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dpack_1
Mar 23, 2009

Let another's wounds be your warning

opus111 posted:

The lads 22. I wish Id done more risky stuff at that age. Whatever happens he'll make good friends and grow as a person.

This.

I was fortunate enough to spend 3 years in America from the age of 20 to 23, it was fun as hell, being a city boy and moving to the country opened all kinds of opportunities for me and actually what started me down the path of owning my own business now. So i'm all about this experience stuff.

But goddamn you HAVE to have an exit strategy or a plan b or something, cos moving to the country in backwater Ohio cost pennies (i still own a house in Pennsylvania that cost me less than a year's salary for christ sake), but moving to London, drat... just ... drat.

So yeah, OP, come here, have fun, hope to whatever god you do or don't believe in that you find work before you get eaten alive, meet people, see places, travel, do all that good poo poo. But have an exit strategy, have a family member willing to come drag you out of the gutter, have a separate bank account with enough in it for a last minute flight home, buy a winning lottery ticket, something, anything. Just make sure you have a way out for when poo poo hits the fan.

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Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Lady Gaza posted:

What's your specific plan? Find somewhere to live before you arrive, or go to a hostel first then look around for flatshares? Finding work will be easier if you have an address.

Regarding location, you'll likely be looking for jobs in Zone 1; most places are easy enough to get to but bear in mind that since you don't know exactly where you'll be working your potential commute could vary quite a bit depending on which train/tube line your flat is near.

I suppose if you find a job you won't have the urgency to get an acting gig. I think a lot of the more negative replies here are predicated on you not finding any work or a place to live and just wasting all your money.

We have the following 3 months until june to continue to do what we are currently doing: sending emails to shared flat owners so we can get the chance of booking one in advance. If we don't achieve that, we will go to a hostel and look around for flatshares, as you said. 3 weeks before setting off, we'll be calling JobCentre Plus to arrange an interview regarding our NI. We will also send an email to 1stContact (it's a kickstart service that has good reviews in regard to setting up a very basic bank account).

Getting a job is a top priority, and i won't be focusing in getting anything done regarding acting until we find a job. Once we are stablished and with all things in order, i'll start by grabbing some work as an extra and in school productions. After that, i'll register in Spotlight (which is the standard auditions, agents, and acting jobs listing in the UK). The rest is too far off to be worth writing down :P

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.
Hey OP, [Tell] me how it feels to say on page two that you're traveling with your return ticket already bought, and then have people constantly chide you to have an "exit strategy" for the next three pages of your thread.

oliwan
Jul 20, 2005

by Nyc_Tattoo
OP: tell me about working in London

Thread: don't do it like this, have a plan, try other cities, be realistic etc etc etc

OP: whatever you losers!, I'm just going to listen to the people who say it's all good, you don't know me!!!

Thread: uh okay? :shrug: good luck kid, follow your dreams!

dpack_1
Mar 23, 2009

Let another's wounds be your warning

Captain Bravo posted:

Hey OP, [Tell] me how it feels to say on page two that you're traveling with your return ticket already bought, and then have people constantly chide you to have an "exit strategy" for the next three pages of your thread.

Having a return ticket specifies an exact date of return, OP sounds like they have that as a plan, but the main goal is to stay here indefinitely and work as a movie star. If the return ticket is for 1 months time after their arrival they will most likely still be delusional about 'making it' here and thus forego using that ticket home.

We're suggesting they have a second back up plan, like keeping £XXX in a separate bank account in case they decide in 9 months time that we were right and living in London is not for them.

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.
Anytime Ticket:

quote:

These fares are refundable and changeable and may be applied toward future travel on Southwest Airlines for the originally ticketed passenger only.

There are several methods of travel which will let you purchase a (more expensive) ticket in advance, and hold on to it until you need it, rather than setting an exact date.

dpack_1
Mar 23, 2009

Let another's wounds be your warning

Captain Bravo posted:

Anytime Ticket:


There are several methods of travel which will let you purchase a (more expensive) ticket in advance, and hold on to it until you need it, rather than setting an exact date.

Well colour me informed. I knew you could do open returns on trains (but still usually limited to 'any time in the next 30 days') but with all the lovely fees and stipulations and hoops you jump through in getting airline tickets I had no idea that would even be a thing.

