What I spend in a week in London - Cost of living as a full-time Master's studen

Let's talk about how much it costs to live in London. There's a joke that every time you leave your flat in London you get charged £20 and it's funny because it's true. Not literally but every time you leave your flat you end up spending more money than you think you will. First of all I should say that money is kind of a touchy subject. I'm a little bit nervous about posting this video because everyone has different priorities about how they spend their money and this is just how I'm currently choosing to prioritize my spending and I think we should all just keep that in mind throughout the video. Thank you. Okay so disclaimers out of the way, let's start with my recurring expenses. First thing is accommodation. I live in a student accommodation in Zone 2 and I pay £179 per week. Next is my phone plan which I actually think I might be overpaying for at the moment. When I first moved here I had unlimited data because I was like I'm going to be on City Mapper all the time trying to find my way around and all this stuff. This month I changed to 100GB through GiftGap which is £20 per month which makes it £5 a week but I think I could even go a little bit lower than that. And finally I have a Pratt Coffee subscription which is £20 per month which is £5 a week but actually as I'm filming this video they just announced that they are increasing the price to £25 a month which for me is not a big deal because it ends up saving me a lot of money because I get coffee every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, so it still ends up being a really good deal. So all of those recurring costs add up to be £219 per week. Some other things that I didn't include because I share with my family but you might end up having to pay if you live here would be like Netflix, Spotify, streaming services, and then if you watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer you'll have to pay a TV license as well. Okay so now onto the fun part which is how much I spend in variable costs each week. I'm nervous. On Monday morning I got a coffee which was £0 but my coffee walk was priceless and you can honestly just copy and paste that onto every morning because that's what I do every morning. I did laundry and that costs £5, washing is £3.50 and drying is £1.50. Then I went to Primark to pick up a few things that I was needing and of course a couple things I didn't need and I didn't plan on buying but it happens. And my total at Primark was £16.50. I also went to Sport Direct which is a sporting goods store and I got a yoga slash Pilates mat that I've been needing so I can do some stretching in my room. And to get to the shops I took a bus which was £1.55 and coming back it was free because there's this thing called Hopper Fare. Basically if you tap in on a bus more than once within an hour your second time is free. Monday nights are art class night and if you watched my last video you will know that this is totally worth it to me. This class is 8 weeks long and it costs a total of £260 which makes each class £32.50. And my art class is in zone 1 so I took a train and it cost me £5.50 round trip. And I should mention here that I choose to pay as I go on transportation. There are travel cards that you can get but I personally don't commute enough to need that but it's something to look into if you will be commuting quite a bit if you move here. Okay and then the last thing I did on Monday was I stopped at Aldi on my way home to get some groceries and my total was £9.35 and that brings Monday's total to £90.30. Yikes. Moving on, on Tuesday I met a friend in Clapham to work on a project and we sat at Pret which as you know I have a Pret subscription so I was able to get, I think I got two drinks while I was there. I did buy a ginger shot because I felt a cold coming on and I just wanted to get a little bit of something good in my system. And then we were still there at lunch time and I forgot to film this part but I got a ham and cheese sandwich and some crisps and that was £4.55. The toilet at the coffee shop was broken so I had to run over to Starbucks which was next door and in order to get into the bathroom with the door code I had to buy something so I bought two sparkling waters for my friend and I. And I didn't write down how much that cost. Hold on. Okay the waters at Starbucks were £3.20. My transportation to and from Clapham was £5.50 round trip. And then for dinner I ate some of my groceries from Aldi so I'm not going to count any money for that. And so my total for the day was £13.85. Wednesday was a day where I had class all day and I bought a flapjack for a snack and I meant to take a water bottle which you saw I bought one on Monday but I forgot it so I had to buy a water and I bought a sparkling water which then actually exploded on me right before my presentation. So we love that. But anyway at the student cafe those two things cost me £2.63. For lunch I came back to my room and had a weird little charcuterie from my groceries and then by the end of the day on Wednesday I was really fighting a cold. It was not COVID. I tested twice but I stopped and got a few health shots at M&S and those were £3.20 for both. And as I mentioned I wasn't feeling well so