Couples in Studios/Shares

silly_boy

Hi,
My partner and I will be living in London with all its hyper-expensive rents and costs. From what I can see, most one beds seem to start minimum £1150 plus bills per month unless you want to be in Zone 4 out, which would add another £100 odd to the monthly expenses because of the cost of a travelcard
We don't work "normal" 9-5s so the commuter belt isn't really an option. We both will regularly have to return on late night trains/potential night busses on occasion - such are the joys of people with new fangled portfolio careers.

Honestly, £1150 is out of our price range so we're looking at studios or maybe a shared flat. Has anyone had to move into one of these after already living essentially in your own space, in a one/two bed flat? What are your experiences? Is this all an enormous mistake/is it actually nowhere near as daunting as it sounds (I mean obviously I get there are hundreds of people in much worse situations).

Thanks,

SC

Minkybob

I've been renting in London for the past ten years and can tell you it can be done! (I earned 10k a year when I first lived here)... often times at a price, however.

Essentially it's all about compromise and your personal preference of what you can and cant live with.
So both sharing and studios are options depending on if you can go from having your own space to sharing with strangers (who are not always considerate of others), for the benefit of often larger living space, separate kitchen possibly even a living room or garden! On the other hand a studio can offer you your personal space, if much less of it.

There are other ways to save money, you could only get busses only travel card, or try and live walking distance from work, or get a year travel card (= 1 month free) some workplaces offer a salary sacrifice loan for this.

Velvet_Glove

If you can survive a year in a studio as a couple...you can survive anything. Our first flat was a studio and I only stormed into the bathroom and locked the door once!

silly_boy

possibly even a living room or garden!

Haha I don't want to turn this into too much of a Grr London thread but I love that this is a *possibly*.

Basically, the issue is that we have wildly varying schedules. We're not day jobbers/9-5ers and I regularly need to work from home/maybe find somewhere to work. With a one bed this just about worked. We had a bedroom and living room so we were out of each other's faces when we had work (often at different times), and needed to come and go and often sleep at different times.

I'm worried that a studio flat would compromise this completely

Also, honestly, I'm just used to being just us. Anyone reading this lived just with their partner for a bit before moving in with sharers?

Velvet_Glove

silly_boy wrote: »

Basically, the issue is that we have wildly varying schedules. We're not day jobbers/9-5ers and I regularly need to work from home/maybe find somewhere to work. With a one bed this just about worked. We had a bedroom and living room so we were out of each other's faces when we had work (often at different times), and needed to come and go and often sleep at different times.

I'm worried that a studio flat would compromise this completely

That could be an issue. When we did it, I was studying and he was working shifts in a supermarket. We had desks next to each other (I used the kitchen table) and it was very annoying for me when he wanted to play games but at least I could escape to the uni library.

ruperts

We survived a room in a shared house and a tiny tiny studio with a queen sized bed on different schedules, but that was in the first flushes of romance. I think if we had to go back to that now it would be a bloodbath initially, but maybe we'd soon get used to it. Humans are pretty good at adapting really.