How to live cheaply in London

Anyone got tips on how to live "frugally" in London (preferablly in the LSE area)....Tips on any aspects of day-to-day living from buying food, getting a cell phone, getting arround (tube, bus) would be appreciated. Hints on ripoffs are also good too...

I am a pretty frugal person but would appreciate some tips from people who actually live in London.

Reply 1

stockmausen

Allo! Last year was my first year in London, here's some things I didn't do that would have saved me a chunk of money:

-LEARN TO COOK! Even very basic stuff. You'll find your meals are costing you a few pounds a day instead of treble that, or more. Try if you can to find someone who has Costco membership, and buy huge amounts of food at the beginning of term. Aldi and Lidl were practically built for students.

-Don't eat out more than 1 or 2 times a week. This was my biggest problem: you don't feel like cooking so you get a pizza or a takeout. If you're doing this every day, your money disappears pretty damn fast...

-If you're heavily into music and have broadband: www.slsknet.org. Nuff said. And you can still buy the 12" if you really need it. You can;t afford to impulse buy!

-Buy textbooks & novels second-hand. Judd Books on Marchmont Street near LSE halls of residence is fantastically cheap, 2 or 3 quid for often brand-new paperbacks.

-Use email instead of the phone. Save your phone for when you immediately need it, like meeting a friend up or ringing your mum.

That's all I can think of. Good luck at LSE!

-Ali

London School of Economics

London

Reply 2

tonnu

the easiest thing to cut is FOOD

think about it, a sandwich (crap ones) are 2 pound-ish (wright's bar) or good ones 3 pounds up, and a proper meal (crap ones) are 5 - 10 pounds. now, if you cook, it's much much cheaper and you can save up to 30 pounds a week if you eat out alot.

Reply 3

Resonance

My room is going to be at a catered hall. Can anybody tell me whether or not this is cost efficient?

Reply 4

aliel

Resonance

My room is going to be at a catered hall. Can anybody tell me whether or not this is cost efficient?

Yep, it is generally.

Reply 5

Seneca

How to live cheapely in London?

Very easy, you can't. The only thing that you can do is, as others suggested, cook by yourself, buy a bus pass instead of a travel card (I don't like the tube) and avoid the pubs and their expensive drinks (ok you can go out sometimes, social life is an investment).

Then you can live with half of the money that the school recommends. And please do not buy these huge packs of rice and food as Stockmausen said, I really hate these 10 kg bags of basmati in my kitchen.