Budget Question

Hi everyone, my husband was recently offered a job at £80,000. We would really like to make a move to London work financially for us. With taxes, it looks like his take home amount will be around £4,446.97. If we allot £1,500 for housing, is £3,000 enough for other regular monthly expenses? His office would be in Hammersmith, and we would be ideally like to rent a one bedroom flat in one of the nicer but not super expensive areas of London within commute distance to the office via the Tube. No car, we don't have kids yet but we do have two dogs I am not planning on working but that could change. What monthly expenses occur regularly that I should factor in? Does this sound like a reasonable amount of money to live off of for two adults? Cheers!

£80k is a very good salary in the UK. You should allow more than £1500 for housing but less for your regular expenses.

Thank you for replying back. Do you have any idea how much more do you think the average rental costs would be?

For housing rentals you can look at www.rightmove.co.uk, which should give you a good idea of what you will get for your money in London. Be prepared for less space, fewer bathrooms, possibly no closets and quite high rents than you are used to in the US (unless you live in NYC!), and possibly for it to be challenging to find a pet friendly rental.

Thank you for replying back. Do you have any idea how much more do you think the average rental costs would be?

It depends on what type of property, the location, and how much you can budget for it.

I'd say that people who have recently posted here on the forum and who are moving to London on work transfers are budgeting around £2,000-2,500 per month for accommodation.... but that is still relatively expensive for rent, and you might be able to do it cheaper as well - just depends on your personal preferences for where to live.

In terms of other expenses, I would estimate anywhere from £500 to £1,000 per month - utilities (council tax, water, gas, electric) will probably come to £300-400 per month, but it really depends on how much you spend on things like food, transport, mobile phones, TV, broadband etc. as to how much more you will spend.

I live in Lincoln which is much cheaper than London and last year I was renting a 2-bedroom house with gardens and parking space for £450 per month. Then all my expenses (utilities, food, transport, mobile phone, TV/internet) came to about another £300 or so per month.

General monthly expenses would include:
- council tax... usually around £100-150 per month (paid over 10 months), but depends on the property (can be anywhere from about £1,000 to £2,000 per year)
- water, gas, electricity... maybe £100-150 per month
- TV/broadband/landline... anywhere from about £20 up to about £100 per month, depending on what services you want (how fast your broadband is, what TV channel packages you want, whether you pay extra for movie channels or for sports channels, or if you just go for broadband with no digital TV package etc.)
- mobile phones... maybe £20-40 per month depending on phone plans
- food... depends on your eating habits - if you eat out a lot then your food budget will be quite high, but if you home-cook all the time, you can eat cheaply. Generally groceries in the UK are cheaper than in the US, but restaurants are much more expensive.
- transport... if you get Oyster cards for the tube/buses, it's cheaper to travel around London (prices are here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/tube-dlr-lo-adult-fares-jan-2014.pdf)

Essentially though, I don't think you have much to worry about. £80,000 is a very high salary in the UK. It will put your husband in about the top 3% of earners in the country. The average salary for workers in London is only £34,000 before tax and something like 90% of the UK population earns less than £40,000 per year!