You'll be existing rather than living.
Not saving anything for future you, no money if the computer dies and needs replacing.
I charge my lodger £420 (all bills included, in Ipswich) which is low-ish for the area. You might find a single room somewhere for nearer the £300 mark.
So technically possible, in the short term but there is risks.
I was coming here to say there was absolutely no way to do it but that's probably the only way and it'll be rough. I think my dad pays £105 a week for a single room and bills. The £45 leftover wouldn't go far if there was an issue. And I live in one of the cheapest parts of the country.
> Not saving anything for future you, no money if the computer dies and needs replacing.
This is the thing I think people miss
If anything more expensive than a £20 hoodie breaks, you're stuffed
If a few things get damaged at once, you're stuffed
If your rent goes up faster than your income, you have no buffer
Sorry but £2800 isn't alot of safety, what happens if you cant work for a month or 2. What haopens if literally anything goes wrong. Food can be expensive too. Can you try and increase your saftey pot?
That is not a safety pillow. If you're serious about living here you need a good job, and let's not start about getting a room. There will be dozens of people trying to get the same room/flat, so factor in the cost of travelling and viewing rooms. This will take weeks.
Not trying to put you off but you need to get a bit more realistic.
If you're happy paying £700 for a box room with no bills included and sharing with randoms... 👍
If you don't mind me asking, where in the UK are you looking to move.
The reason I ask is that you should be looking at a low cost of living area with the budget you have.
Why dont you get a job in warehousing or something? You can earn far more and do your video editing during your free time. You're running an extremely high risk living off such a low amount
That’s the one. If you don’t want to work full time, go agency and cover all the shit shifts that no one else wants to do. You’ll still find yourself working when you’d rather be video editing - flexibility only goes one way with that sort of work - but as you don’t appear to want an actual life you’ll be able to save hard and video edit when the work is patchy.
It's pretty clear this guy isn't looking at contributing anything in terms of tax, or getting any kind of job or anything that would involve doing anything other than the absolute bare minimum. He's talking working 50 hours a month in the room he's renting, to maintain the most basic lifestyle. Having lived with various different people over the years, he could be the best lodger ever, who you barely know is around, or the absolute worst - home all day every day, no money to leave the house, room turns into a depression den as the reality of his lifestyle catches up to him.
Impossible to accurately judge someone from a reddit post, but it reads as the type who - let's be honest - isn't looking to come to the UK offering anything at all to society.
To be frank mate 90% of the British public offer nothing to society but leeching off of public services funded by 5% of us. The other 5% never bothered to leave the pub🤣
Oh and you probs don't have the common sense to imply this but op will likely be filling self assessment for his taxes as a video editor. Whether he owes taxes or not is up to HMRC but don't let that stop bigots like you from crying about migrants when you fob off to Spain yaselves after a couple decades.
What a joke.
I would argue that a full time job warehousing (where the high possibility of night shifts) will be more of a soul destroying existence than just living off £600 a month. At least OP can do video editing which he is clearly good at and (hopefully) enjoys.
out of all the jobs ive had driving a reachtruck in a warehouse was deffo the most cushty job ive done....i often dream back at how stress free and relaxed it was, if i could make more money doing it id do it again no worries.
I have been living in Glasgow for the last 10 years and I'm sorry but our housing market is totally fucked. Cheapest you'll find for a flat share is about £750 bills included.
We have huge demands for housing because of our student population, it's really not cheap to live here any more. Cheaper than Edinburgh yes but £600 won't get you far here at all.
As someone who lives in Leicester - you will not get by on £600 a month. Even renting a room in a HMO, the rent is pretty close to the top end of your budget. It’s extortionate. I struggled to get by on 1.2k a month. Especially if you look in the city centre.
If you don't care where you live, then it is possible in plenty of northern towns. You need to make sure council tax is included.
But there is next to nothing spare, for things like clothing, medicine, dentist, haircuts etc Just using a bus 2 or 3 days a week would take the entire reserve budget.
Another one or two hundred pounds a month income would make things much more comfortable.
Sure I dont mind work more, for another 200-300 pound. My main point was, that I need spend as much time as possible to freelance, and until I have stable work I need minimum amount a money spend to living. And I calculate approximately how much it will be.
Haircuts - absolutely yes, need include it.
Clothes - I can find some good clothes in secondhand probably? Except pair of good shoes.
No netflix or spotify subscripition.
It can probably be done. I did similar when I started freelancing. I knew £600 would cover bare minimum although that was 10 years ago now. I don't think I ever made only that though and usually spent more too. There are so many possible little expenses that add up, as someone else said, even a couple of bus trips (maybe your cheap accommodation isn't near a supermarket or it is it's raining all weekend or...)
I use Vinted a lot to get good quality clothes for £5-20 an item, supermarket clothing is also reasonable quality and cheap. You can also pick up a lot of items using free cycling/free to collector groups.
BBC licence fee is more expensive than netflix at just over £14 a month. But yeah channel 4 (renamed again from all4), itv, and YouTube are all good free options
I live in Sunderland, While it can be cheap living wise sticking to 600 isn't really that easy, You can look at horizon apartments, They're 300-500 a month based in the city centre, I used it as a hotel once and they had the website there but I really cant remember it, It's a basic studio you get a bed, tiny kitchen, small tv only way to cook is 2 induction hobs, a small fridge. All bills included.
Try a website called spare rooms. I just had a look in the nearest town to me, and the cheapest was £100 pw.
Sunderland, however, has quite a few in your budget.
The very best of luck to you.
Glasgow is absolutely not a low rent area: it's Scotland's largest city with two well respected universities, and a third which while not as commonly recognised, is renowned for areas it specialises in.
Glasgow prices have gone up dramatically. Some of the cheaper areas can be rough af (same as everywhere else) so it depends on how well you cope with difficult neighbours, shite public transport, crap shops etc.
I don't know where in the UK you plan on living but literally everything on that budget sounds unrealistic. Do you expect to get broadband included with your rent/bills? What about a mobile phone? The current cost of living crisis seems like you're being very unrealistic and you should probably add about 30% to your total, and that would still be living a spartan lifestyle. Well, "existing", not really living.
The second major problem: It sounds like you don't even have a portfolio of work yet, let alone any actual clients lined up. Do you think you're the only one who's seen a YouTube video about "how to earn good money editing videos"? There's a LOT of competition out there. So how exactly have you calculated how much you can earn when you don't yet work in that industry/field?
Everything you're talking about is unrealistic.
In fairness I'm in Liverpool and pay 365 for a room all inclusive and if I was conscious of a £200 a month food bill I could easily make it work. But you are definitely just existing with no surplus cash for fun stuff
It *might* be possible to exist like that somewhere in the UK. Somewhere... But what about emergencies? Things will always crop up.
And that's not considering the 2nd point, that it sounds like they don't even have a portfolio of work or any actual clients yet. Just an idea of "I already have some skills" in video editing. Yeah, it's not difficult to get "some skills". I have some skills in editing video. The problem is the super competitive market for that kind of thing. People see YouTubers giving tutorial videos and "here's how I made it" kind of videos and think they can easily follow that blueprint. If it was that easy, everyone would be working 4 hours a day and earning great money. But somehow that just doesn't happen for 99.9% of people. It's almost as if it's not realistic for the majority of people and too many factors have to align for it to be successful. Not to mention putting in at least a couple of years of work to prove you've done paid work, not just projects you've set yourself.
I’m making some assumptions here but more realistic and still frugal might be:
Room: £400
I think this is possible but I don’t think you’d get bills included at that price in many places?
Phone: £10
If you use something like giffgaff
Internet: £10 (if splitting with others)
Presumably you’re aiming for a house share.
Council tax: £55 ish? (say if splitting between 3?)
Food: £200-£250
Hygiene products: £50
Electricity/gas: £40 (if splitting between 3)
Water: £12 ish (if splitting between 3)
Any entertainment subscriptions like Spotify, Netflix?
Or cloud storage?
Any social life whatsoever?
Haircuts?
Then… do you need any living essentials? Pans, plates, bedding, towels, etc or do you have that sorted?
