[Sugar.And.Spice]

I'm trying to roughly estimate the costs of living in London, and say i get a job paying £16, 000, i spend £832 per month on bills (loan repayments, council tax etc.) then that'll leave me £500 a month for food and social life.

Is this enough to live on in London?
I know it depends where you live, but roughly?

[jameslad]

Should be okay.. remember, you need to buy food, clothes etc

[Dorito]

that's £125 a week for food and socialising.

I could easily live off that, depends what you spend your money on. I have no issue buying value products so my money always stretches quite far.

[JohnnytheFox]

You might have to consider house-sharing rather than living alone, but other than that you should just about manage..but it won't be in the lap of luxury. I take it £16,000 is before tax?

[Beckyweck]

I don't live in London and I know it costs more, but considering at uni you live on WAY less than 16k, 16k would be alright wouldn't it? I reckon I live on less than 6k a year including bills and rent so even factoring in things like council tax you should have enough to be comfortable.

[fire2burn]

You appear to have forgotten about tax? Don't forget that if you're earning 16k you need to factor in that you'll be paying 20% tax on anything over £8,105.00 and you'll also have national insurance to pay. For someone earning 16k per year you'll lose £1,579.00 to income tax and £1,008.96 to national insurance, so your actual take home pay will be £13,412.04 So if you're spending £832 on bills and other expenses each month you will actually only have £285.60 left over for food and social life, not the £500 you initially anticipated. Just something to keep in mind.

But as was pointed out above, people survive on less for instance those in minimum wage jobs. You wont be living like a king but likewise you wont be eating your shoes in the event the fridge is empty.

[Sugar.And.Spice]

Oh god i forgot about taxes..How much roughly will they be

I don't have any problems buying value things, i've had like, no money all my life, i just want to be able to buy a new top from topshop and not have to budget for the rest of the month becuase of it.

I would like to live well enough on this, i'm so tired of having so little money, all my food is smartprice and only buying one drink when i go out

[fire2burn]

(Original post by Sugar.And.Spice)
Oh god i forgot about taxes..How much roughly will they be

I don't have any problems buying value things, i've had like, no money all my life, i just want to be able to buy a new top from topshop and not have to budget for the rest of the month becuase of it.

I would like to live well enough on this, i'm so tired of having so little money, all my food is smartprice and only buying one drink when i go out

In my above post I listed how much income tax and national insurance you'll have to pay whilst earning 16k. Use a PAYE calculator to work it out for the next 2012/2013 tax year, for instance this one: http://listentotaxman.com/

[emi_sarb]

(Original post by Sugar.And.Spice)
Oh god i forgot about taxes..How much roughly will they be

I don't have any problems buying value things, i've had like, no money all my life, i just want to be able to buy a new top from topshop and not have to budget for the rest of the month becuase of it.

I would like to live well enough on this, i'm so tired of having so little money, all my food is smartprice and only buying one drink when i go out

Use this to find out how much take home pay you'll have after tax and national insurance. Also don't forget council tax, I don't know how much it will be in London but it will probably be at least £1000 per year. You also have transport to work to take into account.

I think its doable but you might end up in a house share eating value food.

[Sugar.And.Spice]

Thanks everyone.

[ForKicks]

Yes it is, but you will need to be frugal with a capital F. You will be on around 13.24k net if 16k is your gross salary. Tough, but doable. This is extremely rough and general, but I would suggest 8k on accommodation, the rest on living.

[calumsteele1]

its perfectly doable dont expect to have many luxuries though

[thefish_uk]

(Original post by emi_sarb)
You also have transport to work to take into account.

Aye - this is a major expense in London. Unless you are cycling to work (in which case you still have to acquire a bike) you're probably going to be after a travelcard or bus pass of some sort.

The cheapest public transport option for getting to work is a bus pass at £72/mo. The tube is much more expensive.

This is going to depend a lot on where you live and where you work, of course - if you don't take transport into account when considering where to live you may find an expensive tube pass is your only sensible option, and you'll have properly screwed yourself over...

