Internship in London, what should we expect for costs?
 

Our college daughter is planning to do an 8-week internship in London next summer. The upfront cost includes a shared flat in the Kensington area and subway passes. She will need to buy and prepare her own meals.

I know London is very expensive.... she is not a experimental eater by any means. Lots of simple pasta, chicken, pizza etc. pretty plain stuff in her diet. What can she expect for food costs per day, based on a small breakfast (cereal etc). Lunch (fast food probably), and buying a few groceries for the flat.

Trying to budget here.

Thanks for any help.

I would figure it based on what that stuff would cost in NYC or another large US city and double it because of the exchange rate. So if a Starbucks is 3 pounds in London ,it's like almost 6 bucks for us Americans.

Lunch - allow £5 per day for sandwich/drink/piece of fruit/bag of crisps etc. This will be generous overall.

Groceries. Well...I reckon an average of £30-£50 per person per week depending on how expensive your tastes are, whether she likes rummaging through the reduced section of the supermarket, and whether she will be shopping at a cheap and cheerful big supermarket, or poncy little M&S/Waitroses.

Add on something for spending money too.

Living in London does NOT cost twice what it costs in New York.

Very improvident - and very stupid - tourists might think that, because they typically compare the cost of junk food in a central London convenience store with what they'd pay for the same brand of life-shortener in a supermarket in an obscure suburb of a town so few people want to live in, they give land away.

Fund her on the assumption she's as feckless as the dimmest tourist and she'll prove you're right.

Fund her on the same basis that British students budget, and she'll acquire some useful insights, to add to the deep expertise in working photocopy machines and gossiping about "Big Brother" that usually amounts to the sum total of value most students extract from work experience programmes.

For real grocery prices, go to the price lists at tesco.com or opodo.com (the home delivery arm of Waitrose). For general advice on student budgetting, go to www.ukstudentlife.com/Prepare/Cost.htm, or download http://tinyurl.com/jekzx.

Most important, though, is to understand the HUGE disparity between how much it'll cost her to live if she switches her brain off, against how much it'll cost her to live like any other student or worker in their first year out of university.

You'll get much better advice about that on the UK branch of Lonely Planet's Thorntree site than here

Transportation--monthly pass on tube is £85.30, bus monthly pass is £51.90 (could go up next yr if Red Ken has his way).

As for the meals, £5 lunch is perfectly doable--sandwiches, salads, soups, jacket potatoes as options. Quick bites in restaurants eg pizza, curry, thai would be £10-15. Bring your own cereal and sandwich, and it'll be even cheaper. As for grocery, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Somerfield are less expensive than M&S and Waitrose.

One thing I find distinctively expensive in London vs US cities is drycleaning. Hope she washes and irons (if necessary) her own clothes.

Another thing, summer climate in London can be rather unpredictable. We had incredible heatwave in July, and commuting on tube was torture. Though it cools down in the evenings, and by mid-Aug I needed a light jacket at night. Most flats don't have A/C--as so many previous threads can attest. But most offices do.

My daughter did a five month internship in London (Spring 05) and also lived in a flat in Kensington. Obviously the main thing to look at is the exchange rate which may be different by next summer. Right now it's 1.87, when my daughter was there it was 1.95, but it's also been better (for the US) than that a few times in the last few years. When a tourist going for just a few days says just double the prices to get US equivalents that works, but it does make a difference for long stays. We found the prices in the supermarkets to be a little cheaper (in pounds) than in the US (in dollars), then you do the conversion. In other words if a certain item costs $1 in the US, it might be .85£. So I'd guess if you figured you might spend 100USD a week here you should count on 175USD over there and you'd be in the ball park.

And of course the main thing is how economical is your daughter. In the US one college student can live on $100 a week and another can do fine on $50. My daughter has a passion for coffee, newspapers, magazines - that sort of stuff and it can really add up over there even more so than here. But believe me, it's worth it.

My DS is currently doing an internship and semester abroad in London. He is sharing a flat with 5 other flatmates off Gloucester Road Tube stop in Kensington. His share per week is 87 GBP. He has managed so far on a 50-60 GBP per week for food either take away or prepared at the flat. When you figure todays exchange rate at around $1.87 to 1 GBP the you can almost double your $ cost of living and eating in London. But he loves it. I'm sure your DD wil too.The experience is priceless.
We will visit him over Thanksgiving .

Hi 4K,

Figure that she will spend in GBP about what she would spend in USD if she were at home.

((I))

If she's staying for a while she needs to learn to behave as we do - not as a tourist.

I assume she'll make her own breakfast from supermarket ingredients. Plenty of people here also make themselves a packed lunch for work - failing that a sandwich from a supermarket (and there are small versions of the major supermarkets all over London) is around £2.00,

Again I am assuming that she will be cooking her evening meal - if so she wants to look out for larger size supermarkets and buy the own brand stuff (to give an idea a loaf of sliced bread will be about £1.20 in a central London shop, a brand version about 80p in a supermarket and their own about 40p). You could easily manage on around £30 a week, more if you want ready-made stuff.