OP, spend the extra money and get one of them tickets.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

dpack_1 posted:

Well colour me informed. I knew you could do open returns on trains (but still usually limited to 'any time in the next 30 days') but with all the lovely fees and stipulations and hoops you jump through in getting airline tickets I had no idea that would even be a thing.

OP, spend the extra money and get one of them tickets.

Already done. Open tickets, as we call em here, are 1000 extra pesos (we pay 16.000 instead of 15.000). As with normal tickets, they have a set return date, but you can push it forwards for a maximum of 6 months. My return date is set for 3 months after arrival, but will be pushed forward after we assess our situation there.

Yggdrassil fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Mar 4, 2015

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
Please update this thread when you make it big and post pics of your new London penthouse apartment.

Radio Talmudist
Sep 29, 2008
Good luck OP. It may not work out, but it will be a fascinating experience. You're young enough and crazy enough to try it, and I wish you the best.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Jeza posted:

Please update this thread when you make it big and post pics of your new London penthouse apartment.

I don't even know if SA will exist when that happens, if it ever happens.

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Yggdrassil posted:

We have the following 3 months until june to continue to do what we are currently doing: sending emails to shared flat owners so we can get the chance of booking one in advance. If we don't achieve that, we will go to a hostel and look around for flatshares, as you said. 3 weeks before setting off, we'll be calling JobCentre Plus to arrange an interview regarding our NI. We will also send an email to 1stContact (it's a kickstart service that has good reviews in regard to setting up a very basic bank account).

Getting a job is a top priority, and i won't be focusing in getting anything done regarding acting until we find a job. Once we are stablished and with all things in order, i'll start by grabbing some work as an extra and in school productions. After that, i'll register in Spotlight (which is the standard auditions, agents, and acting jobs listing in the UK). The rest is too far off to be worth writing down :P

You mentioned looking into a service to get you started with a bank account, etc. I used these guys 14 years ago, and didn't feel like it was a waste of money. At the time, they also ran their own hostels, which I stayed in for the first few weeks. If I recall, they would hold mail for me at the hostel, which made getting a job easier. Anyway, even if you don't end up buying their package, you should probably browse their website (which is full of useful information for coming to London) and maybe even contact them to ask questions.

One advantage of starting out in a hostel is that you get to actually see places before renting them. I don't think I would want to be renting a place sight unseen, and would be fairly suspicious of a landlord who was willing to rent a place out in that way. Another advantage of a hostel is that you'll be surrounded by other people starting out in London, so you can network and learn from their experiences.



dpack_1 posted:

Well colour me informed. I knew you could do open returns on trains (but still usually limited to 'any time in the next 30 days') but with all the lovely fees and stipulations and hoops you jump through in getting airline tickets I had no idea that would even be a thing.

OP, spend the extra money and get one of them tickets.

Even on regular plane tickets you can often change the return date. When I first came to London, it was just going to be for the (southern hemisphere) summer, but by the end of that I wanted to stay for the year. It turned out I could change my return date to anywhere up to a year after my first departure for a fairly small fee, so I did.

Man, thinking back, that was a year of just barely scraping by. I made a ton of friends and had lots of fun, but I also spent much of that time intensely stressed about money and work. By the end, the only savings I had were from my tax refund. I did learn a lot about the working world, being poor, life, love and everything else, though.


OP, you'll do fine. Just be realistic about your prospects for getting into acting in London, and also realise that it may take you a while to get on your feet. London can be depressing as hell and liable to eat you alive, or incredibly exhilarating and filled with amazing culture. Most likely it will be both to you.

One other piece of advice: if you have sales experience already, consider looking into sales or telemarketing jobs. For a lot of people these kind of jobs are hell, and they tend to pay a lot better than minimum wage to account for that. But as an aspiring actor, you'll likely take to them like a fish to water. It'll basically be like getting paid to practice acting.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Lead out in cuffs posted:

One advantage of starting out in a hostel is that you get to actually see places before renting them. I don't think I would want to be renting a place sight unseen, and would be fairly suspicious of a landlord who was willing to rent a place out in that way. Another advantage of a hostel is that you'll be surrounded by other people starting out in London, so you can network and learn from their experiences.

That's a very good piece of advice. Even if i can book a place in a shared flat, i would need a bit of time to check the place out and analyze the details of the contract, make sure that the landlord's address exists, everything that i would have to revise due to security procedures.

