Living in the UK

While not exactly a travel post, it is about Europe, and UK in particular.

So what I'm going to do is to give a lowdown on what living in the UK is REALLY like. Put aside all the things you hear like high taxes (but NHS, i.e. healthcare, is free / subsidized) and high cost of living. My aim is to give a snapshot of what living in the UK is on a day to day basis.

Having said that, there are important things that I'm not going to consider or discuss, as it's out of the scope of this thread. I'm not going to talk about leaving friends and family back in SG; it may be hard or impossible for some. Neither am I going to talk about the difficulty (perceived or otherwise) of getting a job here. I'm just going to focus mainly on expenditure, in particular: daily grocery shopping, and I may talk a little about houses (renting) and cars.

It is quite obvious that whether it's going to be expensive for you or not depends very much on whether you like the local products here. If you ONLY like Asian cuisine, their ingredients are not going to come cheap; it will be stupid to complain that "rice is so expensive here" (actually it's not really but it's certainly not as cheap as in SG); as there is very low demand for rice here, it's obviously going to be expensive.

But however, if you are tending to frequent Marks and Spencers in SG (especially the food section), love Haagen-Dazs or Ben and Jerrys, love your beer and wine, love good solid European yoghurt, etc. etc., then you've come to the right thread. Living in the UK can actually be cheaper for you!

And of course if you're travelling in the UK, drop by a large supermarket and pick up some cheap groceries!

Ice Cream

First up; something most people love.

I picked these up today from Sainsburys; Haagen Daaz (500ml) and Magnum Gold.

(You can assume that GBP 1 = SGD 2.1, but the real rate is between 2.04 to 2.07).

Haagen Daaz at GBP 4.29 BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free), that's GBP 2.145 each! Even without the promotion, it is quite cheap; with the promotion, it screams buy me! In Singapore, on promotion, buy two for SGD 23.85, or SGD 11.925 each.

Of course, usually such promotions are short-lived, but if you are able to get them... you'll be smiling from end to end when eating the fantastic ice-cream.

Magnum Gold at GBP 2.59 BOGOF, that's GBP 1.295 each! In SG, SGD 9.90 each at Cold Storage.

Here is the evidence:

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Anyone with a little bit of curiosity can verify this from the website.

Enjoy your ice-creams!

Chips

Chips are big in the UK, and one of our favourite brands is Kettle, as they produce PROPER chips. The flavours and variety are slightly different here, but quality is as high as ever.

The cheapest I've seen in SG is SGD 3.30 per packet, typical price is about SGD 4.65.

I love the 1 pound deals; just picked up some today at Sainsburys at 3 packets for 3 pounds.

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German Riesling

We love German Rieslings, but they are so expensive in SG, typically SGD 30 and up for a decent bottle. Lucky if you can get it between SGD 20 - 25.

Picked up a few bottles of Dr. Loosen's "L" Riesling, his entry level Riesling. Consistent quality, very quaffable. GBP 5.48 on promotion, normal price (which I would still buy) at GBP 6.98.

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Activia Yoghurt

I love shopping at Asda; not the most pleasant shopping experience (Sainsburys is better, and up the line, you get M&S and Waitrose), but they are cheaper on almost every product. Still, better than shopping at Clementi's NTUC; where it's always so crowded and the aisles are so narrow! Think Carrefour (when it was in SG) and you'll know what Asda is like; hypermarket.

Danone (French) produces arguably the best commercially produced Yoghurt; their Activia range. There are many other good brands here too; usually we get Yeo Valley, Rachel's, or sometimes even the supermarket brand, which is pretty decent. No crappy Marigold yoghurt here!

I usually don't buy Activia as the other brands are cheaper; but these few weeks their entire range has been reduced from GBP 1.60 for a 4-pack to GBP 1.00. Needless to say, our fridge is now well stocked with it.

The price in SG? I believe in Cold Storage, SGD 6 to 15. And only at the "atas" locations of Cold Storage or at the premium outlets, i.e. Jasons, Market Place.

