My GF and I's income combined puts us somewhere over the 90th percentile, but we feel like we're barely above supermarket employees - and we have no dependents. There is no way we could afford the rents on, say, the upper 70% of the whole-house / 2+ bedroom apartment rental market.
I don't understand how most people can afford it, unless they're paying well over 50% of income on rent.
And then there is what the time you spend on your commute is worth to you. If you decide to live >40 minutes outside, it starts to impact any social life you might want to have in central london.
Tip: you are not smarter then other buyers/renters. No offence but all the routes have been considered already. You always pay the price with time or money or lack of quality. Unless you work from home of course :).
I had a nice two-bed flat in E1 for £300/week, which is about 15,600/year. If you're two people earning 25k/year each, you're household take-home will be around £40k making the rent perfectly feasible.
I do not think I understood just how little I survive on.
Our household (girlfriend and I) have a total income of less than £10k per annum.
This puts us worse off than pretty much everyone. But then, the money just doesn't bother me... not that I don't like money, but not having money dictate my life (by choice) gives me the freedom to work on the things I really believe in (the startup).
Is that less than £10k in London? Because that's kind of fascinating, I would have thought £10k in London would be mostly undoable. £10k in some areas outside of London I can see being doable, but not comfortably.
It is in Zone 3, West London, with Chiswick being the closest High St. The 1 bed flat is on a council estate, it's not too small and is well-maintained and the rent is ~£500p/m.
With the remaining money £140p/m covers bills including telecomms, utilities, etc. Because of the building being high-density flats there is a shared oil burner for heating so heating is included in the rent, and additionally it is impossible to meter the water supply and the 1 bed flat means we are on the lowest band of water bill that exists.
We get a discount on council tax (student status of my partner who will graduate with her PhD soon, though she's already passed and is just prepping the final submission) and are in the lowest council tax band of one of the cheapest council tax rates (Hounslow covers Chiswick).
We then spend £250p/m on groceries. This covers all meals and lunches, all toiletries and washing powder, etc. We do not buy anything pre-processed and we cook everything and think about a menu during a shop such that we can buy a few things in bulk that we can use differently in multiple meals. Think veg heavy, some rice and pasta. We tend to eat virtually no meat, but we do have fish when it is affordable.
We have bicycles as primary modes of transport (I run http://www.lfgss.com ). Because I run that forum we are thankfully kept in cycle clothing and cycle parts (not that we consume much of either).
My startup pays a stipend of £400 p/m, and then my girlfriend does a little tutoring, which allows her to indulge in fashion and preferred make-up.
I generally get most of my clothes for free or extraordinarily cheap. Example: Most of my T-shirts are Continental N45 bamboo shirts that would be used in production of marketing T-shirts, and I order and pay for a few blank samples a couple of times a year from somewhere like: http://www.barone.co.uk/products/t-shirts/1/bamboo-t-shirt-f... . You can do this to most of your wardrobe, only jackets seem hard to acquire for cheap but thankfully they last the longest.
As for life-style, we had good quality furniture and white goods before we took the respective paths of the PhD and startup, and we had pretty complete wardrobes. So we live very comfortably.
On social things, we're into art which is mostly free, or academic seminars and CompSci user groups... events at which things like beer and pizza are provided so our cost is thankfully low. With friends we tend to do things like buy a bottle of wine and sit on the South Bank talking politics and dreams as the sun sets over the Thames, or picnics in Richmond Park, walks by the Thames, visits to new restaurants (which generally do phenomenal opening day specials as they test their systems - free meals or extremely cheap meals). We tend not to do TV, and if we have money to spend it's likely to go on books and art cinema.
We want for nothing, not because there is nothing we might want, but that we changed our definition of things we need, and things we desire. We never go window shopping for example, we let needs drive us more than wants.
We just live a fairly cultured, and astonishingly cheap lifestyle. Humble and active living.
PS: Yes we have a little in savings, not a lot at all, but we could cope with an emergency. But in 2 years we have not touched the savings once, and the first 2 months of living with these budget constraints were the hardest... we live well and don't notice a difference between how we are and how our friends are.
I take it you never socialise out or travel? I spend really little as well, not much more than you and a lot of it is transport (I simply cannot remain always in London, it's depressing not to ever change a bit).
In my day-to-day I spend probably a similar amount, but there are expenditures every now and then, over the years.
Anyway, well done. I lived a similar lifestyle long ago, but it wasn't in London. Good luck with the startup!
PS: the council tax cut is not a generalisable condition and while you're in London, you're pretty far away from the centre. I guess most people living within zones 1 and 2 under £40K must be heavily on benefits, or I simply cannot fathom how do they live.
We go to gigs occasionally, and some comedy and theatre. But we're choosy and set limits on how much things are worth to us. We see mainly indie music, and that can be done cheaply enough. Comedy is local. Theatre is always the cheap seats and special deals.