Yggdrassil fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Mar 4, 2015

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!
Regarding job opportunities, i see that there are good positions for bilingual spanish/english work

Examples:
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/receptionist-with-italian-or-spanish/26420902?source=details.jobsappliedto
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/spanish-speaking-telemarketer/26632483#/jobs/telemarketer-in-london

I have some questions for you guys regarding work in the UK

How many hours does part time / full time work comprise?
Are you paid bi-weekly or monthly?
What's the norm for lunch breaks and regular breaks?

For example, here full time work is usually 9-10 hours with an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks. Part time is usually 6 hours with half an hour lunch break and one 15 minutes break.

Pastamania
Mar 5, 2012

You cannot know.
The things I've seen.
The things I've done.
The things he made me do.

Yggdrassil posted:

That's a very good piece of advice. Even if i can book a place in a shared flat, i would need a bit of time to check the place out and analyze the details of the contract, make sure that the landlord's address exists, everything that i would have to revise due to security procedures.

There won't be a contract, the landlord will probably not even be giving you their real name, and god himself wouldn't be able to get your deposit back when your done. Welcome to London.

Basically, just make sure your getting keys that you know open the doors when you hand money over. That's about as safe as it gets for less than £1k/month.

Saros
Dec 29, 2009

Its almost like we're a Bureaucracy, in space!

I set sail for the Planet of Lab Requisitions!!

Yggdrassil posted:

Regarding job opportunities, i see that there are good positions for bilingual spanish/english work

Examples:
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/receptionist-with-italian-or-spanish/26420902?source=details.jobsappliedto
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/spanish-speaking-telemarketer/26632483#/jobs/telemarketer-in-london

I have some questions for you guys regarding work in the UK

How many hours does part time / full time work comprise?
Are you paid bi-weekly or monthly?
What's the norm for lunch breaks and regular breaks?

For example, here full time work is usually 9-10 hours with an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks. Part time is usually 6 hours with half an hour lunch break and one 15 minutes break.

It all depends on your job and workplace. Full time is basically 35+ hours per week, part time is less than that and some places pay monthly, some fortnightly. You have to be given a lunch break by law but generally you get 30-60 mins for lunch (unpaid) and 2x 10-15 min breaks in the morning/afternoon. This can all be googled prety easily http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/rest-breaks.

For those sorts of jobs leveraging your spanish you found you'll be looking at the lower 20's for pay, you'll also be competing with a shitload of actual Spanish people (their economy is totally hosed and all the young people seem to have washed up in London.) Its doable for London but you wont be able to save anything and will be paycheck to paycheck most of the time.

Saros fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Mar 5, 2015

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Saros posted:

For those sorts of jobs leveraging your spanish you found you'll be looking at the lower 20's for pay, you'll also be competing with a shitload of actual Spanish people (their economy is totally hosed and all the young people seem to have washed up in London.) Its doable for London but you wont be able to save anything and will be paycheck to paycheck most of the time.

I've seen a lot of youtube videos on this, many of them come not even knowing english, thus getting into really lovely jobs and having lots of problems. The situation in Spain must be really bad :S
What do you mean by "looking at the lower 20's" ?

dpack_1
Mar 23, 2009

Let another's wounds be your warning

Yggdrassil posted:

I've seen a lot of youtube videos on this, many of them come not even knowing english, thus getting into really lovely jobs and having lots of problems. The situation in Spain must be really bad :S
What do you mean by "looking at the lower 20's" ?

He was being generous saying you would earn £20-25k per annum.

Most reception work actually pays around £13-16k per annum and I dont see the bilingual thing adding too much more to it on the whole.

Rolled Cabbage
Sep 3, 2006

Yggdrassil posted:

I've seen a lot of youtube videos on this, many of them come not even knowing english, thus getting into really lovely jobs and having lots of problems. The situation in Spain must be really bad :S
What do you mean by "looking at the lower 20's" ?

Saro means £20-23,000 annual income. I'm actually (positively) suprised you found such high paying jobs. I have a much rarer language pair and it ranges from around 14-22k which is why I stopped looking for jobs that involved a language component since they usually pay much more poorly than the regular job would. If you're willing to put up with a bit of travel and telesales, medical ones in particular pay well for foreign language jobs. If you look on toplanguagejobs etc. you can find recruitment and temp agencies for foreign language speakers. Might be useful for you!

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

dpack_1 posted:

He was being generous saying you would earn £20-25k per annum.

Most reception work actually pays around £13-16k per annum and I dont see the bilingual thing adding too much more to it on the whole.