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Asda Wine, 3 bottles for GBP 10 Deals

Cheap can come good, if one chooses their wines carefully. Asda's 3 bottles for 10 Pound deals can reap great dividends. And even if the wine is bad (which is not likely but still possible, since UK drinkers are quite discerning), it only cost GBP 3.33. Beats spending SGD 20 for plonk!

Their range is wide; they have all sorts from Old World to New World. As we don't particularly fancy New World fruit bombs, I tend to pick French, Spanish, and Italian. No disappointments so far, especially at GBP 3.33 per bottle!

One memorable bottle was s Spanish Chardonnay (second link below), which was spectacular value. Tasted like a SGD 30 - 40 bottle of wine in SG. But then of course, wine prices in SG are so inflated as it's still seen as very "atas", and of course there is the wine levy in SG. Here, it is perfectly normal (and affordable) to enjoy wine (responsibly of course) on an almost daily basis.

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asda, sainsburry, tesco.. big and very good malls.. with cheap prices.

Internet

One of the things that doesn't seem to be cheaper here in the UK is the cost of Internet subscriptions. Maybe it's because we can only take out a one year contract, but we pay about GBP 36 per month just for a phone line and unlimited Internet. With 2 year contracts and combined with a TV package, the cost will go down.

The good thing is that we chose the unlimited plan so that we could happily watch BBC programs through iplayer, and as we don't have an actual TV and we don't watch live TV, we don't have to pay the TV licensing fees of GBP 110 per year.

Champagne

Champagne, the ultimate bubbly. Nothing comes close. Sure, there can be many pretenders to the throne like Cava, Prosecco, and a few other somewhat respectable attempts (and no, Jacob's Creek Sparkling Pinot Noir is NOT a respectable attempt, nor their cough-syruppy Rose, urgh!). But there is nothing like real Champagne.

Unfortunately those come really expensive in SG; you will be happy if you could pick out a bottle for under SGD 50, but there are some really bad Champagnes for that price. The best I managed to pick up was a Duval Leroy in Carrefour for SGD 35, but it was a one-off clearance and it was the last two bottles left on the shelf.

Here we are not restricted to "branded" champagnes like the crappy Moet and Chandon Brut Non-Vintage that spend tonnes of money on marketing (if you must, Veuve Cliquot, Mumm, Taittinger, Heidsieck and Co Monopole Blue Top, are all better); it is priced into the bottle. There are many small producers that produce equally good champagnes at literally half the price.

And yes, Asda carries them; a very respectable Pierre Darcy Champagne at just GBP 9.87; normal price over GBP 20, but you would be silly to pay more than GBP 15 for it. Under SGD 21 for a respectable bottle of Champagne; body, character, lively, satisfying. A dream come true? Yes, in the UK, but only nightmarish prices in SG.

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hi,

will you be able to share on accommodation for tourist?

I will be going to London in April for 4 days, need some cheap stay.

thanks

Naga Siren said:

hi,

will you be able to share on accommodation for tourist?

I will be going to London in April for 4 days, need some cheap stay.

thanks

Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you have looked at tripadvisor or even the many threads in this forum, because they will have your answer. As you can imagine, this is a Frequently Asked Question, of which there are therefore many Frequent Answers.

Generally people don't like to answer the same question many times, and since this is a Frequently Asked Question, you would expect that there have already been many answers posted. Would you like to repeat your answers many times? I'm sure you would get tired after the second or third time.

Now, having been around this forum for a while, if I had good recommendations for accommodation in London, I would have either started a new appropriately entitled thread, or I would have tagged on a "London Accommodation" thread and added my two pennies worth. Searching posts by me would have revealed those posts. As it currently stands, I didn't post anything on the topic, which would either suggest extreme selfishness (which is unlikely seeing as how I waste a lot of my time helping people in this forum), or complete ignorance. Which one is more likely?

