Expat Kiwi Lillie Rohan finds some things in London are not as expensive as she feared.
If there is one thing London does really, really well, it’s gaslighting you into thinking you’re richer than you’ve ever been.
From pints at the pub most evenings, to booking back-to-back vacations and attending a constant stream of events, it’s no surprise that my parents are convinced I’m paying for my lifestyle with monopoly money, but the truth is that London just isn’t as expensive as I expected it to be.
It’s so much cheaper that I wish I could revert to July last year. I’d tell myself that working three jobs comprised of 17-hour days and six-day weeks is completely unnecessary and that it might be, just possibly, a gross overreaction.
There are, of course, still things that will absolutely rip apart your wallet and have you sobbing on the tube, like rent, eating out, takeaway coffee that sits at nearly $10 a cup on a good day, and public transport – they literally call TFL (the public transport provider) the Pied Piper. But it’s still sunny in London, the winter darkness hasn’t yet swept in so we’re focusing on the bright side – the cheap day-to-day parts of London, like groceries, alcohol, clothes, travel, which are all significantly cheaper than in New Zealand.
That’s quite the contradiction to last month’s column, and you may be thinking: “Lillie, didn’t you tell us a brunch for two people was $101?” Yes, you are right, it was a sore point for a while. Thanks for bringing it up again. Fortunately, London redeemed itself with my first supermarket trip.
For almost a full week of food (I’m talking six days’ worth of breakfast, lunch and dinner), the total came to $114.55. It’s even more impressive when I tell you my trolley load included gluten-free products, eight New Zealand lamb chops, and eggs, all of which are notoriously expensive here.
Why is it so cheap? Well, it helps to have 17 major supermarket chains and unlike Foodstuffs and Woolworths, they actually fight for your money.
These days, we get our groceries delivered and live a bit more adventurously, so it’s around $150 a week for two people. That’s three meals a day in London for less than my $70-a-week Auckland shop that didn’t even cover breakfast or lunch because I couldn’t bring myself to splurge on the obscene prices for granola and fruit.
It’s not just groceries that are cheap. You can grab a lush bouquet of flowers for around $18, which had me doing a double-take, especially when just last week I bought my Auckland-based cousin flowers for her 21st, plus cupcakes and wine. Altogether it came to $250 plus $19 delivery despite the fact that she lived just two suburbs over from the florist.
You can’t even blame it on the extras, either, because the wine came to $90, while the cupcakes were free, which means the flowers alone were $160. At that point, I wondered if I should have just bought her a one-way ticket over here.
Other perks of London are that you get free shipping on most online orders, and if you want a bargain on your clothes, ASOS, Primark, and Zara have unreal prices that have you buying a bright purple and orange shirt despite never wearing those colours before in your life, just because it’s $9.20. And skincare and pharmaceuticals are relatively cheap.
Pints sit around $15 but, if you’re really savvy, $5 thanks to a pub chain called Wetherspoons. It may be the best and worst place in the world, but if you’re visiting the UK or moving here and want to save some money, it’s your best bet for cheap pints, food and people watching.
There are also events every night. Some are free pop-ups, some are stadium or arena shows with tickets costing the same as in New Zealand, while some big names play at random venues and cost anywhere between $80.6 and$115.
Travel is also outrageously affordable here. Not only is Europe close by but there are between 70 and 90 airlines flying in and out of London every day. And much like the supermarkets, they are fighting for your money.
I scored return flights to Paris for $230, Albania for $115 and Copenhagen for $110. It’s why one random Wednesday, you and your pals can joke about going to New York because flights are £350 ($806) return and a couple of weeks later, actually go.
I’ll be honest, I am very excited at the thought of returning to New Zealand one day to get my hands on some overpriced Whittaker’s chocolate and Vogels bread, but I will miss the cheap London essentials. Long live bigger markets, more competition, and imports that aren’t priced like they’ve been hand-delivered on a velvet cushion by the King.