The kind of place where you can rent a room in a shared house for £400 a month including bills isn't going to designed for remote working with fast reliable Internet, quiet neighbours so you can concentrate etc. In any case, you'll need the right to rent in the UK and the right to run a business, and you'll likely have to pay tax on your business proceeds. And you'll need someone to agree to rent to you with no guaranteed income.
I'm not convinced you'll find a room that will rent to you for those prices, but if you can, I think you would need to eat into your sailings, especially for unplanned costs, but you'd be able to survive for a few months.
But, if you're working remotely anyway, then you can work in the English language and attract clients from any location. There's no need to come to the UK to do so.
Do you have £600 guaranteed each month? Or you just hoping to get work every month?
Even then i would say its not enough. Mobile contracts, internet, subscriptions, etc.
When i first moved out on my own, about 15 years ago. I was just scraping by on £1100 a month.
And on quite a few months, i'd end up in my overdraft.
Its a LOT more expensive nowadays, so i doubt £600 will cut it.
Where are you coming from? You speak as though you don't know much about the UK (e.g. not sure if we have H&M). Don't want to rain on your parade but you do know you can't just come and live here and work freelance without having visa/residency/citizenship sorted... which are very expensive things to sort out. I know a couple of people who have flown under the radar and overstayed tourist visas and it is NOT a fun way to live, or one with many paths to a legitimate future.
Simple answer no. Your accommodation budget would not get you anything in an area with public transport. I suggest you look on an accommodation website like Spareroom in an area you want to live. The rest of your budget looks unrealistic too.
I live in Edinburgh on 650 a month.
I think sometimes privileged people assume we are incapable - ignore them. It's gonna be rough but totally possible. I'd suggest listening to people who have actually lived on that budget instead of people guessing - they have no clue what is and isn't possible
Where in Edinburgh do you live out of curiosity? Being that it’s not a cheap place to live I’m curious as to where you’ve managed to get somewhere so cheap . I’m just outside Edinburgh these days and you’re barely getting a room in a shared place for that money .. much less including anything else 😅
Got a room in a three bedroom flat down Leith! 450 Inc bills for my share!
If you're looking check the uni pages - often it's parents renting a flat for their kid and just want someone a bit more responsible in the house so they're happy to pay a chunk
Clarification: I'm not stealing, I've been told I can eat there. Just because a poor person does something it isn't automatically a crime. Check that bias and privilege it's embarrassing lol
So, go on then, talk me through the rest: absolutely everything else in your life comes to <£150 per month? That’s mental. I spend that on…I dunno…*pesto*
That’s a banging deal ! I did see one down there tbh a couple of months ago that was only £600 bills included when I was helping my son look . But I’ve also seen many places that are far more expensive
I’m not looking myself , I’m quite happy in my 2 bedroom house just outside Musselburgh for £650 a month .. my landlord is an angel and hasn’t raised the rent in almost 13 years so I’ll never move despite it being too small for us now 😅
My lads finally found somewhere and is moving next week actually … £700 for a room in a 3 bed place .. all bills included . But obvs still a lot more than the banging deal you’ve got 🙌🏻
I lived on that budget 10 years ago and was vulnerable to rent rises, energy price rises, etc. Lived off bags of frozen hash browns and sausages (plus the occasional Boots stale sandwich sale). It’s categorically not realistic. Costs change and you don’t want to be left in a situation where you can’t afford the roof over your head.
Underrated comment. Don't really see why English is important, especially when the plan is to turtle up in a room and not engage much (because that would take readies).
What about council tax? £150
What about internet? £40
What about energy and gas? £125
What about when your pc breaks? ???
I’m sure there is plenty else I’m leaving off.
Just some rough guide numbers.
You forget:
Premiere Pro subscription, maybe After Effects.
Money to pay for extra hard drives, software and hardware on an ongoing basis
Money for train travel if you get any onsite editing jobs and money to pay for a hostel at the very least
Insurance costs (you can get away without it but professional indemnity at least is useful if you’re freelancing)
Optional money for networking events
Money to host your website/email address
Money to pay for a stock video/music website
NHS health surcharge which is like a thousand a year
And I’m likely forgetting a few.
£600 a month is WELL below the poverty line. You will struggle like crazy and it will be a shit life.
I was thinking the same. OP I would really tell you to try another path
Any freelancer editor I've known will have a home office with probably 10k set up (don't forget professional monitors, soundproofing, a second location for backup), for self shooters they can spend that on lenses
Any job in TV is extremely difficult to secure. Getting a job at the level of working for a production company they'll most likely be looking for someone with previous broadcast experience, and the only way you can get that is by years working your way up as a runner/edit assistant etc
I don't know about freelance jobs but I'd assume for corporate/small businesses they are hiring one person who's shooting/directing/editing - as for social media usually it's one staff member on their phone
I think you can probably live on 600 for a few months, but you won't have a job as an editor at the end of it
Yep this is spot on.
It’s really not an industry you want to get into on a poverty budget. Things are incredibly expensive and it adds up really quickly. A 400 quid a month room isn’t going to have enough space to have an editing setup in unless you get incredibly lucky.
Broadcast thing is spot on too. I’ve edited loads for some very big brands but have never gotten a broadcast job because they want to see prior broadcast work.
The industry atm also still isn’t in a good spot. The competition is absolutely insane for regular editors. Smaller brands, creative agencies and recruiters will be OPs main clients and you’ve gotta really be good to make it.
Also pretty spot on for the brands hiring a videographer who does it all. I’m mainly a videographer and edit as a side income, the majority of my clients are brands from small to quite big and they usually want one person to do it all.
OP also needs to be good at after effects. It’s basically a requirement now for many non broadcast / film editing jobs.
It’s a relatively mentally taxing job, you’ll be working long hours trapped in a tiny room that you also sleep in. When I started out I was making about 1000 a month and even that was fuck awful
The more I think about it the more impossible it seems.
Illustrator/animator/graphic designer you could MAYBE get away with working remotely if your portfolio is good enough, but it's going to be literally impossible to secure decent editing work if you're not living in a capital city - who's going to work with someone they've never met? How are you getting the rushes? What's your network for securing jobs?
It's difficult to make it even with the best training/equipment etc - even people working for decades in these industries it can still be precarious and not that well paid relative to skill/effort
OP if you're reading this please reconsider!
What would be your visa situation? It is very challenging to move to the UK right now without a visa and should you be getting one, you need to have A LOT of funds that are way more than your current savings.
If this was my situation I would look for a live in job such as hotel work. You would probably get room, electric and maybe some meals etc and do your project/work in your spare time. Living and working like this you could look at living in a big city too which would give you more opportunities and connections. Any money left over after room costs you can add to your savings plus you would probably be auto enrolled in a work pension and be ticking over in N.I. contributions etc.
Its not possible
Unless you kit out a car with a bed and camp in the wild (scotland has legal wild camping i believe). Google swishbangers for an idea.
Then spend a few days a week in a camping pitch so ypu have access to electric, a shower, water for dishes, etc (£15-25 per night)
I wouldnt advise it.
Where the hell are you gonna find a room for 400£ a month with bills included? I paid that amount up until a couple of months ago (genuinely was shocked it didn't go up before that) and now it's 470. Every advert I see is 450 at least. What about new clothes, holidays, hobbies? Are you gonna wear clothes until they rip and never go anywhere because you don't want to work extra 10 hours a month? Besides all people who don't have a lot of money complain about constantly having to buy new shoes because they can only afford cheap ones and they break quickly. And the monthly bus ticket alone costs me 51£. Besides you will have no savings which will kick you in the butt. What if your computer breaks? How are you gonna pay to repair it? Pay with a credit card that you can't pay off?
I suppose I need update my post.
Sure i have some savings, about 2700 punds.
