Disappointment
It seems like I am doomed to failure. I have a flight scheduled to leave the US on November 28th, heading to London for 2 weeks. I had booked and paid the majority of my accommodation, with the agreement that the remaining 300 GBP would be paid on arrival.
But yesterday I was fired from my job due to corporate restructuring, which had been in the works for the past month, ever since the company was taken over by a bigger one.
Sufficed to say this has really put me in an awkward position. I have contacted the lady who owns the apartment I have booked to see if she can re-let the apartment for one or both of the two weeks, but she doesn't hold out much hope this close to my departure. She is willing to try though. A friend has offered me the use of her apartment while she herself is overseas, but she lives in Manchester, which is quite a hike from London and not easy for day trips.
I worked out my finances and because of the employment situation over the past few months and having hours cut here and there I haven't had the chance to save much, what with paying the majority of my accommodation and my airfare.
So anyway...I have one pay owing to me, which will give me enough to pay the balance of 300 GBP but it will only leave me 150.00 GBP to cover me for food for the two weeks. I already have an Oyster Card with 50.00 GBP on it to cover any train or bus trips and I am more than happy to just walk around and take in the sights, checking out anything that might have free admission, such as museums, galleries etc etc.
But what I am asking all you well seasoned travelers is...... is this do-able??? It's a self-catering apartment in Winchmore Hill, so I wouldn't be eating out...but I am not familiar with the cost of food at say Sainsbury's which I think is the nearest supermarket...so is it possible to live on 150.00 for food and any other expenses for 2 weeks???
Linzi
Litchfield Park, Arizona USA 11/7/12
Send Private Message
Page:1 Next ›
Linzi
That's a real shame!
I's a difficult judgement to make without knowing what you are used to eating. I would find it fairly easy to do if you really are talking about food, toothpaste, etc but, if you are going to buy convenience foods, alcoholic drinks etc then it would be a problem.
I was about to start listing some average prices at my local Saninsbury's but realised it was easier to let you look things up yourself! Sainsbury's have an online store and you can check the prices of what you think you will need
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1352304242684
I hope you can work something out.
On the positive side we were once trapped in Athens for a week with next to nothing to live on. Walking around and taking in the city, rather than spending cash on sites and bars, started a love affair with the city that we continue twenty years later!
Cheers
Alan
Thanks Alan and I think along the same lines as yourself. I don't drink alcohol so basically it's just the essentials with regards to food. I'm hoping it all works out, but thanks for the information about Sainsbury's, which I will definitely check out in a few minutes. :) At least it will give me an idea of the prices I can expect.
Linzi: It would mean you would have about US$17 per day for food so if you are exceedingly frugal you could probably just do it. Have porridge for breakfast, take a sandwich with you from the apartment for your lunch. Pasta for your supper or whatever is cheap at Sainsbury's each day. Make a big pot of vegetable soup for nourishment. It'll be pretty boring food but hopefully being in London may help you not notice that. By the way, bring what you can from home. Good luck.
Hi Norma,
Thanks for your suggestions. Those are good ideas and what I was thinking..lol. :) Bread and sandwich fillings aren't expensive so it would work out nicely. I think I will be too awed at being actually in London to think about food..lol :) But I will definitely take a few extras in my suitcase just in case I get a craving. :)
Look on line and you can find many free things to do in London. Several museums are free and so are many churches. I think you can go to church service at St. Paul's and it is free but not sure. Also, check out Harrods, they have a food court and might have free samples, probably not enough for a meal but a nice treat. Agree with sandwiches, eggs should be cheap so good old egg salad, cans of tuna and there is always rice. Of course popcorn makes a nice snack. Wouldn't take much from home as you don't want to pay for a bag that is too heavy but if you can carry on some "food items", go for it. Sorry for loss of job but you seem to have positive attitude. Enjoy your trip, you can do it.
Thanks Gail and thank you everyone... I must admit I felt a little down for the first few hours, because I thought this meant I might have to cancel completely and end up losing everything I have paid so far, but I gave myself a good talking to and realized that this doesn't mean to say I can't go and have a good time. Just being there is reward enough ! :) Egg salad, yum :) There are lots of tasty things I can put together. :) I won't take too much because it would probably weigh too much, but just my favorite coffee so I can start the day right. :)
Am looking forward to this trip again :)
First of all- I'm so sorry your job is gone.
But- don't give up the trip.
I could (and do) live easily on less than £150 for food for 2 weeks. Most weeks I spend about £25, on the generous side. I cook everything from scratch.
And I live well!
You can have some fun visiting different supermarkets- try Lidl and Aldi for lesser known products that are excellent quality. Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda are the next 3 up, price-wise.
There may be a local butcher, make him your friend and see what he has to offer.
Stay out of Waitrose and Marks and Spencers- lovely food in those shops, but oh boy, you pay for it.
Treat it as an adventure and a different sort of trip. Keep a diary- you never know, there might be a travel article in it that you can sell.
Good luck!
