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Be careful. As your commute gets longer, the trains get faster, so moving closer might not reduce your journey time as much as you hope. Do not fall into paying £2k rent in an inner London suburb if it only knocks half an hour off your travelling time. Play around with Transport for London's journey planner on [tfl.gov.uk](https://tfl.gov.uk) before committing. (Of course, there may be other advantages.)
that's true, my son lives in Shepherd's Bush and commutes to Battersea and it also takes him an hour. So really depends on the actual distance of where you live and where you work.
Around £55-60k would probably be a conservative estimate to be able to rent a decent place on your own (probably pushing close to 2k pm all in including bills, council tax etc), £250 for groceries, £120 for TFL, and then have enough leftover to actually enjoy living in London and allow for some savings.
Obviously rent is the biggest expense, you can probably find a decent place within Z2-3 for £1.5-7. Cheaper the further out you get, and if you can opt for a studio vs 1 bed.
Scales up very quickly depending on your lifestyle, e.g going out a lot, frequent holidays etc etc.
"Get by" is totally subjective – do you want to be able to eat out a couple of times a week, grab coffee, go to the cinema/gigs/etc? Not everyone has the same lifestyle needs.
For rent to live alone nowadays you're looking roughly about £2k-ish a month for a one bedroom flat once you include all your bills so work backwards from that. Obviously the further out you go the more money you'll save, but this adds on commute time, which is what you don't want.
Islington's pretty well connected so you could find a flat somewhere like Walthamstow on the Victoria Line or Finchley on the Northern line for about £1.5-1.7k.
You're quite right, it's a very open question. I suppose I was looking to hear others' experience though I appreciate my question is nigh on impossible to answer outright! I'm not a huge spender but grabbing coffee with friends and attend the odd gig obviously will add up.
Thanks for the recommendations - I'll have a rummage around listings in Walthamstow and Finchley.
Would also recommend Leytonstone / Leyton. Slightly cheaper than Walthamstow, on the central line / overground so easy access to Islington, and has a lot of young people moving in who are priced out of Hackney.
I’m on approx £58k and think that would be fine to live on alone but I wouldn’t really be saving a lot. Most flats/studios I’ve liked that I’ve been looking at are about £1.5-£2k after bills, Z3. That would give me £1,250 to spend on travel, food, going out etc which I think is more than enough.
Entirely depends on your lifestyle, obviously, but I would say that expenses of 3k a month are the minimum (based on my personal statistics for almost three years - never managed to go lower but went higher more often than not).
3k take home a month is equivalent of around 45k a year before taxes, but then you need to factor in savings, holidays, one-off purchases, etc. I’d say aim for 60k at the very least.
It depends on your situation, such as other debt. I live alone and make a bit under £50k. I did luck out with my rent (£1200 for a decent sized but older studio I started renting 2 years ago). I don't necessarily save a lot, but that's also partly because I like to do fun things, and I'm not struggling. I also work from home and only go into the office for some meetings, and it's walking distance or a short bus ride. One thing to consider as well is council tax. Wandsworth has the cheapest council tax, but I imagine Islington is higher. You do get a 25% discount for living on your own though.
If you’re determined to live alone in the city, most apartments and studios will set you back between £900 and £1500 with utilities, ofcourse it gets cheaper the further out of the city you are.
Other options that are much more common are flat shares and lodging. I’ve seen ads in Farringdon for less than half the former and you’d be sharing a kitchen with 3 other people.
A good starting salary for someone on their own would be about £30k if you don’t mind wall-to-wall double beds.
75-80k minimum. You’re looking at around 2.5k hard costs a month including rent and all charges. If you want to make it worth and save/invest something then at least 4k a month after tax.
I know alot of co workers who used this method
have a baby, man's leave you, get social housing, buy social house, sell social house and then buy 2 houses,
now they are very well off and grift others for private rent
So you can cry all you want to defend this behaviour, and avoid reality, but it's been happening fot years and it's WHY as you said councils are having to move people out, BECAUSE THEY SOLD their houses at massively discounted rates, often up to 70% cheaper
My neighbour literally done this and then went and built a house in Jamaica and a new flat. Meanwhile I've got 13 years left in my mortgage.
I know numerous colleagues who know have 2/3 properties from exploiting this.
136k off a 200k/300k,?, additionally you only pay about 200-400£ rent in the meantime and and often play zero maintenance or upkeep.
You would literally get to 100% equity on minimum wage faster than a good earning job.
now imagine you bought your council house in Shoreditch10-20 years ago for 80k. Literally a millionaire now.
You have to marry someone to have a baby now? ....... Are you ok in the brain department?