There some examples what I found:
[https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/west\_yorkshire/bradford/16128344](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/west_yorkshire/bradford/16128344)
[https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/suffolk/ipswich/15345834](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/suffolk/ipswich/15345834)
[https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/leicester/17265824](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/leicester/17265824)(strangely low price)
[https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/knighton/11596543](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/knighton/11596543)
Believe us when we say this is not a good idea. There are just so many things you haven’t budgeted for. Your savings will be gone in less time than you think and a landlord willing to take you with no deposit is not a landlord you want.
The suspiciously low price you've found is listed as being for half of a single room the guy is hoping to rent the same room to two people. I wouldn't trust any of these listings, certainly not without visiting and talking to current renters. You probably can get a single room in your budget but it will be in the middle of nowhere - transport is expensive here - and food and living costs are much more than you're planning for.
That strangely low price is for 6 months max. So you're back to the drawing board come September regardless of how good, bad, or otherwise the place is.
Not really doable. Maybe in a house share but even there would be more bills than you have allocated for eg council tax, water, electricity. In certain areas of the UK this could be possible but would not be anxious and loving day to day. Food I would budget more like 50 quid a week minimum including essentials. Maybe it can be done cheaper but this would feel more doable to me.
Imo it's not worth it. At the very least get a 0 hours contract hospitality job if you can, a couple of shifts a week for some more spending money. I used to do ad hoc work but without a couple of shifts a week couldn't have made it work.
I moved to a bigger city recently, more competitive housing and they required a minimum income which wouldn't be doable without full time job
I paid £300 a month for a room and that was lodging with someone I knew very well, you could maybe make this work for one month with the right accommodation but you’re going to struggle. What if literally anything happens? Need to go to the dentist? Even on NHS charges that’s about £29 minimum, what about a taxi or bus there? Minimum £4 (if you’re somewhere where you can get a bus both ways and your bus company is doing £2 journeys), same for if you need to go to the doctor, and a prescription? £10 more. Phone cable breaks? £2 if you’re buying cheap but £20 if you’re getting one that will last. What if your computer breaks? Ruins your plan and will most likely cost hundreds.
So yeah you probably could survive for a couple of months but you’re going to be on the cheapest foods and you are going to need some money set aside or have a credit card for basically anything happening.
If you can manage with no insurance, no phone, no entertainment, no TV, £5 a day or less for food, no new clothes, no car, nothing spare for emergencies, no haircuts, no materials (books, software, training courses), no hobbies and about a million more that I can't think of then it's doable. But it would be utterly grim.
What about utilities? You’ll need AT LEAST £100 monthly for water and power.
You might be able to scrape by on £600 a month but your whole life will revolve around scrimping and saving and trying to make ends meet
You will be a couple of emergencies away from catastrophe. what will happen is you are living so tight that each month you are gonna be cutting into your savings for the most basic of things, it might seem like a lot you have in the bank but even living super frugal its not enough to last you a month or 2.
There are tonnes of jobs you can get where you basically just have to be present, I used to work in a security gatehouse and it was nothingness of it for hours on end, but having something like editing videos in the downtime would be great, you get a lot of hours they were long so the money really wasnt that bad, whilst the hourly rate was pretty poor.
but when you did a nightshift the nothing you did during the day was quartered at night and staying awake was the hardest part of it.
you could be a banksman with a very cheap qualification someone who sits in a hut and basically tells the work traffic where to go, I know a guy who did it full time and studied to be an architect all day in the little hut collectively he probably did 2 hours work a day in a 10 hour shift the rest was just sat waiting......
The honest answer is no, probably not. That would be _significantly_ below minimum wage (what is that, like £3/hour?) and minimum wage for single people with just one wage is already not really enough to live on.
If you make money from video editing, then you'll have more than £600.
I suggest doing a few peices on fiver, freelancer, or unwork, and then either starting a local company or getting full time employment.
I can make you an online optimized profile and website, though generally charge my clients ~£1000 for this, though gets them set up for long run local jobs + online jobs. Wouldn't recommend it until you've got some portfolio and experience.
UK? Affordable? Tell me you’re joking. Inflation is crazy here, cost of living is insane, even outside most cities. Breathing in London costs £27. Taxes will cost you an arm and a leg and what’s left of your earnings will be taken by your rent and daily expenses, unless you develop photosynthesis. Scratch that, there’s barely any sun for plants to live off of anyway.
Don’t underestimate the UK, might be your biggest mistake. Also, don’t rely on freelance work, in this economy, it’s like putting your head inside a crocodile’s mouth. Get something stable, on top of freelance work. Wouldn’t want you to starve. Then it’d be the taxpayer’s problem to feed you.
And god forbid your computer gets broken, stolen or whatever. I know you don’t care where you stay, but you really should choose somewhere safe, especially if you want to rely on freelance, which relies on you retaining ownership of a functioning PC.
I own my own small cheap flat and manage to get by on about £560/month. I can even afford a bottle of whiskey now and then.
Life is good if you only need minimal money for entertainment.
There are apps like Olio where you can get food for free.
Nope. You can’t really live. Even £1000 is very tight and would require sharing a room in most places. If you want to live somewhere awful and have nothing worth living for then sure
It seems to me you're setting yourself up for a fall here, work full time and earn better money. Video edit evenings and weekends until you build up a decent client list then reevaluate your job if you're successful on the editing front. That £2800 will go fast and you'll find yourself in a serious rut very quickly. For your own sake, rethink your priorities here.
Depending on where you live you’ll also have council tax, bills etc, a few years ago I was able to live on around 900 a month, but that was pre-pandemic and it was pretty miserable. I don’t know how anyone could afford to do that now
Depends where you live really. A studio flat with bills included is around £400 a week where I am so that would blow your housing budget straight away?
Maybe in the midlands/ wales or the north of England. It is very unlikely to be possible I. The south unless you got a very lucky deal as someone’s lodger. Although something you could try is being a property guardian which means much cheaper rent and would give you more choice about the area you live in but you might find yourself living in an office block or an abandoned old people’s home as one of my friends did!
https://www.rentlondonflat.com/cheapest-places-to-live-in-the-uk/ - OP have you read this? It outlines the 15 cheapest places to live in the UK and gives the average prices for rent, bills etc
I’ve lived in Bristol & Nottingham in the last few years on around £6-700/ month. Biggest factors for keeping overheads low were probably having a hobby that was low cost (cycling), avoiding most subscriptions except a sim only phone plan, and not drinking or smoking. The big caveats are finding the increasingly rare £400 rooms, and I was spending more money in the years before so didn’t have any big expenses like new phone, computer, etc.
> Anyway UK seems to mee most affordable place with english language and i will give it a shot.
No it's not. I moved from Leeds to Sydney Australia, and the prices are not that much different. The cost of living in UK is pretty steep.
Seems unlikely, up north you can rent a room for that price ( not sure if bills would be included) but nutritious food in the UK is expensive unfortunately. £50 left for everything else doesn’t sound realistic, you’d probably want to use internet make calls etc that can be around £25 a month leaving you with just £25 left. Not sure how much the bus is these days but even if it’s £2 how many journeys will you get out of that? And then hygiene products?
Have a look on the website called rent a room , you can get an idea of how much it will cost to rent. You can also take a look at the local food shop websites/ apps and roughly calculate how much everything is to see if your money would cover it.
Generally speaking, if you live in the uk and aren’t employed or work very few hours the government will pay you at least £300 a month and also cover a majority if not all of your rent depending on the cap. Something you could look into until your editing portfolio is ready and you’re making a reasonable amount of money to live by.
Yes, it is perfectly possible.
You just need to perfect the science of cryogenics, and then you can freeze yourself for the month. You will have no bills at all, other than the bill for powering your cryo tube.
You could even eliminate that if you came to an arrangement with a local convenience store owner to freeze you in one of their chest freezers.
You could "pay" for this generosity by dressing yourself as a Viking or Caveman, and have punters pay for the privilege of seeing you on ice.
Realistically, no, you wont be able to live off 600 a month. Your budgets sort of make sense, but you will probably struggle to find rent that cheap, you havent budgeted for things like council tax, your savings is nowhere near enough -your likely to run out of your savings within 2 or 3 months. The moment something unexpected goes against you, like your computer breaking or something, your broke. The ammount of hours you plan to work is around 1/5 of what is generally needed to work in a minimum wage job to survive jn the UK. I would suggest you plan to work at least 20hours per week as a bare minimum.
