Is £1500 a month after bills in london enough

Ybe

Is £1500-£1600 a month after all essential bills including a zone1-6 monthly travelcard paid enough to live in london. Going out a few times a week, buying groceries, getting the train further out for day trips on weekends and going on holiday abroad 2-3 times a year? Or would it be too tight? 

Ybe

Plus an annual bonus which brings in an additional net of about £4000 once a year. 

flaneurs_lobster

Impossible question.

If the "going out a few times a week" includes a private box at Arsenal, dinner at Gordon Ramsay RHR and best seats at the Royal Opera House then no.

Couple of pints with mates at 'Spoons then probably.

Groceries from Fortnum's, no. Lidl, probably.

Walk-up First-Class rail fare, no. Cheap day return, probably.

Holidays....etc, etc. you get the gist.

adindas

Ybe said:

Is £1500-£1600 a month after all essential bills including a zone1-6 monthly travelcard paid enough to live in london. Going out a few times a week, buying groceries, getting the train further out for day trips on weekends and going on holiday abroad 2-3 times a year? Or would it be too tight? 

Generally speaking 100% yes and there are tons of examples for a single person living with less than that in London. But whether the lifestyle is acceptable to you or not is a different matter.

The best things to do is to produce spreadsheet, you are likely to spend each month and what left after all of that are taken out. And the en what left or break even is it acceptable to you. Only you could answer that question ...

Ybe

flaneurs_lobster said:

Impossible question.

If the "going out a few times a week" includes a private box at Arsenal, dinner at Gordon Ramsay RHR and best seats at the Royal Opera House then no.

Couple of pints with mates at 'Spoons then probably.

Groceries from Fortnum's, no. Lidl, probably.

Walk-up First-Class rail fare, no. Cheap day return, probably.

Holidays....etc, etc. you get the gist.

So basically depends on the lifestyle. Yes I see what you mean. I’d say somewhere in between the 2 extremes. 

flaneurs_lobster

Ybe said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Impossible question.

If the "going out a few times a week" includes a private box at Arsenal, dinner at Gordon Ramsay RHR and best seats at the Royal Opera House then no.

Couple of pints with mates at 'Spoons then probably.

Groceries from Fortnum's, no. Lidl, probably.

Walk-up First-Class rail fare, no. Cheap day return, probably.

Holidays....etc, etc. you get the gist.

So basically depends on the lifestyle. Yes I see what you mean. I’d say somewhere in between the 2 extremes. 

I'm not really sure that MSE is the right forum for this kind of lifestyle discussion, you'll only get people telling you you'd be much better putting the money in a pension or a LISA. 

Tried Reddit? That's got many London-centric sub-Reddits for just this kind of bants.

PartyOfFive

In my 20s (in the 2000s), I survived London on £250pm (rising with job changes) disposable income after all monthly bills were taken care of.
I went out pretty much every single night for 10 years.
Had a blast.
You'll be fine.

Ybe

PartyOfFive said:

In my 20s (in the 2000s), I survived London on £250pm (rising with job changes) disposable income after all monthly bills were taken care of.
I went out pretty much every single night for 10 years.
Had a blast.
You'll be fine.

That was 20 years ago. I suspect things were much cheaper back then. 

[Deleted User]

This question has to be a wind up. There are people up and down the country living on less than what your supposed disposable income. Yes of course it’s enough. You won’t be eating caviar out of a supermodel’s bellybutton every night, sure. But I can’t see how £1.5k disposable wouldn’t be enough. 

enthusiasticsaver

If all your essential bills are covered then yes of course it should be sufficient but of course it depends on lifestyle and where you eat out and go on holiday.  Obviously if  you want to go abroad two or three times a year you would need to save some of that £1500 towards holidays.  So assume £250 per week for food, one or two meals or takeaways a week and other bits and save £500 towards holidays.  There is an assumption there that it is just you. 

adindas

All students on students loan in London are getting much less than that. How many students are studying in London ??

Yes the students get a lot of discount, such as council tax, might be campus accommodation, etc but they are also getting less. The maximum the could get is up to £13,022, that is just £1085.17 pm.

This is the maximum they could get, many students do not get that much.