Commuting costs to London?

henrygregory

Hi,
I have recently been offered a teaching position at a school just on the edge of Central London. I would get £29,088 pa which would work out at roughly £1759.76 per month after tax or £21,117.07 per year.

I could drive my car to work two days per week (85 mile round trip), but would have to use the train for the remainder. I have been checking up and the train faires are monstrous. To take the train 3 days per week would cost: £71.40 a week or £285 per month.

I would also need to pay my car insurance, tax, service, monthly finance (£150) and fuel fees.

Does anyone else commute to London and if so, how do you manage to afford it, do you get similar to me and manage to afford things?

I am trying to ensure I can afford things now before I accept any job offers.

Thanks in advance

AP007

A travel card just may be cheaper than the 3 days plus the use of the car

Deep_In_Debt

I travel into London every day and yes the train fares are astronomical!

My salary is a couple of grand more than yours. It's a struggle financially but I've learned to cut back on things so I just about manage.

On the plus side, I'm not using my car during the week so saving costs there. I put about £20 of petrol which lasts me over a month!

Remember though if you drive your car to work you may need to pay the congestion charge which could work out quite a bit (not sure how much it is). Will you have free parking at the school?

somethingcorporate

There are a couple of commuter routes where the annual train fare is in excess of £6k. That's £10k of gross wage!

Commuting to london on a small salary is not really a long term option unless you expect to get significant pay rises. I would not want to do it due to the extra day length and stress of dealing with the london transport system.

chanie

My boss told me that something like 3 days a week is the tipping point whereby, if you get the train 3 days a week, its pretty much the same as getting a season ticket, so you may want to look into this.

Avoid Zone 1. I work in Central London, but have found a station in Zone 2, which i travel to and then walk the mile to work. It saves me £100 a month.

Don't get a travel card. A few people at work get season tickets to mainline stations but don't bother with travelcards to get around London. They either walk or hire a 'Boris bike' which I believe is free if your journey is less than half an hour. Sometimes, walking is actually easier and quicker than taking the tube, so check this out.

Use buses. If you get an Oyster card, journeys are about £1.60. However, this is per bus, no matter how far you go.

AP007

chanie wrote: »

My boss told me that something like 3 days a week is the tipping point whereby, if you get the train 3 days a week, its pretty much the same as getting a season ticket, so you may want to look into this.

Avoid Zone 1. I work in Central London, but have found a station in Zone 2, which i travel to and then walk the mile to work. It saves me £100 a month.

Don't get a travel card. A few people at work get season tickets to mainline stations but don't bother with travelcards to get around London. They either walk or hire a 'Boris bike' which I believe is free if your journey is less than half an hour. Sometimes, walking is actually easier and quicker than taking the tube, so check this out.

Use buses. If you get an Oyster card, journeys are about £1.60. However, this is per bus, no matter how far you go.

If you get a ticket to zone 2 busses on the oyster card are FREE! A girl I used to work with would go to Bermondsey (zone 2) then get a bus to London Bridge (where I was based) and pay only for a zone 4-2 ticket.

Buses on the oyster are now £1.40 per trip

The OP is working on the edge of central London so may just be near a mainline station.

henrygregory

Hi there, thanks for all of your posts, it is really useful to hear your tips and suggestions.

Firstly, the school is just on the edge of the congestion zone, so I wont need to worry about paying for that when using my car. But I will need to worry about keeping the car serviced, fueled etc. The trouble with driving to London is not just the miles, it is the jams in the morning, usually worse on a Monday. Sitting in these is no good for the petrol tank or the clutch.

But yes, train faires are very expensive, frustratingly expensive.
I have already considered the season ticket idea however when I logged into the Greater Anglia site and compared prices, I found that a 7 day season ticket worked out at £90.90 as opposed to the £71.40 for x 3 standard return tickets @ £23.80. I have emailed them to clarify as it does say on their site that if you travel 3 or more days per week, season tickets are usually cheaper.

I will wait to see what they come back with. It is looking very tight to me as to how affordable this will be.

AP007

henrygregory wrote: »

.

But yes, train faires are very expensive, frustratingly expensive.
I have already considered the season ticket idea however when I logged into the Greater Anglia site and compared prices, I found that a 7 day season ticket worked out at £90.90 as opposed to the £71.40 for x 3 standard return tickets @ £23.80. I have emailed them to clarify as it does say on their site that if you travel 3 or more days per week, season tickets are usually cheaper.

.

Yes cheaper as in cheaper to get a season ticket compared to 5 returns and you can use this at weekends plus you get discount on all rail journeys for up to 4 people I think with a gold card so that's a plus if you are going somewhere with friends.

I think for the miles you may be travelling it works out as not too expensive. Its the tube thats really expensive for the miles travelled Booooo

Russe11

say you lived in Norwich, to get into london LST, costs 107.70 a day(return), the only people that it would make sense to do that sort of commute are for companies that pay the travel or if your on a nice lumpy day rate in the 650+bracket.

but if you by two tickets Norwich to Manningtree(24.20), Manningtree to LST(48.00)... then that only costs £72.20, its the same train, no changes, same times. So breaking the journey down can be a solution to save a third on the day tickets.

But the 7 day ticket is only £179.60 so if your traveling more thana couple days thats already cheaper... 7 day tickets really do drop the costs, less than £36 pound a day. So if your on a average contractor rate its a very fair price to pay. Considering you get internet on the train and can do work at the same time.

I think if travelling to work costs more than a hour at work then its pretty stupid(sure there will be plenty who could say they spend 2-3 hours of their earnings on travel).

Most commuters look at the season ticket cost and just knock it straight off the salary, i'd say for a teacher it makes no sense to use trains or commute long distances.

Annisele

Would you be able to park at the school?

I work in zone 2, and my employer charges something like £110 a month for a parking spot. That sounds a lot to me (I don't drive) - but apparently it's a good deal compared to the other local options.

Would moving nearer the school be an option?

henrygregory

Lucky for me, I would be able to park at the school for free. I have worked for them before in the past part-time and the carpark is free, but does get very busy. I also experienced lots of car problems as I was doing quite a large mileage. I would need to try and balance things out a little so that the car lasts but without expensive repair bills.

I would need to take the train from Stansted to London Liverpool Street. I would not need to get the tube, busses or DLR. If the weather was really bad, I would need to take a short tube journey but that would only be in very severe cases.

I think as some other members have already said on here, ideally I should be earning over 32k to have a sensible level of earnings left after paying for commuting.