[Zophixan]

It is just enough to get by, but you may have to live in less nice areas, far away from central London. At that salary, you may have to trade a bit of your time to live in London; in the sense that you would have to take buses instead of tube: takes alot longer due to the waiting! Bills also suck; heating can be expensive in winter. Council tax isn't great either. Foodwise though, if you buy raw ingredients and make it yourself, you can probabily live on 3/4 pounds a day but it cuts you off socially at work / in the evenings. There won't be much drinking either as the cheapest places I know of are still £2.80 a bottle.

[inkblot]

£16,000 salary = £1,333/month
- £131.58 tax
- £83.95 National Insurance
- £7.50 student loan
= £1,110.30 take home pay/month
- £832 bills
= £278.30 disposable income.

That's really not going to be enough to last you out a month. I'm guessing you didn't put transport costs in bills, because that's another £110-£160 you've got to consider depending on which part of the city you live in and where you're commuting to.

That leaves you with, let's say, £150 for all of your food shopping, nights out, haircuts, clothes, toiletries, gym, gifts and unexpected disasters. I really don't think that would be enough. Could work if you cut your bills back by about £250 though as I reckon you'd need at least £400 to cover general living costs but ideally you'd need to be earning more.

You don't want to be living just on the limit and it really helps to be able to set something aside every month.

[Garam Masala]

(Original post by inkblot)
£16,000 salary = £1,333/month
- £131.58 tax
- £83.95 National Insurance
- £7.50 student loan
= £1,110.30 take home pay/month
- £832 bills
= £278.30 disposable income.

That's really not going to be enough to last you out a month. I'm guessing you didn't put transport costs in bills, because that's another £110-£160 you've got to consider depending on which part of the city you live in and where you're commuting to.

That leaves you with, let's say, £150 for all of your food shopping, nights out, haircuts, clothes, toiletries, gym, gifts and unexpected disasters. I really don't think that would be enough. Could work if you cut your bills back by about £250 though as I reckon you'd need at least £400 to cover general living costs but ideally you'd need to be earning more.

You don't want to be living just on the limit and it really helps to be able to set something aside every month.

To be fair £832 is an overestimation. The OP could easily knock off £200 a month for that.

[ForKicks]

(Original post by inkblot)
£16,000 salary = £1,333/month
- £131.58 tax
- £83.95 National Insurance
- £7.50 student loan
= £1,110.30 take home pay/month
- £832 bills
= £278.30 disposable income.

That's really not going to be enough to last you out a month. I'm guessing you didn't put transport costs in bills, because that's another £110-£160 you've got to consider depending on which part of the city you live in and where you're commuting to.

That leaves you with, let's say, £150 for all of your food shopping, nights out, haircuts, clothes, toiletries, gym, gifts and unexpected disasters. I really don't think that would be enough. Could work if you cut your bills back by about £250 though as I reckon you'd need at least £400 to cover general living costs but ideally you'd need to be earning more.

You don't want to be living just on the limit and it really helps to be able to set something aside every month.

£1,333 would only be for 16k gross. After tax it is about £1,100 a month

[Indo-Chinese Food]

(Original post by Sugar.And.Spice)
I'm trying to roughly estimate the costs of living in London, and say i get a job paying £16, 000, i spend £832 per month on bills (loan repayments, council tax etc.) then that'll leave me £500 a month for food and social life.

Is this enough to live on in London?
I know it depends where you live, but roughly?

You could go on the game and earn £500 a week, according to Cholexxx its legal too!

Im not sure about that though..

[moregano]

(Original post by inkblot)
£16,000 salary = £1,333/month
- £131.58 tax
- £83.95 National Insurance
- £7.50 student loan
= £1,110.30 take home pay/month
- £832 bills
= £278.30 disposable income.

She won't be paying back her student loan on £16k.

But regardless, a huge number of people live in London on that salary or lower. Plenty of people I've worked with in the past have survived on half of that, and no benefits. So yes it is entirely possible to live very comfortably, don't listen to the scare stories! Just remember to be sensible, don't spend stupid amounts of money on clothes/going out, try to live in a less desirable area, or one which is far out but with transport links, try to avoid getting the tube into zone 1 (get off and walk/cycle, or just use buses), and find a room in a house share instead of your own flat.

[inkblot]

(Original post by ForKicks)
£1,333 would only be for 16k gross. After tax it is about £1,100 a month

Yes, that's what it says.