Can you move to London with no money?

It’s that time of year when many final year students graduate, have a bit of a holiday and then think ‘yikes, what next?’, so the question that we’re asking and answering is ‘Can you move to London with no money?’.

Let’s look at what you’ll need money for when you first move to London.

Accommodation

The biggest wallet zapper of all is the cost of your accommodation, whether it be short-term accommodation such as a hostel, or moving into shared rental accommodation, where you’ll usually need to pay rent and a deposit up front. Of course assuming that we’re not referring to park benches, then a way to avoid paying any accommodation costs when you first move to London is to take up rent-free residence on the sofa or in the spare room of a very understanding friend, family member or romantic interest. If you’re lucky enough to be able to choose this as an option, then thank your lucky stars and make sure that you don’t take advantage. Keep up more than your fair share of domestic duties to keep your hosts happy whilst you’re in residence and be extremely proactive in looking for work and alternative accommodation so that they don’t start to panic that this situation is forever.

Travel

Getting around London can be expensive, but it all really depends on where you’re based and where you need to get to. If you happen to be staying somewhere fairly near Central London and you’re interviewing for jobs and visiting agencies also in Central London, then you may possibly be able to get by without paying for public transport. Instead, if you have a bike, then you could cycle or even walk if you’re really energetic. But if not, then you’ll need to cough up a bit of cash for an Oyster card. You can purchase this in advance of moving to London – visit tfl.gov.uk/oyster for details – basically you pay £5 deposit for a pre-pay Oyster card, then add some credit to it and you can use it until you run out of credit.

Food and Drink

Unless you have exceptionally understanding hosts, you’ll also require some money to pay for food and drink to keep yourself functioning! If you genuinely don’t have any money until you find work, then you’re probably going to have to use a credit card or take out a small loan until you do find a job in London. Not ideal, but neither is starving.

These are the 3 main areas that you’ll require finances for when you first move to London. Of course, the way to give yourself a head start in obtaining money for work is to have started your job searching before you arrive in London.

If you’re UK-based (or from overseas) then the easiest thing to do is to upload your C.V to Monster which is totally free to do and makes your information available to headhunters from big London firms.

If you’re from overseas, then before you leave home you should definitely take a look at this Kickstart package, which as well as providing you with C.V and job assistance, also sorts you out with a UK bank account, National Insurance number, UK SIM card, free accommodation assistance and loads of other helpful services.

So in answer to the question, ‘can you move to London with no money?’, the answer is a technical ‘yes’. Given the right situation and some extremely helpful contacts, you could just about survive in London for a short while with no startup funds. Is it advisable? Probably not. It’s almost always a good idea to have some savings, however minimal, before you relocate to any new location, and London is no exception to this logic.

How to create a great flatshare ad

If you’re looking for rental accommodation and housemates when you first move to London, then we thoroughly recommend that you use a flatmate finding service such as Easyroommate .

With Easyroommate and other flatmate finding services, when you sign up you’ll need to create a profile. Much like meeting people in person, first impressions count and so you’ll need to make sure that you’re showing the best version of yourself to those scouring the database.

Here are some tips that you might want to bear in mind when putting a profile together.

• Where possible, add a photo of yourself. Easyroommate’s research shows that you’re 3 times more likely to be contacted if you add a photo of yourself. It’s not about people judging whether you’re attractive or not, but it is about people sussing out whether they think that you’re their type of person or not. Harsh, but true.
• If you’re going to include a photo in your profile, then be careful about which one you pick. That picture of you dressed up as Frankenstein at last years’s Halloween party, might have been hilarious, but it probably won’t do wonders for attracting potential housemates.
• This is basic, but make sure your ad is written with good spelling and grammar. Some people will judge you if you spell words incorrectly and skip on to the next ad. If you were never a spelling bee champ and aren’t blessed with a strong vocabulary, then turn to a friend or family member who is and ask them to read over your flatmate ad before you post it.
• Sell yourself as a housemate. If you’re a great cook who is going to make a mean Sunday roast then say so. You need to let people know what will be so great about living with you.
• Honesty is important. If you’re thoroughly opposed to living with couples, smokers or pets, then say so in your ad so that you’re not wasting anyone’s time, including your own!
• This isn’t a dating site, but it’s not a dissimilar process. You want your ad to stand out from the crowd, but for the right reasons. Try and come across as friendly – a little humour never hurts either.
• Most flatmate finding services allow you to start by signing up for a free basic profile. Try using this for a week or so and see how you get on. If you haven’t had much luck, then it’s usually worthwhile upgrading to a premium membership for a small fee which will allow you many more options, such as being able to contact everyone on the database and including a phone number if you wish.
Tags: Easyroommate, flatmate finding service, flatshare, housemate, move to london, rental accommodation
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How much money do I need to move to London?