Anyway it's not that I don't want to help you; as I'm staying just two hours bus ride from London, it means we don't need any accommodation in London itself, we just make cheap day trips using megabus. But I could have found the answer within this forum with just five minutes of searching. Can you? I'm sure you can.

Now, if you *did* already look at tripadvisor etc., and you *did* already look at the other threads in the forum, I apologize. But as your question didn't suggest so, I assumed (maybe wrongly) otherwise.

If on the other hand, you have already looked elsewhere, and you are thinking I'm an expert because I stay in the UK, then sorry to disappoint you. In fact, I haven't stayed a single night in a London hotel since 1985. So you can imagine that any information that I have about London hotels may just be a tad outdated.

Edit: First version which seemed too harsh has been edited; this is the more "tame" reply. At least I'm trying to tone down, right? Sorry, I just get ranty when I see people who seemed to do zero homework, especially for commonly asked questions, and expect to be spoonfed. It's just not good for them in their life and career, and I just want to help them improve their public image.

Ordering Books from Amazon

Do you love books, especially fiction? Always wanted to order them from Amazon but found the shipping charges prohibitive?

No such problems in the UK! Not only are the books cheaper (GBP 3.99 versus about SGD 12+ in the example below for a brand new Terry Pratchett paperback), but FREE super saver shipping applies for most books; just need to wait for about one week for the book to be delivered right to your doorstep! No need to pop over to crowded Borders or Kinokuniya.

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Note: Price of the book has since risen to GBP 4.13. But still cheaper than in SG, and the free shipping is still a nice plus, of course. Interestingly there is no VAT on books in the UK.

Designer Outlets

Do you buy a lot of clothes or things from "Western" brands like Karen Millen, Clarks, Crabtree & Evelyn, L'Occitane, etc. etc.?

We stay just an hour's drive from the well-known Designer Outlet Bicester Village. Go crazy! We got some 70% discount deals the first time we visited. I'm sure it won't be our last time.

http://www.bicestervillage.com/en/brand-directory/all-brands

There are actually a lot more lesser-known (or for Singaporeans, unknown) designer outlets carrying other brands, dotted all over the country.

Europe at your Doorstep

Living in the UK and its proximity to mainland Europe means that if you love Europe, you will have a ball of a time, and cheap too! Not only does it mean of course that it's much cheaper to fly to Spain, France, Italy, etc. (our last flight to Bordeaux cost GBP 131.86 for two of us inclusive of two check-in bags with 2 * 20 = 40kg of luggage allowance), but the other important factor is the jet-lag, or rather, lack of it.

Not only can you arrive in most destinations in Europe within a two-hour flight, but the lack of any jet-lag means you won't be having to spend the first few days zombified while your body adjusts to the local time; not to mention the lack of a need for the return jet-lag recovery as well.

It's also quite possible to drive over to the Continent; the advantage of this is that there is no luggage allowance to speak off; whatever you can dump in your car is what you can bring along.

hey tanchoo,

thanks for all these insights. I'm going off to Leeds this september for studies, for 5 years, and probably more if i work there.

I'd like to ask:

Which supermarkets are the more normal ones (like NTUC and giant) and which are the more atas ones?
Mobile Phone wise; 3 mobile looks like they have by far the best deals, any reason why?

when u get sick, how long do you need to wait for a consult?
Do I buy clothes and shoes here in singapore or UK?

Renting a House

So I'm not talking about London; house rentals there are crazy, and they go by the WEEK, not month. But then again, if you have a job in London, your salary will accordingly be higher too. Or you may have some rental allowance.

We're in a small town in Wiltshire; it's a nice sized town, with a decent size population to have all the modern amenities we need (hypermarket, M&S, other shops just five minutes drive away, cinema 15 minutes drive away, and various other shopping areas 15 minutes drive away), but also not too crowded such that the standard of living is quite high here. And traffic is not too heavy as well, even during peak hours. Sure there is the jam if you take the crowded route, but at least it moves.