I didn't feel like putting any effort into my dinner so I picked up some Thai food on the way home and I always get the vermicelli noodles which are delicious and they cost £12 but they usually last me for two meals so I feel like it's worth it. And that brings Wednesday's total to £17.83. On Thursday I only spent £1.50. Thank you Lord. I needed to get some more carrots to go with my hummus. Those were a pound from Tesco. And then I also got a two litre bottle of water. Now you might be judging me right now for buying water. The tap water in general in London is fine but in my building it's not it. So I usually buy these big five litre containers but they were out of those so I just got a two litre today. Something that may be weird to some people is how often I go to the grocery. I usually don't do a big food shop for the week. I usually go about three times a week or so because I mostly walk to the grocery because I'm usually just out and about and I'll swing by somewhere on the way home. But even if I did take a bus to a larger supermarket I still have to walk from the bus stop and my building doesn't have a lift so I really just can't carry that much so that's why I go so often. Also, there's a big difference between how long groceries last in the US versus the UK because of the preservatives so things go bad much more quickly here so you have to go to the grocery more often. That's just how it is. Okay, and then Friday was a really weird day for me because the storm Eunice hit and we were advised to all stay home but I did not have any groceries. So I did have to go and do a little panic buy at M&S which is the closest grocery store to me and I spent £11.55. I also grabbed a five litre of water from Tesco and then I also grabbed a coffee on my way home so just imagine me with my five litres of water, my grocery bags, and a coffee trying to get all the way home. It was a mess. And all the wind. I was editing a video wearing my over ear headphones and I was getting such a bad headache from wearing them and I don't have any other headphones that have an auxiliary cord so I purchased some on Amazon. They were $8.79 and so far, so good. Okay, so that makes Friday's total $21.69. On Saturday the weather was still quite bad so I went for my morning walk, got a coffee but then I stayed in for most of the day and then my friends and I decided to go for a quick dinner at a pub nearby and I got a cider and I got two chicken sliders and some fries and it was kind of expensive, okay? It was $23.50 for that. My eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach because I couldn't even finish it all but I did have a good time because I just got to hang out with my friends so all good. Okay, and then on Sunday I needed to pick up some shower gel and my friend had just told me how good this certain shower gel smelled and then I got there and they were two for four or one for three so what was I supposed to do? I did get two and that was four pounds. And true life, I'm addicted to Aldi Shop and Go because I swum by there again and I paid $8.89. However, I will say that I did only eat a little bit of those groceries within the week time so does it really count? I'm going to count it but you know what I mean, I'm going to be eating those groceries for a couple days. But I guess since I did eat some of last week's groceries this week, I'll just say it evens out. Okay, so the grand total for Sunday is $12.89. Just interrupting really quickly before I give you the weekly totals because I just remembered that I wanted to give you the category totals as well for groceries and shopping and all that kind of stuff. So groceries were $35.84. Shopping was $49.29. Dining and drinks which also includes like when I got something from the student cafe and at Pret, it was $48.08. Entertainment was $32.50, that was basically just my art class. Transportation was $12.45. And then utilities which was just laundry was five pounds. Alright, and drum roll please. The grand total for the variable expenses for this week was 181 pounds and 56p. And when you add that onto my recurring expenses, my total cost of this week was 400 pounds and 56p. I know that's a lot and I could probably benefit from some sort of structured budgeting system but the thing is I just moved to London so I don't want to restrict myself too much. Sometimes I spend less than this, sometimes I spend more but I think I could benefit from a little bit of balance but I will find that in my own time. The real kicker is going to be when I convert it to dollars which I haven't done yet. I thought we would do it together live. I make a little bit of money in pounds from YouTube, thank you so much for watching, and from my job on campus but it's not very much and the majority of my money is in dollars so it hurts, it does hurt when I have to think about the conversion rate. So let me just pull up a converter and by the way, the conversion rate does fluctuate or the exchange rate, I'm not sure the correct title of that, future me coming at you again because I typed in the complete wrong number the first time I did the conversion. So today is February 24th and the pound is currently worth $1.33 so that means that my weekly total of 402 pounds and 16p is actually in U.S. dollars, $536.74. Nobody talk to me.