If you are looking for a place to rent in London you should know you are facing one of the most expensive places in the world. However, due to the pound devaluation during the past year, prices have become more affordable. In London, unless you are going to earn a more than 35000 pounds a year, forget about living alone in a modern one bedroom apartment located in zones 1 to 3. Don’t worry about carrying your furniture with you, since 90% of the apartments to rent are furnished and that doesn’t mean that you will have to pay a higher rent price. Renting a studio in London in zone 3 will not come down from 900 pounds per month. Don’t make the classical mistake many people make: be tempted to move miles away from London to save 100 pounds a month. Every day those people watch how their 100-pounds savings are highly outweighed by their spending on public transport, which is extremely expensive in London, even with the pound devaluation. Price is not the only drawback in the UK with properties. You will also have to deal with ancient properties, with little maintenance. You can pay 1000 pounds a month for rubbish flat in zone 3, with ceiling and wood floor almost broken. It isn’t worth to write about modern property prices, it will be enough to say that anyone who can afford those properties will not have any problem with money and probably won’t be reading these lines about cost of living in the UK (that’s not a problem for them).

If you are going to relocate to a city in England other than London, costs can be reduced significantly. In my case, I lived in Leeds in a two-room apartment, 20 minute walk from downtown (3 minutes walk to Universtity of Leeds) for only 525 pounds per month. The flat rental costs in northern England are considerably lower than in the south, especially in London. So, students considering universities outside London may consider this factor when choosing the University with best value for money for them. In northern UK, outside England, Scotland could be a beautiful choice and interesting experience, but you will have to support the cold weather.

Personally I think the success of Leeds as a university town is the value for money it offers to the students. You can make the experience of studying one or two years in the UK at half price of what it would do it in London. In addition, Leeds is a city prepared to have fun and enjoy the university life at its peak, without messing with the stress of costs and lifestyle of a big city like London. In addition, in smaller cities you can experience the real English culture, unlike London where the mixture of cultures has led to the loss of the British identity. It's a matter of looking at people on London streets, or children at schools to realize that 60% or more of the Londiners are not natives. Back to the rental costs matter, you can get a studio in Leeds city centre for 400 pounds. These rates are similar in Manchester and can be even cheaper in Sheffield. Manchester is one hour west far from Leeds by train and Sheffield¸ 50 minutes south.

If you have a tight budget, a very popular choice among students and young professionals is to rent a property with 5 or 6 rooms and share rental costs. If you do the abovce, you can get a private bedroom and share kitchen, bathroom and living room with your roommates for no more than 300 to 400 pounds per month per person. There are letting agencies devoted to this type of rents.

The best way to research prices in different areas is visiting specialized web pages like Rightmove and findaproperty. But be aware that you have to consider the rental price along with other costs that are part of the cost of living in the UK, such as council tax, water, electricity, gas, telephone, broadband internet access and TV license. Yes, you have read correctly, in the UK if you want to have a TV on your flat you have to PAY a tax (few things are free in this country). We will analyze these costs on the next post regarding utilities in the UK. We hope that these articles help you to calculate your particular cost of living in the United Kingdom (UK) as close as possible.

The British celebrate the Bonfire Night every November 5th and arises because an attempt to murder King James I in 1605. It was a group of Catholics who did not agree with the King’s thoughts and decided to show their anger and resentment locating some gunpowder barrels very carefully in the Parliament’s warehouse. The idea was to blow up the British Parliament with the King inside, but someone who knew the plan raised the alert. Therefore, Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder barrels were captured. Right after, the British authorities decided to punish and torture him until his death.

For this reason, every year on November 5^th all the UK celebrates the capture and death of Guy Fawkes and of course, the salvation of King James I. In all the UK's major parks, Guy Fawkes dolls are prepared and then burned on big bonfires. Every park has its fireworks display show that usually lasts about 20 minutes. It’s worth to watch one of them since they are really awesome.

During our experience in the city of Leeds, we noted that the locals really enjoyed that day, considering it very important, although is not a vacation day. In Leeds, the Guy Fawkes dolls and bonfires are prepared very early in the main parks (Roundhay Park and Hyde Park, among others) and some street vendors take advantage of this opportunity to earn some extra pounds selling food, drinks and fireworks. The most successful are undoubtedly beer stands as we all know, the British are particularly fans of this drink, no matter the weekday, weather or time of the day.

