On moving to England. Opinions and advice.

[TheInsane]

Ok this is it. I dated a English girl for a few years and I was eventually ready to move to her. When I was ready she sadly wasnt and the relatinship today is dead. However I cant get rid of the thought of longing to leave Sweden, at least for a couple of years, to relocate in England and just try it out. Living at least half a dream and just try it. Lifes to short not to do it, right?

So I am looking on information and advice on living in the UK. Im very familiar with Birmingham but I dont want to move there because of my past history in that town but otherwise I'd like some info on cities. I've also been to Liverpool and Coventry both of which I liked but didnt stay for to long to really know how they are.

What would you recomend and why? Hows the job situation? The pricing of houses/flats? Hows the metal scene (bands to join, gigs, clubs, pubs)? Whats the difference in standard if I buy a house/flat in comparison to if I rent one? All the general but oh so important stuff I may need to know.

Over here Im a mailman and I own my own apartment although with bank loans. Im not rich but Im your regular working type of guy. I get extra money over each month but its not a huge amount. I have been thinking of taking up my studying again but with my place and work Im not sure I have the energy to do it right now.

So yeah, Im just looking for some opinions from people already living in England on what I should be thinking about and such.

 

[Pђoenix]

I'm not really the best to give advice, I'll be biased it's best to ask someone has already done what you're planning.

Anyhoo, the reason I say I'm biased is because I've lived here my entire life and I think it's ass. It is extremely expensive here, despite a fall in house prices, especially in the cities as you'd imagine. Food and petrol are the main cons though, expect to cough up around £1.20 a litre for fuel! Anyways housing can be expensive, its probably best if you can find someone you know and stay with them or at least share accomodation.

As for the metal scene, it's not bad but the best places to be imo are Birmingham or London as that's where the best/major venues are; so better bands are likely to play. Pubs are everywhere, enjoy them. Not really aware of that many metal bars/clubs but just ask around I'm sure there's quite a few.

Anyway, although kinda brief hope I helped. Sorry to hear about you and your girl, Good luck with your decision!

 

[Dark_Silence]

It is extremely expensive here

i noticed, i was looking at train and hotels prices a while ago because i wanted to visit London... a nightmare, i thought that a train ticket in Germany was quite expensive, but it is nothing compared to the UK

i have actually never lived in England, but i moved from Belgium to Germany.
Maybe you could first rent an appartment, to see if you like the place you moved to, and so you get to know the town better and know which part of the town would be the nicer place to live in, or eventually find a roommate so you dont have to pay the whole rent yourself.


You should also find informations on health insurance (maybe you can keep the one you have in Sweden, or maybe it is easier to get one in the UK? -i still have my belgian health insurance here because untill i trun 25, i am stuck on my parents' one and it is really annoying, i have to pay the physician and all the drugs full price and send the bill to belgium then get my money back like 6 months later).

There are always some things you cant find out yourselkf before you get in an other country, so if there are a few points you dont know much about, dont worry.

But the most important is, if you want to do it, go ahead, so you can never regret not doing it.

 

[TheInsane]

All kinds of constructive advice is welcome even if its biased. Im not sure about fod priced but the price per litre of fuel seems to be about the same in England as it is in Sweden.

I know its cheaper in the north of England and most expensive in the LOndon area. Its basically the same in every country I think. The bigger the city the more expensive it is.

I look to restart my life since Im not happy over here. The main thing I like about England is the attitude of the people. I have never met as friendly people as I have in England while at the same time the cultre isnt to far off from what Im used to.

What would be a normal pay fo, lets say a mailman in England? Is there any webpage where one can see how much money people are making in certain proffessions? And how much is normal to pay for living (I basically mean how much it costs to have a place to live and maybe food for a month).

I may be doing all this for the wrong reasons. Im still kind of fucked up because of my past relationship but its been over 6 months and I need to do something to get my life back on track and since Im not overly happy with the life I live now I thought trying to live the dream may be the good thing to do.

More opinions are wanted. Anything that can help me to decide and to know more.

 

[SentinelSlain]

If you want somewhere cheap to live Hull is probably as cheap as it gets. Some parts of the city are ok to live in and those parts are still way cheaper than the rest of the country.

A postman probably gets less the £20 000 but I don't really know that's a total guess. My mum is a part time nurse and she get's about £260 a week I THINK (that's more than she'd get if she didn't have a kid).

The cost of everything varies with location, that's why there's a london allowance. The thing is though, from looking at most salaries, unless you're actually up at the top making huge £ in the city then there's not much incentive to live in London, if say you are a teacher because the standard of living would be hugely worse than if you lived up north.
I mean house size, whether it can be in a nice area (there are good and awful ones North and South, Southerners tend to gloss over that though).

I haven't been aware of a good metal scene in my area, but I wasn't looking.

Bare in mind I've only ever lived in Hull and now a small town close to Hull so I am biased. Really though if you want to do something like a postman I think it would be easier to live somewhere cheaper.

 

[Pђoenix]

Pretty much a monoploy when it comes to post so you may want to check out the Royal Mail website.

