london living cost

1.

Food - I am on a £25 per week food budget (and pretty much have to stick to it) because unfortunately that is just my financial situation - obviously it'll depend on budget but I still manage this pretty well -- I eat most meals 2x in a row because few things do for 1 meal cheaply, but it's a mix of cooking and ready meals. As long as you meal plan, don't mind eating the same thing a lot, and don't mind going for the store brands, it's not bad, and I can cover 3 meals a day and snacks. Some other food-related notes:

2.

If you're buying tea/coffee from a cafe, it'll be solidly £5 -- I recommend either buying it to make at home and taking a travel cup, or if you want to just grab it occasionally, it's generally a bit cheaper at the student-union run places. Otherwise, if you're up for it, a very popular thing to do is find a friend and get a Pret subscription - £25 a month for 5 free drinks a day, so £12.50 if you split it, and I think you get money off the rest of the time as well (plus, given the sheer number of Prets in central London, you'll never be far from one 😂)

3.

Not a pub-goer myself, but I've been reliably informed to expect ludicrous amounts for alcohol (close to £9 for a pint, as my disgruntled Northern friend once said to me) which is probably why most people do pre-drinks beforehand

4.

Most supermarket food is probably slightly higher priced than elsewhere, but not noticeably, certainly if you can go to a bigger one (though the little ones aren't bad for grabbing a few things). I think Lidl is the cheapest, but Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's are all good too

5.

I can't comment if eating out is any more expensive than elsewhere, when I've been out with my friends it's usually £10-£15 for a lunch from places like Leon, Tortilla etc, but it really depends where you go and what you like. If you ever need to grab lunch though, there's always the student staple of a Tesco meal deal 😂

6.

General tip -- as long as it doesn't require you to pay, get a loyalty card for EVERYTHING. Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Boots (this one is good as you can go once a year with your student ID and get them to add student discount onto your advantage card for 10% off)

7.

Transport - ahh TfL, robbing my money off me every single day. Really, this depends on what zone you're living in vs where you're going. If you're needing to commute, my tip is to get a 18+ student Oyster card (costs £30) and a 16-25 railcard, and you can add the railcard discount onto your Oyster to get the off-peak discount. So, on on-peak it costs me £4.40 to get from Zone 4 to Zone 1, and off-peak with my discount it costs £2.10, which adds up as a big saving especially for going out on weekends and stuff. If you can though, I would recommend getting the bus as it's £1.75 for travel within an hour (and then maybe off-peak discount on top??) so a lot cheaper but not always feasible in some places -- I'd have to get something like 6 buses for a 2 hour journey to campus, vs a 30 minute direct tube lmao

8.

Nightlife - again, not something I'm familiar with but to my little knowledge it's usually around £10 entry, and I think some places might do student/early entry discount

9.

Accommodation -- solidly £10,500+ for a year, MINIMUM, at least for an en-suite. Often a lot more, I am limited by my budget, but it's a lot.

1.

Staying in uni halls -- in my experience, this can be tricky as obviously there is the first year guarantee so very few of my friends who picked this route got places, but it is still an option especially if you like your hall!

2.

Private accommodation -- there are a lot of non-uni run private halls available that are mostly around 10-11k for the year, I think some you can try and book as a group or you can just be in a flat with a mix of other students like in first year. My number 1 tip for this is to start looking around December/January - annoyingly some things don't open around then but other places do, but definitely January/February time is the optimum for booking - don't leave it until March because most places will be sold out!! (saying this from experience 😅)

3.

Flatshares -- most of my friends have gone for this option so in terms of finding people, it's generally the people from your friend group that you'd be happy to live with, and then you can usually find flats that are available for flat shares on real estate websites like YourMove (both general flats and also flat shares that would be with strangers as well I think, but from the brief looking I did for next year you can usually find ones that specify they're for students) -- this has worked out for my friends as the 3 of them share a 3-bed flat and I think the rent between them is about the same as if they'd been in private halls, and they were able to find a place really close to campus