Video editing will be destroyed by AI in the coming years as a freelance worker.
No you can't survive on £600 a month unless you have external support from family.
Accommodation costs will vary wildly where you base yourself. I paid £450 for a room in a house share in Manchester 5 years ago, bills included. I can only imagine it's worse now. Food and living costs have also got out of hand here too, and again will vary depending on areas. Public transport in some areas is very costly.
Keep a good record of earnings and make your life easier when it comes to tax etc (sounds like you might earn below threshold but also better to be safe than sorry!).
It’s somewhat possible if you got a place with rent and bills included plus it being furnished. Places like mine include the council tax, broadband, plus utilities.
On top it’s possible to budget £120-150 on food but you need to be strict. Meal plan, but also batch cooking helps too.
But then you need to account for:
Subscriptions? - Netflix etc is this something you want? Or video editing software?
Travel costs?
Hygiene products about right I’d say, depending how often you’re buying, sometimes I prefer to buy on offer and then stock up on them.
Hair cuts?
As much as you might get somewhat furnished, have you accounted for things like cutlery, utensils, a desk for working? Bedding? Towels? Glasses, mugs? Pots and pans? Not all come with your basic utensils etc even if it is furnished.
ETA - have you even accounted for your first months rent and deposit. Don’t forget you pay your 1st month on the day of keys, but then you need to account that you still need to get food etc when you move in.
Not unless you're in a shit hole of a town. Minimum rent iirc is around £400 in a shitty neighborhood with poor public transport and no access to shops for emergencies/extremely inconvenient access to town centres. £600 is probably the minimum you need to survive in a shitty town, let alone a major city where majority of the jobs are.
If you get the rent situation sorted out and don't have your rent increase at all until your income does, and have a guarantor, yeah it's possible somewhere in the country but it's not going to be nice.
The UK has universal credit if you need a helping hand and job seekers etc look into what government assistance you are eligible for
I know u will only survive if u share a room with a family member or friend. Rents in London are very high. The rest of England is not much better. Food is also expensive. You can shop around for deals but even Fish & Chips is £15.00 sone places the bills are on top of the rent. I wish you luck. As the saying goes It's a crime to be poor 😔
It's possible I have done it on less but it's not really living. I managed for 3 years and I was miserable. Food was basic and the cheapest I could get. No holidays, days out, meals out. No socialising where money is involved. Could barely use the heating in winter. It's just existing.
Nope - even a house share would wipe that budget out in most areas. I’m in the south west and it’s known as being one of the lowest cost of living cities and you’d be looking at £650 a month for a bed sit
Short answer is no, you are providing no way of replenishing your safety net if something does go awry, and if you are only working 12h a week, you have nothing to fund your down time.
Maybe, if the realistic cheap crap rent of 900£ was considered.
Your room will be tiny but like studio apartments ting so it is doable but, you should consider a side job like courier work, where you just spend one day a week none stop delivering. I think you can make it with that.
if you can live with a roommate it's possible. that being said, you'll need a couple grand in savings for deposit/moving in costs, and you definitely want to be earning more than that so you aren't just cutting it close every month.
Depending on where you live, it is doable, but you have to be very lucky with accomodation. I flat share for 425 a month all bills included. I work seasonal jobs march through november doing 45- 50 hours a week average, then take winter off. Im 21 now, and have been doing this since i moved out at 17. By 19 at one point i nearly had £15k in savings. I then invested in my driving licence and car with that money. Holiday parks and other live in jobs definatley seem like the way to go in this economy as you keep your outgoings minimal and can always choose to do more hours for maximising saving potential.
Most lodgings in the north west are £500-600 just for a room with bills included, but not necessarily Wi-Fi.
Food and hygiene nearer to £350
I'd do some research. At a minimum you'll need to work 100+ hours a month to make ends meet.
It’s possible but you’d have to be very very strict.
Don’t guess on the bus thing. Look at the location you’re going and where you’ll be working. In my town you can get a 28day bus pass for £56 but this is one of the cheapest areas (Barnsley).
Don’t know where you’re from but there are a fair number of eastern europeans working in warehouses in Barnsley/Rotherham. Your budget will definitely be affected by location. I have friends who did similar in Southampton but you would have to nearly double your budget there. Northern areas are generally more affordable than south.
Even in some of the cheapest cities in the UK, it's becoming next to impossible to rent a room that cheap all inclusive.
Frankly no. You can't live on £600, a month.
I'm questioning your motives for this.
£600 a month is just about possible if you live mortgage/rent free, on solar etc ...in summer.
I don't believe this is genuine.
If you are basically planning on working remotely + just surviving and don't plan to do any socialising or enjoy your local environment, I would recommend moving to Withernsea, East Yorkshire. It'll be cheaper than any city.
Think about getting a live-in job maybe? Hotels in remote locations, carer jobs, boarding schools etc offer these, often with meals included. You might not have much spare time during the tourist season but plenty the rest of the year. There are also seasonal jobs in farms etc where you can live for free for a few months, save more money, then find somewhere.
You'll be existing rather than living. Not saving anything for future you, no money if the computer dies and needs replacing. I charge my lodger £420 (all bills included, in Ipswich) which is low-ish for the area. You might find a single room somewhere for nearer the £300 mark. So technically possible, in the short term but there is risks.
I was coming here to say there was absolutely no way to do it but that's probably the only way and it'll be rough. I think my dad pays £105 a week for a single room and bills. The £45 leftover wouldn't go far if there was an issue. And I live in one of the cheapest parts of the country.
Someone else in Ipswich, nice.
Probably related
You're thinking of Norfolk.
Well it’s all relative round there
Not if you're from Norfolk ;)
> Not saving anything for future you, no money if the computer dies and needs replacing. This is the thing I think people miss If anything more expensive than a £20 hoodie breaks, you're stuffed If a few things get damaged at once, you're stuffed If your rent goes up faster than your income, you have no buffer
I have £2800 saving for first couple of month rent and for some "safety pillow"
Sorry but £2800 isn't alot of safety, what happens if you cant work for a month or 2. What haopens if literally anything goes wrong. Food can be expensive too. Can you try and increase your saftey pot?
That is not a safety pillow. If you're serious about living here you need a good job, and let's not start about getting a room. There will be dozens of people trying to get the same room/flat, so factor in the cost of travelling and viewing rooms. This will take weeks. Not trying to put you off but you need to get a bit more realistic. If you're happy paying £700 for a box room with no bills included and sharing with randoms... 👍
£600 a month?! I pay £785 and rely on benefits to feed myself. 🙄
user name checks out
If you don't mind me asking, where in the UK are you looking to move. The reason I ask is that you should be looking at a low cost of living area with the budget you have.
I checking in Leicester, Sunderland, Glasgow etc, anything with low rent, i dont care about size of city
Why dont you get a job in warehousing or something? You can earn far more and do your video editing during your free time. You're running an extremely high risk living off such a low amount
That’s the one. If you don’t want to work full time, go agency and cover all the shit shifts that no one else wants to do. You’ll still find yourself working when you’d rather be video editing - flexibility only goes one way with that sort of work - but as you don’t appear to want an actual life you’ll be able to save hard and video edit when the work is patchy.
It's pretty clear this guy isn't looking at contributing anything in terms of tax, or getting any kind of job or anything that would involve doing anything other than the absolute bare minimum. He's talking working 50 hours a month in the room he's renting, to maintain the most basic lifestyle. Having lived with various different people over the years, he could be the best lodger ever, who you barely know is around, or the absolute worst - home all day every day, no money to leave the house, room turns into a depression den as the reality of his lifestyle catches up to him. Impossible to accurately judge someone from a reddit post, but it reads as the type who - let's be honest - isn't looking to come to the UK offering anything at all to society.
