Cost of Living in LONDON 🇬🇧 | What I Spend In A Month 2021 - YouTube

where do i even start with london it's one of  those places that completely draw you in people  

from all over the world myself very much included  come here hoping to soak up all the culture  

the history and the beauty but all of it comes  with a hefty price tag and today i want to tell  

you all about how much the privilege of living  in london really costs whether you've come here  

hoping to move to the british capital or you're  just curious no shame in that you have come to the  

right place i'm gonna start breaking it down by  talking about my rent which is the biggest expense  

that you're going to have when i moved back to  london one and a half years ago i did what most  

people my age tend to do i went onto a website  called spare room where you can find flatmates  

and different houses and flats and i did just that  i found three housemates and together we rented a  

place in the london bar of southwark which is in  southeast london and we rented a four bed house  

we are in zone 2 which means we're quite close to  central london we have the overground nearby and  

loads of space now we're no longer straight out  of uni so we were happy to splash out a little  

bit more than we might have been in the past so  my rent comes to 800 pounds a month to give you  

a bit of an idea what different kind of money  brackets can get you i've pulled a few examples  

this first flat is in zone two so relatively  central and you can get this room for 475 pounds  

a month with bills included next up is this more  spacious two bed house in stratford for 750. it's  

a bit further out but it's an up-and-coming area  very well connected it has the olympic park nearby  

and the westfield shopping center this third one  is a studio in pekum it's in zone 2 and close to  

an overground station but you can see that living  alone is expensive at 1 000 pounds per month and  

the place is really quite tiny final example  here's what paying 1841 pounds per month could  

get you it's a really beautiful modern house but  considering how much you're paying you don't get  

a huge amount of space so that's it 800 pounds on  rent bearing in mind that you can pay a lot less  

and definitely definitely a lot more next up let's  move on to bills and utilities number one you've  

got water which comes to about 10 pounds a month  then you've got gas on electricity that's about 10  

yeah 10 pounds a month as well and then finally  you've got internet for us we pay 44 pounds a  

month for fiber optic virgin internet this next  expense is very uk and london specific and that  

is council tax council tax is money you pay  to your local council i know right in order  

to provide vital services like taking out the bins  and funding libraries keeping the streets nice and  

tidy on the government website if you type in your  address you will be able to see how much you pay  

and also how much other people on your street  pay and this depends on the value of the property  

another very british custom is paying for a tv  license anyone that owns a tv in the entire land  

has to pay this fee and the fee comes 259 pounds  a year which i think is pretty steep and finally  

the one thing that we pay for here at home that is  a bit of a luxury we have a cleaner that comes in  

every fortnight although that sounds like a really  indulgent thing it comes to 25 pounds per person  

per month so to me that is totally worth it but  there are financial benefits to living in the uk  

as well chief among them the nhs you don't have  to pay for private health care on a monthly basis  

the state takes care of it for you now there are  things that are taken things being money here that  

are taken out of your paycheck every month but  once that is taken care of you don't even get the  

money so you don't feel like you're partying with  it that's it you do have to pay extra for dentist  

appointments and stuff like that but on the whole  it is very affordable very well managed and we  

love the nhs here all those expenses come to 95  pounds a month and don't worry we are just getting  

started because our next category is subscriptions  none of these are directly related to living in  

london but they are the kinds of expenses that  people with a lifestyle that's similar to mine  

tend to have number one i paid 10 pounds to voxy  they're my phone provider i get i don't even know  

six gigabytes of internet or something like  that it's a it's a pretty sweet deal next up  

we've got lightroom now this is quite a lot of  money i paid 10 pounds for it on a monthly basis  

but i use it to edit my photos from my instagram  which by the way you should totally follow  

epidemic sound again this is very me specific it  is a big library of royalty-free music which i use  

on my video you probably beautiful isn't it worth  every penny next up we've got email hosting again  

very specific to me i pay four pounds 60 for this  it's called the google suite next up we've got two  

wildly unnecessary ones but a lot of us probably  have them and that is a a netflix subscription  

which in the uk costs nine pounds 99 and then a  spotify subscription which costs 8.99 these prices  

by the way vary based on where you are so for  example my parents in the czech republic pay a lot  

less money than me um what i'm saying here is if  you have a card and an address in another country  

maybe think about it okay i'm not saying i'm just  saying three more left i've got website hosting  

which costs me seven pounds 20 every month again  a very me expense then we've got icloud which um i  

just paid to boost my storage to 200 gigabytes and  that cost me two pounds 49 and finally something  

that for me is like a really nice to have that i  could drop if i had to is online language classes  

i take classes on a website called italki it is  super useful i've mentioned it in basically all my  

language videos i have left a discount link in the  description below if you want to check it out one  

more that i should mention that i'm not paying for  currently but i hopefully will once we're out of  

lockdown is the gym so i used to go to a local gym  that is actually extremely affordable and it costs  