Your biggest cost is your travel time from Winchmore Hill into London. Loads to see and do for free in London. Go to St Paul's and Westminster Abbey's even songs so you don't have to pay admission. Each has a website to check times.
Most of the museums are free, numerous galleries, all of their wonderful parks, market's such as Spitafield's, Camden Lock, the British Library, etc.
Can easily walk to see the major sites. Save as much as you can by walking in central London so you don't have to top up the Oyster card often. Make some soups and stews which will last for days. There are also MANY inexpensive ethnic cafes and restaurants. Check out this link: http://www.timeout.com/london/feature/997/londons-best-cheap-eats
Plan accordingly. Keep your spirits up. Go and enjoy yourself!
Linzi: I think that the Church of St. James Piccadilly still operates a café at noon time where you can get a bowl of soup and some bread for a cheap lunch if you are in the neighbourhood.
Thanks Claudia and Norma :)
I am glad I love walking..lol and the best way to see the sights. Thanks for the tips and I will definitely check out the web sites for more tips and ideas. I'm still definitely looking forward to my trip and will worry about the job situation when I get back. I won't let that spoil my holiday ! Thanks to all the wonderful advice I've been getting I'm more confident now that with a bit of careful planning I can eat well and not break the bank..lol.
First, sorry about your job, but I would take trip anyways, years from now it will still be a fond memory , and when we die most of us only regret the things we could have done and didn't...
I would stock my suitcase with basics that I don't want to buy alot of ( like who wants a whole bag of sugar or salt just for a few weeks)so I would stuff my shoes with baggies with sugar, tea, salt. I would also bring a jar of peanut butter ( a jar of pb is a good emergency protien food, it will last the whole trip, and is filling and nutrious,, plus protien foods keep you full longer, and its yummy on hot toast!) A few pacakages of instant oatmeal and or dry soups( light and easy to pack) for snacks, and then you can just buy milk, bread, eggs, cheeses and a few treats... I bet you will manage fine. Also there are pacakages of instant rice (flavoured ones too)that can make a side dish to a peice of purchased meat or fish!
As others have said, there are quite a few free museums , and some are HUGE so you can literally spend days doing some, I love the Victoria And Albert museum and would visit it twice, the Royal British Museum is massive, it could be a two day visit, and the Natural History Museum is a fun light day out.
If you can sqeeze a few dollars together for a few paid sites I strongly suggest the Tower of London, its expensive , but if you are remotely into history its a must see( if not then well thats some money saved!) .
Go and have fun, take as much food as you can, but of course buy some treats here and there,, you are on holiday no matter what!
Also, important, pack some baggies so you can pack some lunches for days you are out all day, save money,, plus throw in some granola type bars into purse so less likely to pick up expensive street snacks cause you are starving!
Thanks Pat :)
I must admit the customs people are going to be interested in seeing my suitcase full of little baggies of this and that..lol, but it's not a bad idea. So long as I don't over pack and get charged for excess baggage. I've been checking out Sainsbury's, which is the nearest supermarket to where I am staying and the prices aren't too bad. I mustn't have US prices in my head all the time..lol. You are so right...I want to be able to look back on this trip with happy memories and not have gone at all.
Thanks for the great advice :)
Poor you - bad timing!
One tip for lunchtimes is that the supermarkets and Boots offer takeaway lunchtime meal deals for a set price. For example, in Boots you can get a sandwich or salad, a drink and a dessert (fruit, cakes, crisps) for £3.29.
Thanks Laura.... I'm so glad there are great people out there who have some great ideas and suggestions :)
Within 2 miles of the Sainsburys you mention there are 3 Lidl stores. Smart shoppers can save loads of money there. Have a look at their website or use their app.
Aldi is a similar store. Unfortunately there isn't near where you will be.
Lidl is a place I go often. It is a discount food store from Germany which has really good food at great prices. You do have to look carefully but you can get warm pastry for £0.39, a bag of biscuits for nearly the same price, bread, crumpets, good well priced vegetables (look them over carefully), and cans of all sorts of things. They do decent meat at a good price, too.
Unfortunately where you are staying is on a "red table" train line so the commuting costs will be higher than if you were on a "green table" line or the Underground. There are no green table train lines near where you will be. £50 won't cover it if you want to go into London each day for 2 weeks. Winchmore Hill is in Zone 4. Sights you will want to see will be in Zone 1.
A Peak Time (Monday to Friday before 9:30 in, between 1630 and 1900 out) single journey will be £4.90. Off peak £3.70. Peak time price cap - unlimited trips all day in all zones 1-4 - £10.60, off peak cap £7.70. That means that that you can ride all buses and tubes in 1-4 all day for 30 pence. 1 day Travelcards are the same pices as the caps. A 7 day Travelcard good all day is £41.80 so that's a bargain if you will use it every day.
... more ...
... con't ...
If you could walk or take the bus over to Arnos Grove Underground the fares are cheaper. Zone 1 to 4 fares not on the train are £3.60 peak single, £2.60 off peak, £10.60 peak cap or Travelcard, £7.70 off peak, £41.80 the same price for the 7 day, same as on the train.