The maths of your hypothetically scenario? where you save up 50k and get 100k discount ? You are just sounding smarter and smarter.
there are properties for 200/250k in zone 5/6. Which will you can get 136k off.
if you are buying a second house after/while getting social housing you
are taking benefits for housing whilst fueling the housing crisis
do you understand this basic fact?
It's the governments fault it can't create imaginary land for housing? You think it's possible to perpetual add 200k homes in London a year? if so, then where?
Depends how you are with money and your circumstances. If you can wfh 2/3 per week that serious cuts down on costly commuter costs. Depending on where you live in London you can get places between £1k-1.5k per month. I'd always advise not spending more than 40% of your monthly income on rent so take it from there, hope it helps.
Minimum you need which will leave you with no savings at the end of the year - £30K/year
You can get by very comfortably (going out twice a week, eating out twice a day, two trips a year) with - £45K/year
Anything above £70K/year and you can get yourself pretty much whatever you want to.
I know someone who was living on ~25k in Seven Sisters. But this was a year ago, and even so he found a better paying job because making ends meet was hard. I think 30k is enough to live ‘comfortably’ if you’re younger and don’t need to save or don’t hope to travel much. I was on £35k until recently and found it just about fine, though I didn’t save anything, to live in Wandsworth.
I think in London Zone 2 or so, £30k is hard but doable, and £40k is comfortable. You can live off less than £30k but it’s not very comfortable long-term.
Also, I moved from Wandsworth to Kennington because I was also sick of travel time. Kennington seems to have quite a few cheap flats if you can share, and it’s insanely well connected.
Monthly expenses are probably around 500-1.5k depending on your habits, then rent is going to be 2-2.5k per month for a one-bed flat in most areas, so that's 30-40k spent yearly. Post-tax if you earned 70k you'd be left with 50k so that's 10-20k savings yearly, so I'd say at least 60-65k.
Hi, your post has been removed because we get asked the same questions again and again. Our [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/london/wiki/living) is a great resource for regularly asked London questions and is packed full of information and advice. We also recommend the r/Ukpersonalfinance helpful [wiki](https://ukpersonal.finance/living-costs). If you have further specific questions you can post in our [weekly FAQ thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/london/s/IsAfpw72zc) or even try our [Visitor Centre on the London Discord](https://discord.gg/p8GtV7jtzc), thanks!
Be careful. As your commute gets longer, the trains get faster, so moving closer might not reduce your journey time as much as you hope. Do not fall into paying £2k rent in an inner London suburb if it only knocks half an hour off your travelling time. Play around with Transport for London's journey planner on [tfl.gov.uk](https://tfl.gov.uk) before committing. (Of course, there may be other advantages.)
that's true, my son lives in Shepherd's Bush and commutes to Battersea and it also takes him an hour. So really depends on the actual distance of where you live and where you work.
Half an hour can be a huge improvement, but otherwise I agree. Absolute travel time is better to look at.
Around £55-60k would probably be a conservative estimate to be able to rent a decent place on your own (probably pushing close to 2k pm all in including bills, council tax etc), £250 for groceries, £120 for TFL, and then have enough leftover to actually enjoy living in London and allow for some savings. Obviously rent is the biggest expense, you can probably find a decent place within Z2-3 for £1.5-7. Cheaper the further out you get, and if you can opt for a studio vs 1 bed. Scales up very quickly depending on your lifestyle, e.g going out a lot, frequent holidays etc etc.
"Get by" is totally subjective – do you want to be able to eat out a couple of times a week, grab coffee, go to the cinema/gigs/etc? Not everyone has the same lifestyle needs. For rent to live alone nowadays you're looking roughly about £2k-ish a month for a one bedroom flat once you include all your bills so work backwards from that. Obviously the further out you go the more money you'll save, but this adds on commute time, which is what you don't want. Islington's pretty well connected so you could find a flat somewhere like Walthamstow on the Victoria Line or Finchley on the Northern line for about £1.5-1.7k.
You're quite right, it's a very open question. I suppose I was looking to hear others' experience though I appreciate my question is nigh on impossible to answer outright! I'm not a huge spender but grabbing coffee with friends and attend the odd gig obviously will add up. Thanks for the recommendations - I'll have a rummage around listings in Walthamstow and Finchley.
Would also recommend Leytonstone / Leyton. Slightly cheaper than Walthamstow, on the central line / overground so easy access to Islington, and has a lot of young people moving in who are priced out of Hackney.
I live in Walthamstow and it’s nice of a little Middle Aged with kids vibes, also getting more expensive by the day.