Rolled Cabbage posted:

Saro means £20-23,000 annual income. I'm actually (positively) suprised you found such high paying jobs. I have a much rarer language pair and it ranges from around 14-22k which is why I stopped looking for jobs that involved a language component since they usually pay much more poorly than the regular job would. If you're willing to put up with a bit of travel and telesales, medical ones in particular pay well for foreign language jobs. If you look on toplanguagejobs etc. you can find recruitment and temp agencies for foreign language speakers. Might be useful for you!

Yeah, im seeing a decent number of jobs with those characteristics. It's also cool to know that i have experience in those jobs, which might prove useful. And thanks for that clarification, Cabbage!

Gaz2k21
Sep 1, 2006

MEGALA---WHO??!!??

Yggdrassil posted:

Regarding job opportunities, i see that there are good positions for bilingual spanish/english work

Examples:
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/receptionist-with-italian-or-spanish/26420902?source=details.jobsappliedto
http://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/spanish-speaking-telemarketer/26632483#/jobs/telemarketer-in-london

I have some questions for you guys regarding work in the UK

How many hours does part time / full time work comprise?
Are you paid bi-weekly or monthly?
What's the norm for lunch breaks and regular breaks?

For example, here full time work is usually 9-10 hours with an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks. Part time is usually 6 hours with half an hour lunch break and one 15 minutes break.

I'm not sure how to go about it but if you can get into interpretation you could make some serious cash especially if your flexible, willing to travel and get various clearance's to work with police/immigration etc it might be worth looking into if not as a main income then at least as a secondary option.

FWIW I live on the south coast and couldn't even comprehend living in london I've known a few people who have and most lived in punk squats or basically mooched off rich parent's... good luck.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Gaz2k21 posted:

I'm not sure how to go about it but if you can get into interpretation you could make some serious cash especially if your flexible, willing to travel and get various clearance's to work with police/immigration etc it might be worth looking into if not as a main income then at least as a secondary option.

Im practically native in both english and spanish in terms of fluidity, i could look into this :P

Rude Dude With Tude
Apr 19, 2007

Your President approves this text.

Yggdrassil posted:

The situation in Spain must be really bad :S

A general unemployment rate of 24%, and a youth (under 25s) unemployment rate of over 56% a couple of years ago. "Really bad" doesn't come close.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Lead out in cuffs posted:

You mentioned looking into a service to get you started with a bank account, etc. I used these guys 14 years ago, and didn't feel like it was a waste of money. At the time, they also ran their own hostels, which I stayed in for the first few weeks. If I recall, they would hold mail for me at the hostel, which made getting a job easier. Anyway, even if you don't end up buying their package, you should probably browse their website (which is full of useful information for coming to London) and maybe even contact them to ask questions.

That's the exact same service i said i was using :P

Yggdrassil posted:

We will also send an email to 1stContact (it's a kickstart service that has good reviews in regard to setting up a very basic bank account).

I have contacted and to my pleasant surprise, they responded within 4 minutes of me sending the email. I'll check the hostels, maybe we can get a good deal. Do you remember if those hostels had cooking facilities? We'd like to stay somewhere we can cook so we can save up on food expenses.

Adnar
Jul 11, 2002

Do those packages still exist where you pay STA travel a few hundred quid and they set you up with work in a pub usually with lodging, bank account and paper work etc? Sounds like that sort of thing might be useful to hit the ground running, I know tonnes of people who turned up with that and next to no money.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Adnar posted:

Do those packages still exist where you pay STA travel a few hundred quid and they set you up with work in a pub usually with lodging, bank account and paper work etc? Sounds like that sort of thing might be useful to hit the ground running, I know tonnes of people who turned up with that and next to no money.

That sounds awesome, does anyone know anything about that? I searched for STA but there seems to be no "Work Abroad" option for the UK (only for Australia, the US and NZ).

Adnar
Jul 11, 2002

Something like this: http://www.statravel.com.au/work-london-pub.htm

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Thanks, i'll definitely check that out :)

Kaiho
Dec 2, 2004


So THAT'S how Sam Smith's pubs get clueless Aussie staff. It all makes sense.

"Brits love Aussie staff and our pub managers are super keen to employ you."
Err.