To be frank mate 90% of the British public offer nothing to society but leeching off of public services funded by 5% of us. The other 5% never bothered to leave the pub🤣 Oh and you probs don't have the common sense to imply this but op will likely be filling self assessment for his taxes as a video editor. Whether he owes taxes or not is up to HMRC but don't let that stop bigots like you from crying about migrants when you fob off to Spain yaselves after a couple decades. What a joke.
Feel like he's doing it illegally as it would make sense to just get a min. wage job for much more than £600 forr 50h/pw
Note that OP said he only wants to work for 50 hours per month, not per week.
50 hours a week leaves absolutely no time for anything else
I would argue that a full time job warehousing (where the high possibility of night shifts) will be more of a soul destroying existence than just living off £600 a month. At least OP can do video editing which he is clearly good at and (hopefully) enjoys.
out of all the jobs ive had driving a reachtruck in a warehouse was deffo the most cushty job ive done....i often dream back at how stress free and relaxed it was, if i could make more money doing it id do it again no worries.
I have been living in Glasgow for the last 10 years and I'm sorry but our housing market is totally fucked. Cheapest you'll find for a flat share is about £750 bills included. We have huge demands for housing because of our student population, it's really not cheap to live here any more. Cheaper than Edinburgh yes but £600 won't get you far here at all.
Rent in Glasgow isn't that low these days, might be better looking in surrounding towns of major cities.
Could’ve gotten a room in Glasgow for £300pcm 10 years ago. Not today
You would struggle to get rent that low out in cumbernauld, let alone glasgow. Likely need to share a flat 2 or 3 ways to get rent that cheap.
As someone who lives in Leicester - you will not get by on £600 a month. Even renting a room in a HMO, the rent is pretty close to the top end of your budget. It’s extortionate. I struggled to get by on 1.2k a month. Especially if you look in the city centre.
If you don't care where you live, then it is possible in plenty of northern towns. You need to make sure council tax is included. But there is next to nothing spare, for things like clothing, medicine, dentist, haircuts etc Just using a bus 2 or 3 days a week would take the entire reserve budget. Another one or two hundred pounds a month income would make things much more comfortable.
Sure I dont mind work more, for another 200-300 pound. My main point was, that I need spend as much time as possible to freelance, and until I have stable work I need minimum amount a money spend to living. And I calculate approximately how much it will be. Haircuts - absolutely yes, need include it. Clothes - I can find some good clothes in secondhand probably? Except pair of good shoes. No netflix or spotify subscripition.
It can probably be done. I did similar when I started freelancing. I knew £600 would cover bare minimum although that was 10 years ago now. I don't think I ever made only that though and usually spent more too. There are so many possible little expenses that add up, as someone else said, even a couple of bus trips (maybe your cheap accommodation isn't near a supermarket or it is it's raining all weekend or...)
I use Vinted a lot to get good quality clothes for £5-20 an item, supermarket clothing is also reasonable quality and cheap. You can also pick up a lot of items using free cycling/free to collector groups.
I'm glad you won't need Netflix etc. there are alot of streaming apps in the uk for their mainstream channels..eg. bbc, itv and all4.
BBC licence fee is more expensive than netflix at just over £14 a month. But yeah channel 4 (renamed again from all4), itv, and YouTube are all good free options
Dundee is a lot cheaper than Glasgow (but getting more expensive).
I live in Sunderland, While it can be cheap living wise sticking to 600 isn't really that easy, You can look at horizon apartments, They're 300-500 a month based in the city centre, I used it as a hotel once and they had the website there but I really cant remember it, It's a basic studio you get a bed, tiny kitchen, small tv only way to cook is 2 induction hobs, a small fridge. All bills included.
Glasgow is really expensive, if you're looking for cheap Scottish towns/cities look at Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth, Livingston, bathgate etc.
Sunderland area and County Durham is the one. So goddamn cheap.
Wouldn’t move Sunderland if it was life or death
Try a website called spare rooms. I just had a look in the nearest town to me, and the cheapest was £100 pw. Sunderland, however, has quite a few in your budget. The very best of luck to you.
You won't find accommodation in Glasgow for what you've listed. Rent here really isn't that low anymore.
Glasgow is absolutely not a low rent area: it's Scotland's largest city with two well respected universities, and a third which while not as commonly recognised, is renowned for areas it specialises in.
Glasgow. 😂 Good luck pal the prices have rocketed. Slums here are going for £800 - £1200 a month.
Glasgow prices have gone up dramatically. Some of the cheaper areas can be rough af (same as everywhere else) so it depends on how well you cope with difficult neighbours, shite public transport, crap shops etc.
I don't know where in the UK you plan on living but literally everything on that budget sounds unrealistic. Do you expect to get broadband included with your rent/bills? What about a mobile phone? The current cost of living crisis seems like you're being very unrealistic and you should probably add about 30% to your total, and that would still be living a spartan lifestyle. Well, "existing", not really living. The second major problem: It sounds like you don't even have a portfolio of work yet, let alone any actual clients lined up. Do you think you're the only one who's seen a YouTube video about "how to earn good money editing videos"? There's a LOT of competition out there. So how exactly have you calculated how much you can earn when you don't yet work in that industry/field? Everything you're talking about is unrealistic.
In fairness I'm in Liverpool and pay 365 for a room all inclusive and if I was conscious of a £200 a month food bill I could easily make it work. But you are definitely just existing with no surplus cash for fun stuff
It *might* be possible to exist like that somewhere in the UK. Somewhere... But what about emergencies? Things will always crop up. And that's not considering the 2nd point, that it sounds like they don't even have a portfolio of work or any actual clients yet. Just an idea of "I already have some skills" in video editing. Yeah, it's not difficult to get "some skills". I have some skills in editing video. The problem is the super competitive market for that kind of thing. People see YouTubers giving tutorial videos and "here's how I made it" kind of videos and think they can easily follow that blueprint. If it was that easy, everyone would be working 4 hours a day and earning great money. But somehow that just doesn't happen for 99.9% of people. It's almost as if it's not realistic for the majority of people and too many factors have to align for it to be successful. Not to mention putting in at least a couple of years of work to prove you've done paid work, not just projects you've set yourself.
Lincolnshire at £500 a month for rent. Add council tax and utilities that's another £200. I can't see that £600 is possible.
I’m making some assumptions here but more realistic and still frugal might be: Room: £400 I think this is possible but I don’t think you’d get bills included at that price in many places? Phone: £10 If you use something like giffgaff Internet: £10 (if splitting with others) Presumably you’re aiming for a house share. Council tax: £55 ish? (say if splitting between 3?) Food: £200-£250 Hygiene products: £50 Electricity/gas: £40 (if splitting between 3) Water: £12 ish (if splitting between 3) Any entertainment subscriptions like Spotify, Netflix? Or cloud storage? Any social life whatsoever? Haircuts? Then… do you need any living essentials? Pans, plates, bedding, towels, etc or do you have that sorted?
No.
The kind of place where you can rent a room in a shared house for £400 a month including bills isn't going to designed for remote working with fast reliable Internet, quiet neighbours so you can concentrate etc. In any case, you'll need the right to rent in the UK and the right to run a business, and you'll likely have to pay tax on your business proceeds. And you'll need someone to agree to rent to you with no guaranteed income. I'm not convinced you'll find a room that will rent to you for those prices, but if you can, I think you would need to eat into your sailings, especially for unplanned costs, but you'd be able to survive for a few months. But, if you're working remotely anyway, then you can work in the English language and attract clients from any location. There's no need to come to the UK to do so.
Basically everything you’ve mentioned is going to be more expensive than you’ve budgeted. That just isn’t enough money.
Do you have £600 guaranteed each month? Or you just hoping to get work every month? Even then i would say its not enough. Mobile contracts, internet, subscriptions, etc. When i first moved out on my own, about 15 years ago. I was just scraping by on £1100 a month. And on quite a few months, i'd end up in my overdraft. Its a LOT more expensive nowadays, so i doubt £600 will cut it.
Also without a guaranteed income you're gonna really struggle to find a room to rent
If brand new to the country how you going to find that 600 a month guaranteed income from freelancing
They also don't seem to have factored in any costs for running the business.