During the last celebration of the Bonfire Night on 5th November, some people in Leeds also took the opportunity to set up big amusement parks that all people could enjoy once the fireworks displays finished in the parks... but the oddest thing was that the next day, the amusement parks had completely disappeared and set up in other parts of the city, or simply returned to their warehouses.

It is clear that students are those who most enjoy this celebration, but also is a nice experience for any foreigner living in the United Kingdom and eager to know a little bit more about the interesting British culture. In Leeds, the biggest fireworks display show happens in Roundhay Park. We strongly recommend you to look for the biggest fireworks display show in your city.

Leeds has economically grown during the last couple of years due to its focus on financial and legal services. The latter also is the cause of the serious economical problems that is currently suffering due to the global financial crisis. The Leeds official publications claim that Leeds is the largest financial and legal centre in England outside London. Its geographical location is strategic and key for its development, as it is located in the middle of the main UK island and its rail station has services from and to almost all main cities in the UK, including a 2-hour fast service to London. In terms of communication, be aware that may take some time for you to get used to the broad English language spoken by the locals.

Leeds has two large universities: the University of Leeds and the Leeds Metropolitan University (the MET). Thousands of students from England and other countries around the world settle in Leeds every year to attend any of its universities. The Leeds official publications claim that this city has the largest university life in England outside London. Students make Leeds a lively city. In fact, if you stay in the city during University holiday periods (June, July, August) you will have the feeling that you are alone in the city. Especially if you live in Hyde Park or Headingley, the most popular student areas.

Leeds has been one of the victims who bet on the real estate and financial boom and is currently suffering the bad consequences of the global crisis: half-built brand-new apartments, large brand-new office spaces completely empty, shopping malls interrupted, and so on. However, Leeds is a good place for those who enjoy the quiet life, green spaces, and cold weather with a little bit of sunlight (the winter temperatures last from September to May).

All its offices, business, stores and restaurants are concentrated in the city centre. If you walk away 20 minutes from the city centre you will notice that almost all the city is residential, flooded with its particular orange brick houses with black shed roofs. On large neighborhoods, you can find two blocks of stores, with a superstore, coffee shop, fast food restaurant and that’s it. For a shopping and dining evening, you have to go to the city centre, or to the White Rose Shopping Centre, on the outskirts of Leeds, close to Leeds United stadium. A weekend in Leeds is more than enough to visit the whole city and its main points of interest, so if you are planning to visit Leeds as a tourist destination, we don’t recommend booking more that one night hotel. Some of its main attractions are the Kirkstall Abbey (ruins of an old abbey) and the Royal Armories (museum of armor and weapons from different history periods, it really worth visit it), at Clearence Dock, on the Aire river area, near the city centre. Clearence Dock is the modern area of the city, with brand-new buildings, in contrast to the rest of the city that is very ancient, full of typical Yorkshire buildings.

If you are going to live in Leeds for a long period, we recommend you to consider buying a car because the public transport is expensive and not very good. To move around the city you can find only buses with bad frequency. All of them pass through the city centre, so if you are somewhere outside the city centre and you want to reach another place outside town, you will have to take more than one bus. This situation plus the poor frequency of the services and the expensive fares, make driving a car a more convenient and cheaper choice. When you evaluate an apartment rental price we recommend taking into account transport costs, since the 100 pounds you can save living outside the city, will be worthless because higher costs on public transport. If you want to travel to nearby cities, the expensive train fares also make a car a better choice. For example, although traveling in the fast train you can reach London in 2 hours, the one-way ticket price is roughly 80 pounds. So if you want to travel to London using the fast train, we recommend planning the trip in advance. You can get 10 pounds one-way tickets to London if you book online one month in advance. The government encourages the use of public transport, but their policies are contradictory: the public transport is extremely expensive (rates have risen this year) and the services are getting worse (frequencies have been decreased and some services have been suspended).