Also, "no experience? no problem!" is exactly the reason why you get bullshit service in so many pubs these days. "Oh I'll just pull some pints on the weekends here's my CV". That attitude makes me cringe.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Kaiho posted:

Also, "no experience? no problem!" is exactly the reason why you get bullshit service in so many pubs these days. "Oh I'll just pull some pints on the weekends here's my CV". That attitude makes me cringe.

I've had poo poo service from experienced bartenders and "trained" bartenders, too. I think a lot of people are just content to do a mediocre job at their job because they're getting paid like poo poo and just don't care.

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Yggdrassil posted:

That's the exact same service i said i was using :P


I have contacted and to my pleasant surprise, they responded within 4 minutes of me sending the email. I'll check the hostels, maybe we can get a good deal. Do you remember if those hostels had cooking facilities? We'd like to stay somewhere we can cook so we can save up on food expenses.

Yeah this thread has gotten a little long and I missed that, but I figured it was. STA is also worth looking into as another well-established company providing those kinds of services. Also check out TNT, which is a free magazine specifically for expats doing the London thing. It looks like they've kinda moved into the expat services realm, too.

And yes, hostels typically have shared cooking facilities. There won't be much in the way of food storage, though, so the range of what you can cook will be limited, but you can definitely save money that way. (It also doesn't hurt to ask about individual hostels to make sure).

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005
Why London and not Los Angeles? If you can get a visa it's a hell of a lot cheaper, making it as an actor isn't going to be easy (to put it lightly) anywhere, but at least in LA there are a decent number of low-paying jobs available.

Edit: just curious. You can rent your own room in a shared apartment in a not-terrible neighborhood for ~$500/600 a month.

If I were young and had saved up and wanted to try the whole acting thing, I'd move to fuckin' Hollywood :v:

Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Mar 6, 2015

The Grumbles
Jun 5, 2006

let the anger flow through your salt beef filling

Kaiho posted:

So THAT'S how Sam Smith's pubs get clueless Aussie staff. It all makes sense.

"Brits love Aussie staff and our pub managers are super keen to employ you."
Err.

Also, "no experience? no problem!" is exactly the reason why you get bullshit service in so many pubs these days. "Oh I'll just pull some pints on the weekends here's my CV". That attitude makes me cringe.

I'm English and have done a lot of bar work in London pubs, and so have a lot of Australian friends in the industry. There's no weird UKIP correlation between coming from down under and being 'clueless'. No experience really is no problem because literally anybody can learn how to do bar work so long as you have basic social skills. If you had a bad experience at a London pub it was probably because 1) the pub was understaffed for the amount of people coming in - busy shifts are really hard to predict and it happens sometimes - 2) the bar staff were either hungover, on a comedown, or in a bad mood. All those are acceptable because it's exhausting, thankless work, nobody tips in the UK and the wages are poo poo, and the person who served you had probably been working double shifts for the past few days. So it's fine for people to be a bit sloppy at the job. It's basically pulling levers for 10+ hours a day for poo poo pay.
I'm not sure what constitutes 'bullshit service', really. You get your drinks, and that's it really. It's not a profession like it is in the states, it's pretty casual labour. "Oh I'll just pull some pints on the weekends here's my CV" is exactly the right attitude to have.
Also, Sam Smiths pubs are the best! Cheap booze, in London!

edit: actually come to think of it the Aussie staff were always a LOT more chipper and motivated than British staff, because it was always a huge novelty for them to be working in a Real English Pub, and it felt worthwhile to them because it was in the context of living abroad on one big working holiday. Us brits on the other hand never really gave a poo poo.

The Grumbles fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Mar 6, 2015

opus111
Jul 6, 2014

oh my god who cares how good the barman is - give money, recieve sam smiths alpine ale, drink, become drunk, hit on any tite hardbodies around you.

opus111
Jul 6, 2014

also yeah theyre usually super nice and let you use the toilets even if youre just passing by.

Yggdrassil
Mar 11, 2012

RAKANISHU!

Pellisworth posted:

Why London and not Los Angeles? If you can get a visa it's a hell of a lot cheaper, making it as an actor isn't going to be easy (to put it lightly) anywhere, but at least in LA there are a decent number of low-paying jobs available.

I can't get a visa as far as i know, and i don't want to live in the USA. There are other things that are highly motivating for me to go to the UK, like the weather (i hate the sun), the history, the museums, the fact that London is so cosmopolitan...

opus111 posted:

also yeah theyre usually super nice and let you use the toilets even if youre just passing by.

