London - Cost Of Living

PabloNeruda

Adam2007 wrote: »

Hi,Probably in central London for work, so somewhere that isn't too far away

Dream on!!!

Melissa177

It's possible to find a house share cheaply, close in. Look around Lambeth North/Waterloo area. I rented a room in a house for 100 a week about twenty mins walk from Trafalagar Sq a couple of years back. A friend of mine had a similar place for 80 a week (another not quite as nice).

RHemmings

Adam2007 wrote: »

Hi,Probably in central London for work, so somewhere that isn't too far away (although is it cheaper to live nearer and have less travel costs, or live further and have higher travel costs?!).Thanks for your help.

Harrow and Wealdstone should be cheaper than the figures you quote. It's also time-wise quite close to the center as the train to Euston is fast. But I've heard that in recent years the place has gone downhill and is a bit of a dump. Though you could get something like the following flat for £550 a month, a fair bit less than the £200 (presumably a week, so £866.66 a month) or £275 (£1191.66 a month) mentioned so far.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-15700247.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=rent

Going further into London to reduce travel costs is IMHO unlikely to work as anything saved with travel will likely be lost due to higher rents.

RHemmings

Feanor wrote: »

I think a huge amount of that depends on what area you are looking at! Where will you be working? Do you want to be close to where you work, or at least within commuting distance? Travel expenses are a big thing to include when moving to London. As an example, i live in zone 6 and travel to zone 1 which costs me £165 a month!

But surely that covers a lot of your other travel costs as well. Someone living in zone 1 is still going to be paying something for public transport, even if not £165 a month.

Melissa177

A zone one travelcard is about 85 a month (covers zones 1 and 2).

Bus passes are cheaper.

Orion_3

I live in Lewisham, work in Charing Cross. Travel card costs just over £50 a month, and means I can go to and from London Bridge, Waterloo, Lewisham and Charing Cross during the weekend too. Anywhere else in Central London I can pretty much walk.

Ximian

Like most people have mentioned already, the cost of living in London is largely dependant on where you live. I lived in zone4 2 years ago and a double room in a house share was £450 all inclusive.
To rent a one bed flat or studio flat in the same area is roughly £700-£800 a month excluding bills.
Transport can be costly but you can also buy monthly/season tickets which will help reduce the transport costs.
When I first started looking for houseshares in London I used Loot:
http://www.loot.com/property

There are a few sites available that can help with flatshares/housemates etc:
http://uk.easyroommate.com/index.aspx
http://www1.flatmateclick.co.uk
http://www.housepals.co.uk/
http://www.housepals.co.uk/cgi-bin/proplist.pl

Bargain_Rzl

Melissa is right about the Lambeth North/Waterloo area - there's good value rented and shared rented accommodation round there. Similarly Vauxhall, which is also Zone 1 (I have a colleague who's just moved into a shared flat there and she's paying about £350pcm I think).

I'd also second what Orion says. If you work within walking distance of London Bridge, Waterloo East or Charing Cross you may find you only need a rail ticket rather than a Travelcard, and there are some excellent value areas in zone 2 accessible from these stations: Lewisham, New Cross, Deptford etc.

I can only advise on South and South East London as it's my "patch"

Generali

It's also worth having a look at the Finsbury area. There are some cheaper (ex-council) places there. Ditto Bloomsbury.