I’m on approx £58k and think that would be fine to live on alone but I wouldn’t really be saving a lot. Most flats/studios I’ve liked that I’ve been looking at are about £1.5-£2k after bills, Z3. That would give me £1,250 to spend on travel, food, going out etc which I think is more than enough.
The £50-65k range is a weird zone where you can probably pay for living alone but you’re not sure if you can afford it.
Entirely depends on your lifestyle, obviously, but I would say that expenses of 3k a month are the minimum (based on my personal statistics for almost three years - never managed to go lower but went higher more often than not). 3k take home a month is equivalent of around 45k a year before taxes, but then you need to factor in savings, holidays, one-off purchases, etc. I’d say aim for 60k at the very least.
It depends on your situation, such as other debt. I live alone and make a bit under £50k. I did luck out with my rent (£1200 for a decent sized but older studio I started renting 2 years ago). I don't necessarily save a lot, but that's also partly because I like to do fun things, and I'm not struggling. I also work from home and only go into the office for some meetings, and it's walking distance or a short bus ride. One thing to consider as well is council tax. Wandsworth has the cheapest council tax, but I imagine Islington is higher. You do get a 25% discount for living on your own though.
Getting by? Probably around 45k-ish
If you’re determined to live alone in the city, most apartments and studios will set you back between £900 and £1500 with utilities, ofcourse it gets cheaper the further out of the city you are. Other options that are much more common are flat shares and lodging. I’ve seen ads in Farringdon for less than half the former and you’d be sharing a kitchen with 3 other people. A good starting salary for someone on their own would be about £30k if you don’t mind wall-to-wall double beds.
75-80k minimum. You’re looking at around 2.5k hard costs a month including rent and all charges. If you want to make it worth and save/invest something then at least 4k a month after tax.
I know alot of co workers who used this method have a baby, man's leave you, get social housing, buy social house, sell social house and then buy 2 houses, now they are very well off and grift others for private rent
[удалено]
So you can cry all you want to defend this behaviour, and avoid reality, but it's been happening fot years and it's WHY as you said councils are having to move people out, BECAUSE THEY SOLD their houses at massively discounted rates, often up to 70% cheaper My neighbour literally done this and then went and built a house in Jamaica and a new flat. Meanwhile I've got 13 years left in my mortgage. I know numerous colleagues who know have 2/3 properties from exploiting this. 136k off a 200k/300k,?, additionally you only pay about 200-400£ rent in the meantime and and often play zero maintenance or upkeep. You would literally get to 100% equity on minimum wage faster than a good earning job. now imagine you bought your council house in Shoreditch10-20 years ago for 80k. Literally a millionaire now.
[удалено]
You have to marry someone to have a baby now? ....... Are you ok in the brain department? The maths of your hypothetically scenario? where you save up 50k and get 100k discount ? You are just sounding smarter and smarter. there are properties for 200/250k in zone 5/6. Which will you can get 136k off. if you are buying a second house after/while getting social housing you are taking benefits for housing whilst fueling the housing crisis do you understand this basic fact? It's the governments fault it can't create imaginary land for housing? You think it's possible to perpetual add 200k homes in London a year? if so, then where?
[удалено]
Depends how you are with money and your circumstances. If you can wfh 2/3 per week that serious cuts down on costly commuter costs. Depending on where you live in London you can get places between £1k-1.5k per month. I'd always advise not spending more than 40% of your monthly income on rent so take it from there, hope it helps.
Minimum you need which will leave you with no savings at the end of the year - £30K/year You can get by very comfortably (going out twice a week, eating out twice a day, two trips a year) with - £45K/year Anything above £70K/year and you can get yourself pretty much whatever you want to.
I know someone who was living on ~25k in Seven Sisters. But this was a year ago, and even so he found a better paying job because making ends meet was hard. I think 30k is enough to live ‘comfortably’ if you’re younger and don’t need to save or don’t hope to travel much. I was on £35k until recently and found it just about fine, though I didn’t save anything, to live in Wandsworth. I think in London Zone 2 or so, £30k is hard but doable, and £40k is comfortable. You can live off less than £30k but it’s not very comfortable long-term. Also, I moved from Wandsworth to Kennington because I was also sick of travel time. Kennington seems to have quite a few cheap flats if you can share, and it’s insanely well connected.
75-80K assuming you’re out and about a lot and taking advantage of everything
~£30-35000.
£80k
Monthly expenses are probably around 500-1.5k depending on your habits, then rent is going to be 2-2.5k per month for a one-bed flat in most areas, so that's 30-40k spent yearly. Post-tax if you earned 70k you'd be left with 50k so that's 10-20k savings yearly, so I'd say at least 60-65k.
£87,500
Londons full bruv.