We're also both very well travelled, holidays abroad are the only thing that have majorly suffered by the PhD and startup. But we view that as a temporary thing, a few years at most... that said, the startup took me to San Francisco a few months ago (flights and accommodation paid), and conferences take my girlfriend to Europe occasionally (scholarships cover these). So we have sacrificied overseas vacations together for a couple of years, but we haven't experienced a substantial hit on travel overall.
There are just cost efficient ways to do everything. When YC talk about what people have hacked, and others talk about relentless resourcefulness... I think it shouldn't just be a startup or work, life is ripe for the taking too.
"Household" income is a bit of a pointless stat when you're a bunch of strangers in a flat share—which I'm betting represents a fair proportion of London's earners.
The Institute of Fiscal Studies' application seems to be net of income tax and council tax. Is this the same for the linked graphic? I can't tell by trying to track down the data source on http://data.london.gov.uk/
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 77.3 ms ] threadI don't understand how most people can afford it, unless they're paying well over 50% of income on rent.
Everyone is chasing the dream and everyone thinks that they will be the 1 in 1000 that makes it big.
Our household (girlfriend and I) have a total income of less than £10k per annum.
This puts us worse off than pretty much everyone. But then, the money just doesn't bother me... not that I don't like money, but not having money dictate my life (by choice) gives me the freedom to work on the things I really believe in (the startup).
With the remaining money £140p/m covers bills including telecomms, utilities, etc. Because of the building being high-density flats there is a shared oil burner for heating so heating is included in the rent, and additionally it is impossible to meter the water supply and the 1 bed flat means we are on the lowest band of water bill that exists.
We get a discount on council tax (student status of my partner who will graduate with her PhD soon, though she's already passed and is just prepping the final submission) and are in the lowest council tax band of one of the cheapest council tax rates (Hounslow covers Chiswick).
We then spend £250p/m on groceries. This covers all meals and lunches, all toiletries and washing powder, etc. We do not buy anything pre-processed and we cook everything and think about a menu during a shop such that we can buy a few things in bulk that we can use differently in multiple meals. Think veg heavy, some rice and pasta. We tend to eat virtually no meat, but we do have fish when it is affordable.
We have bicycles as primary modes of transport (I run http://www.lfgss.com ). Because I run that forum we are thankfully kept in cycle clothing and cycle parts (not that we consume much of either).
My startup pays a stipend of £400 p/m, and then my girlfriend does a little tutoring, which allows her to indulge in fashion and preferred make-up.
I generally get most of my clothes for free or extraordinarily cheap. Example: Most of my T-shirts are Continental N45 bamboo shirts that would be used in production of marketing T-shirts, and I order and pay for a few blank samples a couple of times a year from somewhere like: http://www.barone.co.uk/products/t-shirts/1/bamboo-t-shirt-f... . You can do this to most of your wardrobe, only jackets seem hard to acquire for cheap but thankfully they last the longest.
As for life-style, we had good quality furniture and white goods before we took the respective paths of the PhD and startup, and we had pretty complete wardrobes. So we live very comfortably.
On social things, we're into art which is mostly free, or academic seminars and CompSci user groups... events at which things like beer and pizza are provided so our cost is thankfully low. With friends we tend to do things like buy a bottle of wine and sit on the South Bank talking politics and dreams as the sun sets over the Thames, or picnics in Richmond Park, walks by the Thames, visits to new restaurants (which generally do phenomenal opening day specials as they test their systems - free meals or extremely cheap meals). We tend not to do TV, and if we have money to spend it's likely to go on books and art cinema.
We want for nothing, not because there is nothing we might want, but that we changed our definition of things we need, and things we desire. We never go window shopping for example, we let needs drive us more than wants.
We just live a fairly cultured, and astonishingly cheap lifestyle. Humble and active living.
PS: Yes we have a little in savings, not a lot at all, but we could cope with an emergency. But in 2 years we have not touched the savings once, and the first 2 months of living with these budget constraints were the hardest... we live well and don't notice a difference between how we are and how our friends are.
In my day-to-day I spend probably a similar amount, but there are expenditures every now and then, over the years.
Anyway, well done. I lived a similar lifestyle long ago, but it wasn't in London. Good luck with the startup!
PS: the council tax cut is not a generalisable condition and while you're in London, you're pretty far away from the centre. I guess most people living within zones 1 and 2 under £40K must be heavily on benefits, or I simply cannot fathom how do they live.
We're also both very well travelled, holidays abroad are the only thing that have majorly suffered by the PhD and startup. But we view that as a temporary thing, a few years at most... that said, the startup took me to San Francisco a few months ago (flights and accommodation paid), and conferences take my girlfriend to Europe occasionally (scholarships cover these). So we have sacrificied overseas vacations together for a couple of years, but we haven't experienced a substantial hit on travel overall.
There are just cost efficient ways to do everything. When YC talk about what people have hacked, and others talk about relentless resourcefulness... I think it shouldn't just be a startup or work, life is ripe for the taking too.