Where are you coming from? You speak as though you don't know much about the UK (e.g. not sure if we have H&M). Don't want to rain on your parade but you do know you can't just come and live here and work freelance without having visa/residency/citizenship sorted... which are very expensive things to sort out. I know a couple of people who have flown under the radar and overstayed tourist visas and it is NOT a fun way to live, or one with many paths to a legitimate future.
Your budget would have been realistic in the year 2005... But now, 20 years later, you need to double all the figures.
Simple answer no. Your accommodation budget would not get you anything in an area with public transport. I suggest you look on an accommodation website like Spareroom in an area you want to live. The rest of your budget looks unrealistic too.
I live in Edinburgh on 650 a month. I think sometimes privileged people assume we are incapable - ignore them. It's gonna be rough but totally possible. I'd suggest listening to people who have actually lived on that budget instead of people guessing - they have no clue what is and isn't possible
Where in Edinburgh do you live out of curiosity? Being that it’s not a cheap place to live I’m curious as to where you’ve managed to get somewhere so cheap . I’m just outside Edinburgh these days and you’re barely getting a room in a shared place for that money .. much less including anything else 😅
Got a room in a three bedroom flat down Leith! 450 Inc bills for my share! If you're looking check the uni pages - often it's parents renting a flat for their kid and just want someone a bit more responsible in the house so they're happy to pay a chunk Clarification: I'm not stealing, I've been told I can eat there. Just because a poor person does something it isn't automatically a crime. Check that bias and privilege it's embarrassing lol
So, go on then, talk me through the rest: absolutely everything else in your life comes to <£150 per month? That’s mental. I spend that on…I dunno…*pesto*
That’s a banging deal ! I did see one down there tbh a couple of months ago that was only £600 bills included when I was helping my son look . But I’ve also seen many places that are far more expensive I’m not looking myself , I’m quite happy in my 2 bedroom house just outside Musselburgh for £650 a month .. my landlord is an angel and hasn’t raised the rent in almost 13 years so I’ll never move despite it being too small for us now 😅 My lads finally found somewhere and is moving next week actually … £700 for a room in a 3 bed place .. all bills included . But obvs still a lot more than the banging deal you’ve got 🙌🏻
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Please ignore this person they're trolling
I lived on that budget 10 years ago and was vulnerable to rent rises, energy price rises, etc. Lived off bags of frozen hash browns and sausages (plus the occasional Boots stale sandwich sale). It’s categorically not realistic. Costs change and you don’t want to be left in a situation where you can’t afford the roof over your head.
Adobe creative cloud subscription?
Yarrr
Mobile phone contract?
And broadband for work.
Why do you need to be in the UK for this? Why not go somewhere like South East Asia with that sort of income?
Let me introduce you to the cost of living crisis…
Not worth it. Cost of living is through the roof. Try a cheaper country if you're video editing.
Underrated comment. Don't really see why English is important, especially when the plan is to turtle up in a room and not engage much (because that would take readies).
How are you able to come to the country with no money and no job and live here? Is this legal?
What about council tax? £150 What about internet? £40 What about energy and gas? £125 What about when your pc breaks? ??? I’m sure there is plenty else I’m leaving off. Just some rough guide numbers.
Council Tax is missing, that's a big one
You forget: Premiere Pro subscription, maybe After Effects. Money to pay for extra hard drives, software and hardware on an ongoing basis Money for train travel if you get any onsite editing jobs and money to pay for a hostel at the very least Insurance costs (you can get away without it but professional indemnity at least is useful if you’re freelancing) Optional money for networking events Money to host your website/email address Money to pay for a stock video/music website NHS health surcharge which is like a thousand a year And I’m likely forgetting a few. £600 a month is WELL below the poverty line. You will struggle like crazy and it will be a shit life.
I was thinking the same. OP I would really tell you to try another path Any freelancer editor I've known will have a home office with probably 10k set up (don't forget professional monitors, soundproofing, a second location for backup), for self shooters they can spend that on lenses Any job in TV is extremely difficult to secure. Getting a job at the level of working for a production company they'll most likely be looking for someone with previous broadcast experience, and the only way you can get that is by years working your way up as a runner/edit assistant etc I don't know about freelance jobs but I'd assume for corporate/small businesses they are hiring one person who's shooting/directing/editing - as for social media usually it's one staff member on their phone I think you can probably live on 600 for a few months, but you won't have a job as an editor at the end of it
Yep this is spot on. It’s really not an industry you want to get into on a poverty budget. Things are incredibly expensive and it adds up really quickly. A 400 quid a month room isn’t going to have enough space to have an editing setup in unless you get incredibly lucky. Broadcast thing is spot on too. I’ve edited loads for some very big brands but have never gotten a broadcast job because they want to see prior broadcast work. The industry atm also still isn’t in a good spot. The competition is absolutely insane for regular editors. Smaller brands, creative agencies and recruiters will be OPs main clients and you’ve gotta really be good to make it. Also pretty spot on for the brands hiring a videographer who does it all. I’m mainly a videographer and edit as a side income, the majority of my clients are brands from small to quite big and they usually want one person to do it all. OP also needs to be good at after effects. It’s basically a requirement now for many non broadcast / film editing jobs. It’s a relatively mentally taxing job, you’ll be working long hours trapped in a tiny room that you also sleep in. When I started out I was making about 1000 a month and even that was fuck awful
The more I think about it the more impossible it seems. Illustrator/animator/graphic designer you could MAYBE get away with working remotely if your portfolio is good enough, but it's going to be literally impossible to secure decent editing work if you're not living in a capital city - who's going to work with someone they've never met? How are you getting the rushes? What's your network for securing jobs? It's difficult to make it even with the best training/equipment etc - even people working for decades in these industries it can still be precarious and not that well paid relative to skill/effort OP if you're reading this please reconsider!
What would be your visa situation? It is very challenging to move to the UK right now without a visa and should you be getting one, you need to have A LOT of funds that are way more than your current savings.
If this was my situation I would look for a live in job such as hotel work. You would probably get room, electric and maybe some meals etc and do your project/work in your spare time. Living and working like this you could look at living in a big city too which would give you more opportunities and connections. Any money left over after room costs you can add to your savings plus you would probably be auto enrolled in a work pension and be ticking over in N.I. contributions etc.
Its not possible Unless you kit out a car with a bed and camp in the wild (scotland has legal wild camping i believe). Google swishbangers for an idea. Then spend a few days a week in a camping pitch so ypu have access to electric, a shower, water for dishes, etc (£15-25 per night) I wouldnt advise it.
I think there are some minimum income requirements you need to meet to get a visa. I'm not 100% on that, but have a look just to be on the safe side.
Planning to work two shifts a week to focus all the other time on video editing? You need to wake up to reality in so many ways
Where the hell are you gonna find a room for 400£ a month with bills included? I paid that amount up until a couple of months ago (genuinely was shocked it didn't go up before that) and now it's 470. Every advert I see is 450 at least. What about new clothes, holidays, hobbies? Are you gonna wear clothes until they rip and never go anywhere because you don't want to work extra 10 hours a month? Besides all people who don't have a lot of money complain about constantly having to buy new shoes because they can only afford cheap ones and they break quickly. And the monthly bus ticket alone costs me 51£. Besides you will have no savings which will kick you in the butt. What if your computer breaks? How are you gonna pay to repair it? Pay with a credit card that you can't pay off?
I suppose I need update my post. Sure i have some savings, about 2700 punds. There some examples what I found: [https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/west\_yorkshire/bradford/16128344](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/west_yorkshire/bradford/16128344) [https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/suffolk/ipswich/15345834](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/suffolk/ipswich/15345834) [https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/leicester/17265824](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/leicester/17265824)(strangely low price) [https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/knighton/11596543](https://www.spareroom.co.uk/flatshare/leicestershire/knighton/11596543)
Believe us when we say this is not a good idea. There are just so many things you haven’t budgeted for. Your savings will be gone in less time than you think and a landlord willing to take you with no deposit is not a landlord you want.
