you want to live there? Previously I lived in Croydon and Enfield, both much cheaper, both with a much longer (and expensive) commute.

I'm moving to Sevenoaks next month purely because the cost of renting leaves such a foul taste in my mouth. Moving in with a mate and will be paying a much more palatable £490 pcm. :)
 
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West Hampstead, alone, and it isn't a flash area at all. £1,400 is the going rent round here (W Hampstead/Finchley Road/Swiss Cottage) for comparable digs though.

I know I could get much cheaper rents living South of the river *shudders* or in East London - but why would you want to live there? Previously I lived in Croydon and Enfield, both much cheaper, both with a much longer (and expensive) commute.

I'm moving to Sevenoaks next month purely because the cost of renting leaves such a foul taste in my mouth. Moving in with a mate and will be paying a much more palatable £490 pcm. :)

Sevenoaks is one of the places we shortlisted for our first house when we sell the flat, but the commute just would not work for me :(
 
Soldato
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People's assumptions about London are so out of whack.

I moved down here from Manchester for a job on 22k, found a flat in Zone 2 that is 4th floor, wooden floors, balcony which you can see the shard and the gherkin from, tube stop outside the door and less than 15 minutes to Oxford Circus.

Perchance do you live in Finsbury Park ? That's my guess.

It can totally be done. I don't see why people moan on about how awful London is all the time. as has been stated there is always something to do. sure you can't live in the centre but you dont have to with london. thats the beauty of the tube. there's also not much in the centre but shops.

I my self live north in Finsbury park pushing to crouch end. really lovely part of London. 700 a month all in, myself and 2 others, with a bit to spare. awesome pubs around. lovely restaurants. can get to the victoria line in 4 mins ( bus ) or 15 mins walk and then any where in london. I managed it fine on 17K was a smidge annoying but thems the breaks.

OP, start cycling around. it will save you cash. the only reason i didn't do it is because im the guy who would kill my self. Also. I fail to see why you want to go to Uni. Are you already in the career path you want ? I would imagine you could train up in the job unless you want to be an engineer or something that requires a degree. Otherwise stick it out. by the time people come out of uni looking for work. they won't find any and youll be earning more dosh
 
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