People are therefore a lot less stressed and more relaxed; the pace of life is not hurried, but nor is it too slow; service people are polite, have time to have a little chat with you, and smile, but are still fairly efficient. And if you want the hustle and bustle of London, or want to catch a musical their or visit any of the numerous museums, it's just a two-hour bus ride away, easy for a day trip. No need for any expensive overnight accommodation in London!

Parking is free in most places except in the center of town; no need to pay per hour or watch the coupon aunties when doing your shopping or watching a movie! And of course there is no ERP.

The neighbourhood we are staying is fairly new (by UK standards), at about 10 years old. It's also in one of the safest towns in the UK, where unemployment is among the lowest. There are also few foreigners or immigrants here.

UK citizens can choose whether to live in bustling expensive London, or to stay somewhere quieter and cheaper. The interesting thing is that house rentals in the center of the town are actually cheaper than in the villages surrounding the town; that's because people prefer to stay in the countryside. Who wants to live in the town where parking is difficult, traffic noise is persistent, and it's generally more crowded and claustrophobic? Of course everyone wants to return everyday to their nice country home with a garden, fresh air, trees, and space!

Since we're outside London, housing is therefore, surprisingly affordable; we pay just GBP 600 per month for a small semi-D. We decided to get a place on the outskirts of the town; so it's still fairly cheap, yet because it's in the outskirts, it's also more ruralish; space, quiet, trees, fresh air. The best of both worlds.

It's probably in between the size of the old-style 3-room and 4-room HDB flats, but for just two of us, totally adequate. But that is where the similarities end.

We have a small private driveway that can fit two cars, and a smallish back garden which is nice for that al-dente evening dinner during the warm spring or summer nights, with a glass of chilled prosecco or Champagne, of course.

And of course the population density here is low, the area consisting of only houses of all types, from detached houses, to semi-Ds, to terraces. Traffic noise is very light, we hear many birds chirping and singing, there are no inconsiderate neighbours to contend with as people here are very particular about silence and just being considerate neighbours in general (they can call the police if you make too much noise after 10pm!), and there is plenty of space around. A very nice pond with ducks, geese, and a pair of very lovely swans, is just 10 minutes walk away, which we frequent.

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There is also a small supermarket just five minutes walk away if we need; that's where I get my weekend newspapers. Which leads me to the next topic...

Popular UK house rental website:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/

Newspapers

Since big brother is surely watching, I won't comment too much on the quality of the local newspapers in SG.

Let's just say that the quality of the newspapers in the UK is far higher; sure, many of them have political agendas, but there is a lot of variance in opinion and you often get two sides of the coin.

The journalistic quality is also far higher; the newspapers are quite a bit more expensive, but the feeling I get from reading it is much better. I come away feeling more enlightened, learned, overwhelmed, and realizing I have much more to learn and know; after reading the mainstream SG newspapers, I get the feeling of being dumbed down, talked too, and none the wiser.

As the newspapers are so meaty and intelligent, I only have a weekend subscription to the Guardian / Observer. I also love The Times / Sunday Times, but unfortunately they do not have a weekend subscription package.

The prices of the Guardian / Observer for Sat / Sun is GBP 1.90 / 2.00; but this is reduced by 18% to GBP 13.86 per month for weekend subscribers. I don't get it daily, but it's sufficient for me; the weekend editions are not just thick, but completely full of meaty reporting, analysis, comments, as well as lighter topics like sports (EPL anyone?), fashion, celebrities, food and drink, etc.

The Guardian and Observer are available free online as well, where you may peruse their excellent articles if you wish.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Subscription prices:

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The other good "serious" newspaper is The Daily Telegraph, though it seems to be more popular with the older readers:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Unfortunately The Times / Sunday Times do not put their articles for free online; so the only way in SG is to pay for an online subscription or grab a very expensive hardcopy from your local newsdealer, i.e. Holland Village or the large bookstores.