Her biggest expense will be socialising - beer is about £3.00 a pint in central London, wine about the same for a glass, eating out is expensive, so students generally don't do it much. Remember that over here 18 is the legal drinking age, not 21, so she almost certainly will be socialising.

The most expensive thing about London is rents etc, and she's covered that.

Children are amazingly resourceful. Unless the other persons in on the "share" are totally on another planet/unfriendly I bet you that within a week she'll know where all the cheap food is, how to get from A to B on a shoestring, and still be able buy things to wear, read, etc.

And, I can assure you that Lonely Planet has NOT been taken over by Americans, ignorant or otherwise, unless Americans are suddenly using terms such as "knackers" and "daft."

don't forget about the social factor...a young foreigner alone in a big city will most certainly want to follow her new friends to coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, bars, clubs, etc.

you have a huge uncertainty in her behaviour while in working in london. london is no different from many big cities in that many young london professionals fall into the trap of shopping and often more monitarily troublesome, pub visits after the office that blend into nights out...complete with a curry or a stop at pizza express, and perhaps a taxi fare. this lifestyle often causes a great deal of debt for young londoners.

if she is going on a rather generic work experience...meaning something that she can easily do at home (eg being a broker's assistant, investment analysis, junior actuary, computer programmer, etc), then is it really worth it for her (and realistic) to just go to the office and then slink back to her flat to cook spaghetti when all of the new people she's meeting are out in the pub? for better or worse, the pub is an integral part of office life for most young londoners. if it's just a generic internship, then much of the advantages of her being in london rather than doing the same thing at home, will be in the social aspects, right?

if it's something very specialised that she can't do at home (e.g. academic research in a specialised field) then maybe she's there more for the work aspects and fun will be secondary. she will most likely be much more serious about it. even then, you do have to add in the social factor that can greatly increase the food and drink budget.

So, do ALL American students get to live in Kensington? Us mere mortals have to make do with the likes of Kilburn and I've got a proper job! Most British students have to settle for the far reaches of Cockfosters and Walthamstow.

As others have said, steer her away from Waitrose and Marks and Spencers (M&S) for food - WAAAY pricier than the other supermarket chains. £30-50 per week for grocery shopping will be fine (that includes breakfast). Lunch, approx. £3 should cover it if she's happy with a sandwich. But do not ignore the above advice about socialising - it's a BIG part of London work-life. Popping to the pub with your colleagues after work before going home is standard behaviour. She will need to be able to stand a round of drinks.

THis stuff about the pub is absolutely right - it comes as a shock to Americans just how vital the pub is to both work and social life.

Other ex-empire countries like Australia, New Zealnad, South Africa, Ireland etc have a similar pub culture to us, and as such aren't peturbed by it. Wheras the Americans we've had over as colleagues all tried to get us to join AA after they's seen us in the pub.

Drinking after work can make a serious dent in your budget. A typical round for five people (three beers,a wine and a coke) will be around £15.00. You can easily pay more (and indeed less, but that's in places like Wetherspoons which are dingy hovels).

The cinema (not west end) is around £8, theatre around £25, from the half price place(although with good discounts for students).

Thank you for the insights.....I'm sure she will socialize. Ahem, she has done of "little" of that in the states underage. It will be good that she is at least legal over there. :-) As well as celebrates her 21st while there.

She is pretty good at budgeting, so I am confident she can handle the food situation. She is planning to pay for her roundtrip flight and spending money for socializing.

We will probably need to supplement her meals a bit, if we transfer money into her US account is this the best way to get money to her? Or does she need to get the money exchanged before she goes? We have never been to Europe so pretty confused about the process at this point.

What works best?

I would give her an ATM card keyed to a particular bank account which you can top off from time to time. That way she can get regular cash at the best possible exchange rate.

Admittedly there may be a per-use charge for the ATM but paying that, even if there is one, would be better than paying the commissions or enduring poor exchange rates seen at change bureaus.

Good suggestion from Dukey about using the aTM to transfer money. We did it when our daughter was a student at the University of Edinburgh. She and her mother had a joint account with two ATM cards. When the time came to "top up" the account, it was easy for my wife to do it here and for our daughter to get it out there. Also a good way of tracking cash flow, if not expenditures.

She has an account with ATM card that I can transfer funds via online from home from my other personal accounts... I assume that will work the same as making a deposit to her account at an ATM....

That will make it easy....

The internship also includes mobile cell phone? I assume it is a temporary cell phone to use while in UK? I have nationwide Verizon... what does it cost to call overseas on a cell phone?

have nationwide Verizon... what does it cost to call overseas on a cell phone?>>>>>>

A mental amount - don't do it. The best thing she can get is one of the phone cards that are sold in every newsagents (and just about anywhere else) that offer a pre-paid amount of minutes. There are adverts for these everywhere - and loads on the tube.

For the USA you'd only be paying a couple of pennies a minute from a landline, more from a BT payphone.

I assume you are asking about YOU calling her, is that correct?

Yes, because I think her phone that is provided while in UK allows her to call home?

Maybe not, but my assumption.