i suggest a book called the london property guide. i'm sure it is available on amazon. it describes the neighbourhoods and give indications of cost for rent or purchase. in combination with the book, you can then check the internet (e.g. www.findaproperty.co.uk).

the problem is that there are so many neighbourhoods and nobody here knows you enough to even start to recommend a place to live. "affordable" means different things to different people and it also depends where you will work, what type of property you want, and what kind of atmosphere you like. also, if you need a budget place, you need to consider your tolerance for the constraints of size, "quality" of the neighbourhood, and distance from town(if you are working in town).

for cost of living, the difference with the US is largely determined by your willingness to "downsize" your life in many ways. if you want to shop, eat, drive, and house yourself as you would in the US, then you will find london much more expensive than the US (of course, this depends where you are moving from). however, if you are willing to make adjustments, you will find that it is not so bad.

for example, when we moved from the US to just outside london, our house size more than halved. we had 2 new cars in the US and now just one tiny budget model. we no longer shop for recreation but just buy what we need (and do much of the clothes shopping on trips back to the US).

if you can manage your spending and are willling to downsize your life, then the diifference in COL does not need to be great. and when considering COL, don't just get depressed at the prices of things but remember that the prices include all tax, car prices include taxes and all associated fees, medical care is free, and museums and much entertainment is free.

on the downside, you do need to pay "council tax" (much like property tax in the US) regardless of whether you own or rent your home. factor about 150-200 pounds per month for this tax.

hope this helps.

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I'll echo lucaslimon's comments. You should also look thru recent posts (last 2 months) concerning moving info requests from others. Additionally, cost of living will shock most Americans. See this site:

http://www.finfacts.com/costofliving.htm

That said, this is an economic view and, although you wouldn't feel this as much coming from NYC, the reality can be a bit different. We live in South London, pay £1000 per month in rent but have friends in a flat for 2 that pay £700. We spend about £250/mo. in groceries £160/mo. in transportation and about £225/mo. for phone/broadband/mobile/gas/electricity (not a true cost as one of our companies picks up some of that). We also spend about £600/mo on entertainment/going-out/holidays. Plus, our council tax is around 1800/year. Oh, and there's the TV licence as well.

That's "comfortable" for us. For you, you'll have to sort that out. Changing your lifestyle expectations will help!

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I looked at that cost of living article and one very important thing to consider is that this type of survey looks at COL from the perspective of a traveler from New York. There is a big problem in this approach in that currency rate fluctuations are factored in. For example, when i moved to England, the ex rate with USD was 1.45, today it is about 1.75. By this type of survey, London became 20% more expensive. However, i earn in GBP so london did not become anymore expensive to me. I still earn the same and things cost about the same. For a traveler from NYC converting USD to GBP, london DID become 20% more expensive. In short, these types of surveys are of little help to an expat earning in local currency.

I have been away from the US for several years and each time i return i am shocked at how expensive things have become. Earning in pound sterling, the US should seem very cheap but it is not. Some examples...Cable TV in the US is very expensive but in the UK for under US200 (tv license) per year plus a cheap freeview box (perfectly legal), you can have the equivalent of basic cable at no monthly charge. most of my US friends pay well over US600 per year for basic cable. While home in the US for xmas last year, i paid US16 for 2 beers with minimum tip at a suburban pizzeria uno. the same would have cost less than US8 at a central london pub.

but this is not to ignore the fact that, for example, you can pay about US5 for a pair of standard shoelaces in london as compared to about 0.85 in a US walmart. i guess my point is that there are plenty of examples of costs that can shock you but there are also many costs that are less, if you stop and think.

before i moved to england (having never been here before) i was bombarded with horror stories from my friends. one was that a friend's banker friend with a high paying job has to buy his underwear back in the US because he can't even afford to buy it in the UK! i was pretty nervous from these stories but the reality was very different. good luck.

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