how do salaries compare with style of living?

You can live fine in London as long as you find someone to live with and don't want to live right in the city...you won't be able to go out every night or buy tons of stuff, but I can put some money away & am going on vacation next week...it's a matter of prioritizing.  Plus I love London so it's worth not buying new clothing regularly!

(like me spotting that vacancy as a graphic designer in Devon the other day, for 13k/yr ... first I thought it was a part-time job but NO!  )

That's gotta be a starting salary for a graduate at a pretty low-end kind of place. The Southwest isn't exactly cheap and a designer with a bit of experience would make more than that in Devon unless it's some sort of mom-and-pop kinda place.

Yeah -- it does sound really low!  I'm up North and I've paid attention to ads for graphic design (because of you, balmer!    ), and the salaries are pretty decent.  Maybe the 13K job was aimed someone with no experience or something?  Or maybe it was a typo?   

We live in the Southeast (Reading - 30 miles from London) and its very expensive.  Food shopping is less expensive over here...than in the states...which is a good thing!  Also holidays (vacations) are very reasonible! Clothing and funiture are a bit high but you can catch some good sales if you really look.

On a salary of £25K...the take home (net) is roughly £1500 a month.

Agree with Aimiloo... a £ pretty much = a $.

Julie

thanks everyone for the great responses.  sounds like i dont have much to worry about.  its just a scary thought that id be paying the same amount in pounds as i do in dollars, and to be making less pounds than dollars over all.  oh well, ive got six months to fiugre it out!

Chris, the expense that makes it seem like $=£ comes in a couple of forms. Some good, and some not fair at all. The latter of those two is usually when a company brings their US product to the UK. Because of a whole slew of reasons (some because of the higher cost of manufacture, some because of government regulations, some because of a roller-coaster exchange rate), the price is going to be much higher over here than it is over there.

But there is good news, too. Although the UK charges a massive 17.5 percent tax on some items, this tax does account for a good portion of the "higher cost of living", but it goes toward a lot of things that you then don't have to pay someone else for. Medical care, for instance. Prescriptions. Also, there's no tax on some things over here that are taxed through the nose in the US...winnings, for example. That show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"...in the US you're clearing about $600,000. (Not an accurrate amount; I guessed!) In the UK you're winning about the equivalent of $1,920,000 (due to exchange rate and there's no tax on it).

Okay, so some people take out additional medical insurance, and some people use private medical practices, and the waiting lines for an operation can be more than a year. And it's true that gambling is NOT a way to count on any sort of living, but think of the chances of winning on "Who Wants to be a Millionare"...the population alone of US vs. UK 

i think 30K in the US is the same as 30K in the UK and that the exchange rate means jack squat???

i think 30K in the US is the same as 30K in the UK and that the exchange rate means jack squat???

    

im with otterpop. were those "" not meant to be there?