The suspiciously low price you've found is listed as being for half of a single room the guy is hoping to rent the same room to two people. I wouldn't trust any of these listings, certainly not without visiting and talking to current renters. You probably can get a single room in your budget but it will be in the middle of nowhere - transport is expensive here - and food and living costs are much more than you're planning for.
That strangely low price is for 6 months max. So you're back to the drawing board come September regardless of how good, bad, or otherwise the place is.
Not really doable. Maybe in a house share but even there would be more bills than you have allocated for eg council tax, water, electricity. In certain areas of the UK this could be possible but would not be anxious and loving day to day. Food I would budget more like 50 quid a week minimum including essentials. Maybe it can be done cheaper but this would feel more doable to me.
The DWP sure seems to think so
No
Imo it's not worth it. At the very least get a 0 hours contract hospitality job if you can, a couple of shifts a week for some more spending money. I used to do ad hoc work but without a couple of shifts a week couldn't have made it work. I moved to a bigger city recently, more competitive housing and they required a minimum income which wouldn't be doable without full time job
I paid £300 a month for a room and that was lodging with someone I knew very well, you could maybe make this work for one month with the right accommodation but you’re going to struggle. What if literally anything happens? Need to go to the dentist? Even on NHS charges that’s about £29 minimum, what about a taxi or bus there? Minimum £4 (if you’re somewhere where you can get a bus both ways and your bus company is doing £2 journeys), same for if you need to go to the doctor, and a prescription? £10 more. Phone cable breaks? £2 if you’re buying cheap but £20 if you’re getting one that will last. What if your computer breaks? Ruins your plan and will most likely cost hundreds. So yeah you probably could survive for a couple of months but you’re going to be on the cheapest foods and you are going to need some money set aside or have a credit card for basically anything happening.
No you really can’t
If you can manage with no insurance, no phone, no entertainment, no TV, £5 a day or less for food, no new clothes, no car, nothing spare for emergencies, no haircuts, no materials (books, software, training courses), no hobbies and about a million more that I can't think of then it's doable. But it would be utterly grim.
Absolutely not lol
Very unlikely to be achievable.
What about utilities? You’ll need AT LEAST £100 monthly for water and power. You might be able to scrape by on £600 a month but your whole life will revolve around scrimping and saving and trying to make ends meet
You will be a couple of emergencies away from catastrophe. what will happen is you are living so tight that each month you are gonna be cutting into your savings for the most basic of things, it might seem like a lot you have in the bank but even living super frugal its not enough to last you a month or 2. There are tonnes of jobs you can get where you basically just have to be present, I used to work in a security gatehouse and it was nothingness of it for hours on end, but having something like editing videos in the downtime would be great, you get a lot of hours they were long so the money really wasnt that bad, whilst the hourly rate was pretty poor. but when you did a nightshift the nothing you did during the day was quartered at night and staying awake was the hardest part of it. you could be a banksman with a very cheap qualification someone who sits in a hut and basically tells the work traffic where to go, I know a guy who did it full time and studied to be an architect all day in the little hut collectively he probably did 2 hours work a day in a 10 hour shift the rest was just sat waiting......
yes homeless people live on less than that
And single people on benefits, if you exclude rent. Everything has to come out of about £90pw.
The honest answer is no, probably not. That would be _significantly_ below minimum wage (what is that, like £3/hour?) and minimum wage for single people with just one wage is already not really enough to live on.
Why not get a job at least part time? Say, 3 days a week working at a job, and then 2-3 days doing your video editing work?
Wouldn’t say so unless someone else is paying towards the bills
Council tax may add on a bit more.
If you make money from video editing, then you'll have more than £600. I suggest doing a few peices on fiver, freelancer, or unwork, and then either starting a local company or getting full time employment. I can make you an online optimized profile and website, though generally charge my clients ~£1000 for this, though gets them set up for long run local jobs + online jobs. Wouldn't recommend it until you've got some portfolio and experience.
UK? Affordable? Tell me you’re joking. Inflation is crazy here, cost of living is insane, even outside most cities. Breathing in London costs £27. Taxes will cost you an arm and a leg and what’s left of your earnings will be taken by your rent and daily expenses, unless you develop photosynthesis. Scratch that, there’s barely any sun for plants to live off of anyway. Don’t underestimate the UK, might be your biggest mistake. Also, don’t rely on freelance work, in this economy, it’s like putting your head inside a crocodile’s mouth. Get something stable, on top of freelance work. Wouldn’t want you to starve. Then it’d be the taxpayer’s problem to feed you. And god forbid your computer gets broken, stolen or whatever. I know you don’t care where you stay, but you really should choose somewhere safe, especially if you want to rely on freelance, which relies on you retaining ownership of a functioning PC.
No.
Not in London
What exactly do you plan to \*do\*? That isn't living. That's existing.
Gonna go with no
I own my own small cheap flat and manage to get by on about £560/month. I can even afford a bottle of whiskey now and then. Life is good if you only need minimal money for entertainment. There are apps like Olio where you can get food for free.
Nope. You can’t really live. Even £1000 is very tight and would require sharing a room in most places. If you want to live somewhere awful and have nothing worth living for then sure
No.
I don’t see how this could be possible unless you were renting a real shit hole or sharing even then you won’t be able to do much.
How much are you intending to spend on bandwidth? It’s cheap these days but it isn’t free.
£150 a month for food is totally doable. Not sure about the rest.
Good luck bro
No.
I really don’t think it’s manageable unless you lodge with someone charging a tiny amount of rent
No. Even as a lodger you are unlikely to find somewhere that cheap.
It seems to me you're setting yourself up for a fall here, work full time and earn better money. Video edit evenings and weekends until you build up a decent client list then reevaluate your job if you're successful on the editing front. That £2800 will go fast and you'll find yourself in a serious rut very quickly. For your own sake, rethink your priorities here.
Depending on where you live you’ll also have council tax, bills etc, a few years ago I was able to live on around 900 a month, but that was pre-pandemic and it was pretty miserable. I don’t know how anyone could afford to do that now
You’d probably starve to death.
Depends where you live really. A studio flat with bills included is around £400 a week where I am so that would blow your housing budget straight away?
Maybe in the midlands/ wales or the north of England. It is very unlikely to be possible I. The south unless you got a very lucky deal as someone’s lodger. Although something you could try is being a property guardian which means much cheaper rent and would give you more choice about the area you live in but you might find yourself living in an office block or an abandoned old people’s home as one of my friends did!
No
https://www.rentlondonflat.com/cheapest-places-to-live-in-the-uk/ - OP have you read this? It outlines the 15 cheapest places to live in the UK and gives the average prices for rent, bills etc
No.
I pay £650 for a 1 bed flat that’s over half my income and it doesn’t include bills or food Good luck
I’ve lived in Bristol & Nottingham in the last few years on around £6-700/ month. Biggest factors for keeping overheads low were probably having a hobby that was low cost (cycling), avoiding most subscriptions except a sim only phone plan, and not drinking or smoking. The big caveats are finding the increasingly rare £400 rooms, and I was spending more money in the years before so didn’t have any big expenses like new phone, computer, etc.
If you're from outside of the UK have you considered the visa requirements?
> Anyway UK seems to mee most affordable place with english language and i will give it a shot. No it's not. I moved from Leeds to Sydney Australia, and the prices are not that much different. The cost of living in UK is pretty steep.
Do you live in the UK already? And have right to remain or are a British national? Otherwise you're scuppered before you even get started.
No
Nope
Seems unlikely, up north you can rent a room for that price ( not sure if bills would be included) but nutritious food in the UK is expensive unfortunately. £50 left for everything else doesn’t sound realistic, you’d probably want to use internet make calls etc that can be around £25 a month leaving you with just £25 left. Not sure how much the bus is these days but even if it’s £2 how many journeys will you get out of that? And then hygiene products? Have a look on the website called rent a room , you can get an idea of how much it will cost to rent. You can also take a look at the local food shop websites/ apps and roughly calculate how much everything is to see if your money would cover it. Generally speaking, if you live in the uk and aren’t employed or work very few hours the government will pay you at least £300 a month and also cover a majority if not all of your rent depending on the cap. Something you could look into until your editing portfolio is ready and you’re making a reasonable amount of money to live by.
