London is a great city to live in but definately not a cheap adventure either. When we made our plans for London I kept on googling to see what things in London cost especially the everyday type of things. That is what this page is all about, the cost of living in London.

Food: Food is generally affordable with a pint of fresh milk costing anything from 50p to a pound. You can buy long life milk for around 30p a litre. Bread can be bought for 50p to a pound fifty. Vegetables at market stalls are a lot cheaper and fresher than the ones you would buy at the major supermarkets. Avoid doing your shopping at a convenience store as they do charge for the convenience of being open most of the time. A lot of people have issues with brand products, if you need to survive a month, you can live like a king on no name brand products from all the supermarkets. I have bought a few bargains like that and there is nothing wrong with the quality.

Clothing: You can buy cheap clothing in London from retailers such as Primark or George. A pair of demin jeans costing you about £4. Tops ranging from £2 - £30. There are loads of clothes for men including suits at bargain prices. The best part of shopping at Primark and George is that nobody will know where you bought it, unless they wear the same clothes. You obviously do get your brand products for sale on the London high street such as Oxford Street.

Utility Bills: The energy and gas bills as well as council tax bills are the worse culprits eating away at your wages. If you are not stubborn and willing to take good advice then try to save energy by not leaving lights or appliances on if you are not using them. Change to energy efficient lightb bulbs and try not to put the heating on unless you are really cold. A lot of people leave their heating on the whole day to have that summer effect in their homes, for what? Seriously, you are suppose to be a little chilly, not walk around with your underwear in the house. That is the best recipe to get a cold / flu. Council tax is unavoidable unfortunately.

Travel: Travel does eat a fair share of your wages but that can be avoided by not taking the tube all around London for short journeys, take the bus. You are paying for the convenience after all. Buy a secondhand bicycle and cycle around London, Ken Livingstone has done wonders for the cyclists over the last couple of years. I have done it and love it, not too much fun in the winter months but great exercise.

Luxuries: Drinking and smoking are luxuries as a packet of 20’s cigarettes cost anything from £5 upwards. A pint of beer is around £1.50 upwards, depending on the brand. Clubs will take you for a ride especially with the whiskey’s and brandy’s.

Entertainment: You will notice a Blockbuster on almost every corner of a high street and it will tempt you to go inside and rent a couple of movies for your night in. Blockbuster charges £3.75 - £3.95 for a two night DVD rental. Quite steep if you ask me. They do have a lot of deals on most of the time. That is when I decided that I would rather spend that £3.75 on a DVD I can keep and watch as many times as I want to. Blockbuster runs this deal quite often where you can buy ex-rentals for cheap. You can get 3 x DVD’s for £15 or 5 x DVD’s for £25, not bad if you add it up. Nothing wrong with the DVD but you save a lot of £££ that way. By the way, you would need a account with them to rent DVD’s, so take a credit card or debit card with you.

Cinema Experience: The cost of a adult movie ticket is anything from £7 - £12 which can be quite expensive. Avoid the West End (Central London) cinemas unless you can afford to splurge. CineWorld has great deals on a Tuesday where you get tickets for half price and I know if you use a Pay as You Go or Contract account from Orange, you can get two cinema tickets on a Wednesday for the price of one by texting the word “FILM” to 241, you will receive a text message confirming the code. You then present this code when purchasing your cinema tickets.

More on this topic soon….