22.99 which is kind of wild especially in  london my subscriptions come to 85 and 27 pence  

every month which frankly isn't great so maybe  doing this video is going to be really good for  

me maybe it's going to force me to reevaluate my  budget in fact i already am and i feel terrible  

our next category is travel and this has obviously  been deeply impacted by all the lockdowns we've  

had over the past year but on a regular basis  and the life i hope will return to someday i  

would buy something called a monthly travel card i  typically get a zone one two three travel card and  

that costs 167 pounds and 10 pounds so it is not  cheap and if you do want to lessen the burden of  

traveling on public transport one thing you can do  is stick with buses now it will require a lot more  

time and a lot more patience because they tend to  have a fair few delays but here is the math if you  

travel by bus only you will pay four pounds and  65 pence per day which adds up to 87 pounds and 60  

pence per month now if you have a car we're moving  on to the opposite side of the spectrum that will  

cost you a lot of money and i'm not just talking  about the upkeep and the insurance and the gas i'm  

talking about physically going into central london  we have something called the congestion charge  

and it adds up to 15 pounds per day our next  category is a big one food now i say it's big  

not because it necessarily needs to cost a lot of  money but because there's so much variability for  

example some people will be very content just  getting the basics cooking at home and that's  

it and that way you can save a ton of money but  if you're uh like me for example sadly you might  

end up spending a lot of money on this i have put  together all of my shopping for the past month the  

total sum was 122 pounds and 52 pence and that's  just on groceries i then proceeded to add up my  

takeaways and obviously currently i'm not eating  out in restaurants but if we weren't in lockdown  

i suspect i would be spending even more because  when you go out to a restaurant you might get a  

bottle of wine etc we all know how it is i spent  87 pounds and 70 pence on takeaways last month  

and i should point out here that it was february  which is a much shorter month so i don't even  

that brings us to a grand total of 210 pounds  and 22 pence for food which yeah is not great but  

it is what it is when in lockdown sometimes you  just get to treat yourself and um i do want to  

point out here that obviously your bill for food  can be just so much lower it could literally be  

half that if you really really stuck to a budget  okay we're gonna talk about salaries and how  

affordable london really is vis-a-vis how much  you make in a bit but before that i want to finish  

with my last category which is just other they're  these random expenses that you have on a monthly  

basis they can be clothes they can be i don't  know medicine or skin care the grand total was  

76 pounds and 44 pence for my other spending okay  and now the moment we've all been waiting for  

the grand total i don't really want a drum roll  for this but let's have one for dramatic effect  

my hands are sweating i mean this is going to be  terrible the grand total is it's 1434 pounds and  

one pence oh dear yeah now it's a standalone  figure that looks scary but it doesn't really  

mean much we need to compare it to a base salary  and in order to do that i have prepared three  

different salary levels to compare the sums number  one i want to start with the average london salary  

glasgow thinks that the average salary in london  is 40 732 pounds let's have a look at how much  

that leaves us with on a monthly basis after tax  i just typed the numbers in here and here's our  

figure 2 612 pounds every month after tax and now  for the fun bit let's subtract my monthly spending  

from this figure what we are left with is 1178  pounds which frankly is pretty promising that to  

me doesn't look bad at all you still have plenty  left over for savings which i think is something  

that's very very important you always want to  have an emergency fund in case the world goes  

bonkers like it just did but there are many many  many people in london working for minimum wage the  

london living wage at the moment is 10 pounds 85  pence let's say we times that by 35 which can be  

the average work week for somebody who is working  on that wage we get to a grand total of 19 747  

per year this annual salary will leave us with 142  pounds per month after tax let's take my spending  

figure and subtract it and look what we're left  with we're left with a deficit of 12 pounds and  

three pence now of course if that was your annual  salary you would adjust your spending habits  

and you would cut out a lot of the luxuries  however let's bear in mind the fact that i  

am single and i don't have children there are so  many single parents out there who do have to make  

this money stretch not just for themselves but  for other people they are supporting so yes it  

can be difficult to live in london for our final  salary scenario let's look at a different source  

here they listed the average salary for women  aged 22 to 29 which is the bracket i fall into  

based on this scenario we would go home with 1704  pounds every month after tax and when we subtract  

my spending we are left with 269 pounds and 97  pence there are a lot of people in london in their  

late 20s early 30s that are covering their bills  every month but struggling to save money so that  

is definitely something to bear in mind if you  are thinking of moving to london another thing  

to bear in mind is that yes renting can seem  affordable but buying is near impossible for  

anyone our age which makes us very different from  the previous generation and there you have it this  

is how much living in london costs me on a monthly  basis obviously these figures will vary month to  

month if you have any other questions about living  in london do let me know and i might make a video  

answering them thanks for watching and i put  out new videos every friday so see you then

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