Will Leeds meet your expectations in terms of a nice place to live, work and/or study? It will depend on your age and your lifestyle. For a young student looking for a lively city to spend some years studying in one of its universities is the ideal place: parties every day, lot of pubs and clubs, student neighborhoods, good quality universities, cheaper than London, make Leeds an excellent place for students with good value for money. For adults, is a quiet town that offers good life quality due to its wide big parks offer, as Roundhay, Temple New Sam and Woodhouse Moor (better known as Hyde Park, famous for its student life). However, the cultural offer is very poor. If you have completed your student period and are looking for a city with a wide job alternatives and a lot of things to do, Leeds may not be the best option and you should consider other larger cities like London or Birmingham. Although London is more expensive, you should know that you will earn higher salaries there for the same job. So if you get the same type of job, economically talking the place where you are going to live will not make the difference. As an example, my colleagues located in London earned about 25% more than me in the same job position and on the same company.

In upcoming entries, I will delve further on some issues of this nice city.

• Tesco: It is perhaps the largest and most popular chain in the UK. It has different kinds according to the
• store size: “extra” stores, "metro" stores, "express" stores. They are very popular in London in its small formats (“metro” and “express”). Among the small size stores is the one with the lowest prices and everyday has half-price products. For example, you can always find 4 or 5 wine brands at 50% of their price.

• Sainsbury's: Its most popular format are small supermarkets (local markets) but you may be able to find larger stores (supermarkets) outside from the populated areas. It is the one with the highest prices, but on the other side it has some better quality products not available in the other chains. It also offers discount products, but less convenient than Tesco. Popular in London, recommended for small purchases or when you need a product that is not available in other places. When you want to buy a lot of products (weekly/monthly purchase), is the less convenient in terms of value for money.

• Morrisons: Not very well known in London but very popular in medium and small UK cities like Leeds and Manchester. It has no small-size store format. Only big supermarkets, no “hiper” or “extra”. Cheaper than Tesco and Sainsbury's, is the most popular outside London. In London, you won’t find many of them because of their size. They need larger areas not available in the big city. It is a very good supermarket and the one that offers best value for money for general purchases. You can find very cheap products (usually Morrisons brand) but also quality brands for the most demanding public. As Tesco, you can always find discount products.

• ASDA: Is the British Walmart. It has only big-size hyper market formats away from very populated areas. For that reason, you may never see one in London. My friends that live in London were not aware about ASDA until I told them. It is the cheapest. Recommended only when you need to by a lot of things, because you will have to travel some miles away the city area. If you don’t have a car, we don’t recommend it since the money you can save will be useless because of spending in public transport. Anyway, you can go there a rainy Saturday/Sunday (very common in the UK) for a ride, as they are very large and will be a good entertainment for a gray day. Moreover, they are generally on big retail spaces where you'll find other shops and fast food restaurants like McDonald's, Subway, and the ASDA food space with healthier choices.

Once in the UK we recommend visiting all of them choose the one most like you. With more experience you will identify which chain is more suitable for certain products. But there is no doubt that Sainsbury's has higher prices but better quality.

In other posts we will continue writing about the cost of living in the United Kingdom (UK) with other topics you should take into account when considering a relocation to live and work. We will provide a useful guide with prices for property rentals, utilities and general items in the UK, making the difference between London and the rest of England.

UPDATE 29th October 2009: The tax claim I made has been successful and I've received the payment into my UK bank account. Find the details of my story on the following entry: Successful tax refund claim when leaving the UK: PAYE, P45, P85.

In the past the information available was limited. We used to call by phone to a competent authority and that was the final word. Or we blindly believed what was written in any official book about the subject.

While we still have the traditional means, we can't resist the temptation of using the Internet to go into a topic of interest in depth or look for more information about data transmitted by unhelpful people.

El Utilitario comes up as an initiative of a group of people with different interests who have worked and resided in different places and always had the need to find out about paperwork, procedures, guidelines, etc. and not always found the desired information on the Internet. So we will try to summarize our long research hours, contrasted with the experience itself to create practical guidelines that you can read easily and quickly. Although the above is the main goal of this blog, we also will write about topics of our interest that have nothing to do with particular experiences. So who knows, this blog may be turning into different topics according to the matter that we will be interested at a particular time.

We would like to make clear that any post or opinion claims to have the ultimate truth, so feel free to bring your own experiences to, thereby provide increased value to the blog and among all, bring more value to the posts.

I hope you can make the most of the information provided on this blog and also enjoy it. If we can make life easier for a single person, our goal will be accomplished.

Until the next time!