Following on from our ‘How Much Does It Cost To Live In London’ post last week, we’re now going to answer the next burning question for those of you who are looking to move to London in the near future. That being - 

How much money do I need to move to London?

Whether you will be saving this money yourself or borrowing from parents, or a bank, you’ll still need to budget a certain amount before you consider your move to London.

As with almost everything relating to moving to London, the answer to this question isn’t quite as clear-cut as perhaps you’d hope. It depends on that variable factor of ‘circumstance’, as in your own personal situation. Will you be working at a new job from Day 1 of being in London, or are you looking for work? Do you already have accommodation lined up, or will you require temporary accommodation whilst you look for something more permanent?

Either way, let’s take you through some general approximate costs, so you can work out how much money you’ll need saved up before you move here.

If you move to London without securing a job, then the first thing that you should do is upload your C.V FOR FREE to Monster, as you’ll probably want to start earning money as soon as possible. You can actually start looking for work before you arrive and you should possibly try and line up some interviews with recruitment firms for your first couple of days.

If you have already found your job and have the difficult position of having accepted a job, but have nowhere to stay, then unless you’re lucky enough to stay with friends or family for free, you should book yourself into some temporary accommodation. Dorms are often the cheapest option available for temporary accommodation, but they’re not always the most appropriate, particularly if you want a good night’s sleep the night before your first day at work. So, you could choose a private room at a hostel booked through Hostelworld. You can get a private room for as little as £17 per night. Many of the hostels are located in Central London, which is great because it means that you’ll be more likely to be nearer your workplace and you could even save money on transport at the beginning of your stay in London. If you’re looking for something a little less communal than a hostel, you might want to try Accommodation London who are able to offer an excellent standard of accommodation for as little as £48 per night for a self-contained studio apartment. The apartments are an open planned room with 2/3 single beds or double bed, TV, sofa, table & chairs. They’re fully furnished & fully equipped, everything you need is in the apartment, right down to linen. There is also a shared washer & dryer in most of the buildings.

Let’s say for arguments sake that you spend 2 weeks in temporary accommodation whilst making a real concerted effort to find accommodation of a more permanent nature, perhaps in a shared house. In this case, you’ll require between £238 (hostel room) and £672 (studio apartment) depending on your accommodation preferences. Even if you find somewhere you like on the first day of looking, you’ll often find that it can take a week or so for credit and reference checks to be done on you before you actually ‘get the keys’.

When securing long-term rental accommodation through an estate agent, letting agent or private landlord, it’s normal to expect to hand over 1 month’s rent in advance, plus a damage deposit of between 4-6 weeks. If you consider that the average cost of monthly rent in London is around £450 pcm, then this would mean that you’d be required to hand over £1125 upfront (if the damage deposit is equivalent to 6 weeks rent). Ouch! But try and remember that you’ll hopefully get most of your deposit back at the end of your tenancy so long as you behave yourself!

You’ll also want to budget money for food and transport. Try and budget £40 per week for food and ensure that you eat breakfast and dinner at home and make a packed lunch out of this budget. Transport is a more difficult thing to estimate upfront, as until you’re settled into permanent accommodation, you probably won’t want to commit to purchasing a travelcard yet. In this case, get yourself an Oyster card (see our Transport in London page for details) and top it up with £20 and see how long that lasts you.

Now you’ve got some ideas of how much you’re going to require for your move to London, based on your own personal situation, please make use of all the other resources that our site has to offer to help get you here. You might be interested in our Affordable London page, which has great ideas on how to save money once you’ve moved here.