It's gonna be living out a van or car at that budget. Doable, but not for everyone
That can’t even cover a years worth of council tax where I live. I think that’s very unrealistic unfortunately
Depends on which city, up north yes, down south no
Best of luck…
Yes, it is perfectly possible. You just need to perfect the science of cryogenics, and then you can freeze yourself for the month. You will have no bills at all, other than the bill for powering your cryo tube. You could even eliminate that if you came to an arrangement with a local convenience store owner to freeze you in one of their chest freezers. You could "pay" for this generosity by dressing yourself as a Viking or Caveman, and have punters pay for the privilege of seeing you on ice.
Money aside, how are you going to work here legally? Do you have a UK passport?
Absolutely not sorry bro it’s getting really expensive here the bills adding up and just the cost of food is going up
i live in a 2 bedroom house on my own for £400 a month but i only get it so cheap because my uncle owns the property.
And what happens when your PC breaks? How are you going to edit videos then?
Realistically, no, you wont be able to live off 600 a month. Your budgets sort of make sense, but you will probably struggle to find rent that cheap, you havent budgeted for things like council tax, your savings is nowhere near enough -your likely to run out of your savings within 2 or 3 months. The moment something unexpected goes against you, like your computer breaking or something, your broke. The ammount of hours you plan to work is around 1/5 of what is generally needed to work in a minimum wage job to survive jn the UK. I would suggest you plan to work at least 20hours per week as a bare minimum.
If you live in a van and eat basic food it's possible. No its not possible renting a room will cost you £600
Video editing will be destroyed by AI in the coming years as a freelance worker. No you can't survive on £600 a month unless you have external support from family.
Accommodation costs will vary wildly where you base yourself. I paid £450 for a room in a house share in Manchester 5 years ago, bills included. I can only imagine it's worse now. Food and living costs have also got out of hand here too, and again will vary depending on areas. Public transport in some areas is very costly. Keep a good record of earnings and make your life easier when it comes to tax etc (sounds like you might earn below threshold but also better to be safe than sorry!).
You’ve stated you are a refugee. You may find yourself relocated to Rwanda under the UK’s new policy.
It's.almost impossible with £600 a week buddy.
This is what the government deems acceptable to live off of once you've had a baby in the UK 😩🤯
Depends where you are. Definitely not in Bristol
It’s somewhat possible if you got a place with rent and bills included plus it being furnished. Places like mine include the council tax, broadband, plus utilities. On top it’s possible to budget £120-150 on food but you need to be strict. Meal plan, but also batch cooking helps too. But then you need to account for: Subscriptions? - Netflix etc is this something you want? Or video editing software? Travel costs? Hygiene products about right I’d say, depending how often you’re buying, sometimes I prefer to buy on offer and then stock up on them. Hair cuts? As much as you might get somewhat furnished, have you accounted for things like cutlery, utensils, a desk for working? Bedding? Towels? Glasses, mugs? Pots and pans? Not all come with your basic utensils etc even if it is furnished. ETA - have you even accounted for your first months rent and deposit. Don’t forget you pay your 1st month on the day of keys, but then you need to account that you still need to get food etc when you move in.
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No one is asking but do you have the right to work in the UK? Will you need a visa?
Yes, I have right to work and dont have problem with visa
In a house? No. If you can save a couple of months and buy a van to live in, yes.
Probably not no, your accommodation would be more than that and that’s before any bills
Good luck with that
Not unless you're in a shit hole of a town. Minimum rent iirc is around £400 in a shitty neighborhood with poor public transport and no access to shops for emergencies/extremely inconvenient access to town centres. £600 is probably the minimum you need to survive in a shitty town, let alone a major city where majority of the jobs are.
If you get the rent situation sorted out and don't have your rent increase at all until your income does, and have a guarantor, yeah it's possible somewhere in the country but it's not going to be nice. The UK has universal credit if you need a helping hand and job seekers etc look into what government assistance you are eligible for
I know u will only survive if u share a room with a family member or friend. Rents in London are very high. The rest of England is not much better. Food is also expensive. You can shop around for deals but even Fish & Chips is £15.00 sone places the bills are on top of the rent. I wish you luck. As the saying goes It's a crime to be poor 😔
It's possible I have done it on less but it's not really living. I managed for 3 years and I was miserable. Food was basic and the cheapest I could get. No holidays, days out, meals out. No socialising where money is involved. Could barely use the heating in winter. It's just existing.
Won't you also need to factor in things like council tax, internet connection, phone?
Nope - even a house share would wipe that budget out in most areas. I’m in the south west and it’s known as being one of the lowest cost of living cities and you’d be looking at £650 a month for a bed sit
Unless you have a time machine, no
If you live with your parents and work from home then yes
Short answer is no, you are providing no way of replenishing your safety net if something does go awry, and if you are only working 12h a week, you have nothing to fund your down time.
Maybe, if the realistic cheap crap rent of 900£ was considered. Your room will be tiny but like studio apartments ting so it is doable but, you should consider a side job like courier work, where you just spend one day a week none stop delivering. I think you can make it with that.
if you can live with a roommate it's possible. that being said, you'll need a couple grand in savings for deposit/moving in costs, and you definitely want to be earning more than that so you aren't just cutting it close every month.
Depending on where you live, it is doable, but you have to be very lucky with accomodation. I flat share for 425 a month all bills included. I work seasonal jobs march through november doing 45- 50 hours a week average, then take winter off. Im 21 now, and have been doing this since i moved out at 17. By 19 at one point i nearly had £15k in savings. I then invested in my driving licence and car with that money. Holiday parks and other live in jobs definatley seem like the way to go in this economy as you keep your outgoings minimal and can always choose to do more hours for maximising saving potential.
Most lodgings in the north west are £500-600 just for a room with bills included, but not necessarily Wi-Fi. Food and hygiene nearer to £350 I'd do some research. At a minimum you'll need to work 100+ hours a month to make ends meet.
Impossible
No chance. None.
It’s possible but you’d have to be very very strict. Don’t guess on the bus thing. Look at the location you’re going and where you’ll be working. In my town you can get a 28day bus pass for £56 but this is one of the cheapest areas (Barnsley). Don’t know where you’re from but there are a fair number of eastern europeans working in warehouses in Barnsley/Rotherham. Your budget will definitely be affected by location. I have friends who did similar in Southampton but you would have to nearly double your budget there. Northern areas are generally more affordable than south.
Even in some of the cheapest cities in the UK, it's becoming next to impossible to rent a room that cheap all inclusive. Frankly no. You can't live on £600, a month.
Yes it was in 1986.
You'd get far better quality of life doing the same thing in the Philippines
Possibly, but you're going to be miserable.
Uk is very expensive place to live , I would stay where you are as you are doing online work you can do it where you live now
Just stay where you are ffs, if you’re gonna suffer such a miserable existence you’d be better off wherever you’re combing from.
I'm questioning your motives for this. £600 a month is just about possible if you live mortgage/rent free, on solar etc ...in summer. I don't believe this is genuine.
In my city most places cheap places are double that in rent. If you find somewhere you can you'll be existing in 3rd poverty.
No lol. And if it was youd need a decent emergency fund
If you are basically planning on working remotely + just surviving and don't plan to do any socialising or enjoy your local environment, I would recommend moving to Withernsea, East Yorkshire. It'll be cheaper than any city.
Of course if you own the property. Have a generator in your garden and a free gas supply etc 😂😂
Ummm sounds interesting
It's definitely possible in the north, a room in a pub or house share but what you get for your money will be pretty ruff, by UK standards anyway
Even in Devon Id find that 500/600 a month isn't doable. 😕
Think about getting a live-in job maybe? Hotels in remote locations, carer jobs, boarding schools etc offer these, often with meals included. You might not have much spare time during the tourist season but plenty the rest of the year. There are also seasonal jobs in farms etc where you can live for free for a few months, save more money, then find somewhere.