And of course there are the usual suspects of the gossipy newspapers which I don't read, but there are plenty of them here, and pretty good as well, as far as gossip newspapers go.

iPlayer

As we were too cheapo to buy a TV or pay the GBP 110 per year TV licensing fees, we watch iPlayer quite a bit. It's BBC's on-demand TV. Hence it's important to get an unlimited Internet plan.

So I use it to grab my weekly EPL highlights (Match of the Day 2), watch my Eggheads / Mastermind / Only Connect quiz shows, stand-up comedies, and even the occasional film. We've managed to catch old movies like Legally Blonde, all the previous Narnia movies, National Treasure, and maybe one or two others that I forgot.

As a classical music buff, I also enjoy their analysis and performances of various classical hits; I loved their rendition of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto.

There are of course many other genres of on-demand TV that I do not watch regularly but are also available on iPlayer. Oh, in case you plan to try, iPlayer is only available from within the UK.

For the "enlightened", there's even a way to "backup" the downloaded movie files by "removing" the DRM access control so that one can view them forever; Google DRM for more information if you're interested.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/

Efficiency

Singapore is well-known for being efficient; be thankful for that!

Our experience with getting things done in the UK has been surprisingly good. Things can be efficient outside Singapore too!

Due to issues with our council tax, although we were exempt from paying it, I had to pay first. Once I explained our situation to them and they confirmed that we were indeed exempt, I expected to wait a month to be refunded. It wasn't a small sum at over GBP 200. But I got a check in the mail less than a week after I saw them!

(Council tax is similar to your HDB maintenance fee or something like that; it covers the cost of the police and fire authorities, garbage and recycling, maintenance of the local parks and playgrounds, etc.)

I also applied for and got my NI (National Insurance) number within a week after sending in the required application form.

I renewed my Vehicle Tax online on Thursday 10 February 2011. I got my tax disc in the mail today, just two days later. Is that efficient, or what? Even I was surprised.

Car Tax and Buying a Car

Which leads me naturally to the next topic... cars.

Disclaimer: I am not criticizing the policy of making cars expensive in SG; I understand the need for that, if not the streets of SG will be as crowded as that of Bangkok or Jakarta. This is just a natural consequence of being in a small country. You cannot blame the government for every policy that doesn't agree with you; some of them are really necessary. And if you're really not happy, you can always vote with your feet.

But of course, living in UK now, one cannot help but to make comparisons, and I'm merely stating the facts as I see them.

So I just renewed my car's vehicle tax, as it's an old car under 1549 cc, I paid just GBP 68.75 for 6 months:

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Compare that to the tax I would have to pay if in SG, SGD 372:

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As you can expect, cars here are cheap, dirt cheap. Here is a sampling of the prices used cars:

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You could easily get a decent used car with one to two months salary or less! And because of the low depreciation, one could change cars as often as one changes handphones in SG! It's very normal to buy a car for 2,000 pounds, and after a year, to sell it for the same price!

From the low end, let's go to the high end.

For those who want brand new cars and have a higher budget (say, around 60k - 70k SGD which is typical for a brand new car in SG), let's see what you can get:

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Wow! 31,900 pounds for a brand new Jaguar doesn't sound like a bad price to me at all! That's approximately 67k SGD. In SG, the Jaguar XF starts at approximately 200k SGD. Ouch.

If you don't need to be so vain and you just want a brand new small car, a good reliable Ford is yours for under 9,000 pounds:

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Ford is the most popular car in the UK because of its reliability. Similar to why the Toyota is the most popular car in SG. A bit boring, almost everyone has it, but it seldom breaks down, and even if it does, parts are easy to find and thus cheap.

Some other brands have brand new cars for under 8,000 pounds for their entry-level.

And finally, a car that is popular in SG among the young working professionals. That is, if they can afford it. I present to you, the MINI:

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Under 15k GBP here brand new if you have the cash upfront, under 17k GBP if you pay by installments. Starting from 130k SGD in SG. Ouch again.