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/erecjump2?catId=500185&mediaId=16000165

At most, when my brother was in his first few years at Uni, he paid around £300 a month excluding gas, electricity, water and food etc. for a decent appartment but shared with 2 others so it could have been much more.

But with recent inflationary pressures it's easily £1000 a month including living expenses(with 2 persons). Of course where you're located wil play a large part.

 

[TheInsane]

I have a book on moving to England where it says that a common yearly pay for a job with a univerity education is around £12000 - £15000 and that an unqualified worker should earn fron £3.50 an hour and up depending on the job. Do you think thats a good way to describe it?

Pђoenix:

Did your brother pay only his part of the apartment at £300 a month or was that the sum the three payed together?



And hows the standard of English homes in general and whats the difference if one buys a home homa compared to renting etc. Are there any changes in standard between the two or is it a matter of where (which parts of the country/city) one lives?

I know the standard of english architechture is below the Swedish for the most part. Way less isolation for example but thats not something Im worrying about to much. Oh and also the crazy idea off having the water pipes outside the building so they can freeze

 

[Taliesin]

15k pounds a year WITH a university education? Is that with or without taxes? Im studying engineering and if anyone offers me 15k a year when I start I'll give them the finger and walk off. It probably depends on what you're studying but Im pretty sure you wont see an engineer lift a finger for 15k pounds a year in his first year. Over here 15k pounds is an unqualified or low qualified labour pay

 

[Pђoenix]

My brother paid £300 for his part so it was £900 altogether. And yeah 15k seems a little low, I think at that you'd be below the relative poverty line. And the minimum wage here is £5.50 or thereabouts so £3.50 is a crock Not to mention the postal service has a powerful trade union that go on strike far too often in order to attain higher wages.

 

[TheInsane]

The numbers was taken from my book so I guess it was wrong or just outdated. All of this info is greatly appreciated. Its always better to hear from people who actually live in the enviroment right now.

So no one knows of a webpage where one can see how much people earn working at different places? What kind of money do you earn per month or year and what are you working with?

 

[Pђoenix]

Can't really help you out there, I've never had a full-time job. As for websites I guess you'll just have to abuse google.

 

[TheInsane]

Ok then.

What about different cities. I feel like I at least want to live close to a big city. As it is I live just outside of Stockholm. Its nice because its not right in the middle and its closer to nature but its still really close to town. Takes about 25 minutes by car so I think thats ideal really. + Its cheaper to live a little bit outside.

How are cities like Manchester and Liverpool? I've been to Liverpool once but only in the city centre really. I liked it for what I saw though. I guess its easier to live outside one of those cities and still be pretty close to the city centre. Im guessing London is really big so one would have to go pretty far outside to even be in the suburbs.

 

[False Joe]

My advice:

Don't move to the UK.

But seriously, living inside the towns of any of these big cities would be nigh impossible considering prices.
I'd suggest metal-wise, london, leeds or dudley (it gets tons of gigs for some reason).

 

[Vimana]

I heard America is pretty nice.

 

[TheInsane]

My advice:

Don't move to the UK.

But seriously, living inside the towns of any of these big cities would be nigh impossible considering prices.
I'd suggest metal-wise, london, leeds or dudley (it gets tons of gigs for some reason).

From what I've seen London and Bham gets most of the gigs but quite a few band also visit Liverpool, Manchester and Nottingham.

And yeah the prices are probably way to high for me to live inside the towns of the bigger cities but then again thats not what I want anyway. Over here the furthest one can live from Stockholm and still be able to get home by train or bus kind of cheap and easy is about 5 (swedish) miles from the city centre. How far out from one of the bigger English cities would be considered relatively cheap and easy to go to and back from the suburbs? You know in the evening or the middle of the night after a gig and such.

What do you people think about Coventry? I was there over the weekend a little over a month ago. Hows the metal scene and hows the city in general? I didnt see alot of it when I was there unfortuntely.

I heard America is pretty nice.

Im not interested in America at all really. First its a huge project to get permission to stay there and work and then there is alot of things I dont like about the country like the healh care system and such. And I dont have lots of connections to the country. Its just that I came to love England so thats where my minds at at the moment.

 

[False Joe]

What do you people think about Coventry? I was there over the weekend a little over a month ago. Hows the metal scene and hows the city in general? I didnt see alot of it when I was there unfortuntely.

As far as I know, very, very, few gigs happen there.

I never see them listed on any of the dates I check out anyway.

 

[SentinelSlain]

In my city, Hull, unless I've retardedly missed something all there is is screamo and stuff like that in certain pubs (really). Oh yeah Bon Jovi played at the football stadium once.


I really wish big name metal bands played here but I don't blame them if they don't there might not be a huge market. It's a bit more chavvy than metal here.

 

[False Joe]

Don't help that there's no dedicated metal venue at some places.
London's got The underground, if though people reckon it's shit.
Leeds has got a couple.
Nottingham too.

 

[TheInsane]

So if we go back to London for a while what suburbs are nice to live in? Im not looking for posh places obviously (cant afford that) but places with low crime rate and decent houses/flats thats not to far off from London itself.

 

[False Joe]

Can't really help ya.

Maybe google or Yahoo Questions UK would be the best answer.