In buenos aires, EVERYBODY lets you use the toilette if you're just passing by. Those that don't are the exception :P

Yggdrassil fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Mar 7, 2015

Ex-Priest Tobin
May 25, 2014

by Reene
Moved to London a few months ago. I'm based around Greenwich in the South East. I pay about £900 a month in rent for a nice but not amazing room in a shared house - I earn £5000 a month so it's affordable for me, but I still feel like I'm getting ripped off when I convert the rent back to my home currency. Finding a place is a pain in the rear end. If you don't go through an agent potential flatmates will subject you to a personality test which pissed me off (I'm not really a social kind of guy). But then if you want to go through an agent you'll need to find a stable job first, get your NIN and then go through a reasonably intensive reference check.

Shared accommodation in Antipodean hubs (Clapham, Acton, Wimbledon) is the most affordable way to live - I have a few friends working as bartenders who live in those areas - but expect to pay at least £600k a month for a place that is not a total shithole.

1st Contact can provide you with a proof of address for a fee to get your personal bank account open, but they don't provide it for opening a company bank account (which you'll want to do if you're contracting, as there's tax advantages in being paid through a limited company). You'll need to get another form of proof of address for that - the official letter with the NI number works but it takes a couple of months to come through. I wasn't paid for the first couple of months here and lived off savings as I was waiting for my limited company bank account to be opened.

If you can stay with a friend or family for the first month or two, such that you have a permanent address to begin with, you'll have a much greater chance of succeeding in your move.

Entertainment and socialising can be pretty cheap and easy so you don't need to spend a lot there. Heaps of great free museums, socialising with locals in pubs is not going to break your bank (English people are pretty friendly and will offer to buy you drinks anyway). There are some good cheap supermarkets - ASDA in particular - for groceries, so it's good to station yourself near one of those.

Riding a bike might well be the quickest and most affordable way for you to make the commute into Central London.

monster.co.uk is the best site for finding employment.

Ex-Priest Tobin fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Mar 7, 2015

Rolled Cabbage
Sep 3, 2006

Ex-Priest Tobin posted:

Moved to London a few months ago. I'm based around Greenwich in the South East. I pay about £900 a month in rent for a nice but not amazing room in a shared house - I earn £5000 a month so it's affordable for me, but I still feel like I'm getting ripped off when I convert the rent back to my home currency. Finding a place is a pain in the rear end. If you don't go through an agent potential flatmates will subject you to a personality test which pissed me off (I'm not really a social kind of guy). But then if you want to go through an agent you'll need to find a stable job first, get your NIN and then go through a reasonably intensive reference check.

Shared accommodation in Antipodean hubs (Clapham, Acton, Wimbledon) is the most affordable way to live - I have a few friends working as bartenders who live in those areas - but expect to pay at least £600k a month for a place that is not a total shithole.

1st Contact can provide you with a proof of address for a fee to get your personal bank account open, but they don't provide it for opening a company bank account (which you'll want to do if you're contracting, as there's tax advantages in being paid through a limited company). You'll need to get another form of proof of address for that - the official letter with the NI number works but it takes a couple of months to come through. I wasn't paid for the first couple of months here and lived off savings as I was waiting for my limited company bank account to be opened.

If you can stay with a friend or family for the first month or two, such that you have a permanent address to begin with, you'll have a much greater chance of succeeding in your move.

Entertainment and socialising can be pretty cheap and easy so you don't need to spend a lot there. Heaps of great free museums, socialising with locals in pubs is not going to break your bank (English people are pretty friendly and will offer to buy you drinks anyway). There are some good cheap supermarkets - ASDA in particular - for groceries, so it's good to station yourself near one of those.

Riding a bike might well be the quickest and most affordable way for you to make the commute into Central London.

monster.co.uk is the best site for finding employment.

lol everything_that_is_wrong_with_london.txt

Hahaha they saw you coming with that rent.

P.S. OP if you're reading this, Tobin has singled out some of the most over-priced parts of London as 'affordable', don't listen to their advice.

Lady Gaza
Nov 20, 2008

Also £5000 a month is a very high income, so that advice won't really apply here.

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Ex-Priest Tobin
May 25, 2014

by Reene

Rolled Cabbage posted:

lol everything_that_is_wrong_with_london.txt

Hahaha they saw you coming with that rent.


My rent is only 20% of my earnings, so I hardly think it's unreasonable.

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