So travel off peak, take the Tube instead of the train, or >> Get 7 Day Travelcard on your Oyster. You'll need a passport photo.
I lost my job 3 days before leaving on vacation in the mid-90's. My boss decided that my two weeks vacation would conveniently serve as my "notice" time. Well, I cooked and froze, and left with a fair bit of prepared food, spread through our 3 suitcases. All I remember of that time was how creepy that boss was and how fun our vacation ended up being. The customs officer who saw the food was sympathetic when I told him why I was carrying food. At the end of the day, we would come back to our condo with a real meal to warm up. The stress I went through at the time is a very faded memory.
I still pack some dry goods when we go for an extended stay. I always pack a small container of pesto and a couple of packs of seasoning mixes. I bring my own coffee, herb tea and sugar. To be clear: I only travel now with dry goods! A cooked chicken bought at the local grocery store (at destination) does go a long way ;-)
I also pack ziplock bags - they are extremely useful! Sometimes for leftovers, nuts, fruits, etc.. Food bars (like Luna or Cliff bars) and dried fruit are also really handy. This really worked for me when I was in Russia last spring, where the food was expensive.
One of the cheap foods I love in London is samosas, found almost everywhere in the smaller convenience shops. London is one of the cheapest places for sightseeing on the cheap, since the publicly-funded museums are free. Fortnum & Mason, like Harrod's, has some free nibbles tasting as well. Just don't get tempted to buy anything...
"the customs people are going to be interested in seeing my suitcase full of little baggies of this and that"
Customs isn't going to care, nor will they probably even see it - it's usually just a walk through the "nothing to claim" door. Immigration (passport check) won't, either. There is nothing wrong with taking food in your checked bag. It's only when you want to take carryon only that you might run into some limitations. Peanut butter would have to be in a jar smaller than 3 oz., and would have to be in your 3-1-1 bag.
You can buy food cheaply at supermarkets just before closing time, particularly things which do not keep. I have not done this myself, but once when staying at a Youth Hostel in London, I met a man who said he regularly shopped at Waitrose just before closing time and was able to get bargains.
I've given this thread a cursory glance and I don't see any mention of the 20% VAT on everything you buy. Linzi will be playing the economices of her trip pretty close to the chest and the VAT should be considered.
While you are getting plenty of advice from UK & Canadian Helpliners about how to eat on the cheap, I was wondering if you looked into your situation with your local unemployment office about opening a claim & the weekly filing requirements, as well as how to decline your claim for the time you will be traveling overseas if you aren't able to conduct a valid work search while in London? In 1 part of your post, you mention you were fired, so maybe your former employer is contesting your ability to collect, but in another you mention it's due to corporate restructuring which sounds like they phased out your position and you got laid off.
If it was me, I'd be checking with AZ Unemployment to find out if you can even access their website to file a weekly claim if you are not planning to bring your own laptop on this trip (hey, even Netflix blocks Americans from accessing their own accounts to watch a movie once they touch down in Europe) because you don't want the hassle of your claim being shut down while you are away, then having to fight to get them to open it back up when you return.
As for the 75 GBP per week, it's a really tight budget. I'd skip the suggestion about cooking & packing meals in your suitcase because after 12+ hours in transit from AZ to your apartment outside of London, unless you are bringing a bunch of dry ice I would not trust that food to be edible. Stick to the pasta, peanut butter, tuna and granola bars. Buy fresh stuff at the local grocer. If you want to splurge & eat out at some point, buy lunch which is cheaper than dinner, get takeaway instead of sit down, & go ethnic so you can get big portions of something you can then split into 2 or 3 separate meals (Chinese/Thai, Indian, Greek, etc.). Ted is right, if you hit food halls just before close, they WILL discount stuff they are about to ditch because they can't sell it next day. Marks & Spencer being 1 example.
Monte - VAT has probably not been mentioned because this is mainly about food and VAT is not charged on most food (there is VAT if you eat in a restaurant, but not buying at a supermarket). Also, VAT is quoted in retailers prices, so even where it is charged (e.g. drink and ice cream for some reason), Linzi doesn't have to add it on to any prices seen.
Linzi - to add to others' encouragement, I believe you can certainly live on that budget for two weeks. Also, if you happen to be passing a "Poundland" go in for cheap, but branded items like tea, soft drinks, milk, etc. Poundland is apparently quite trendy now here in Austerity Britain. There is one in N. Finchley.
There are laws in place to prevent bringing in certain types of food from outside of the EU, in particular no meat and dairy products or potatoes. The maximum weight on allowable products is 2kg plus certain fish products. If you do take any food, it may be advisable go through the red channel anyway - this way if you do have anything that is not allowable it is merely destroyed and you are not penalised further and not prevented from entering.
The rules are at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/food-farm/food/personal-imports/rules/import-controls-faqs/
Don't think because there is no visible inspection that for example bags are not screened or checked by dogs behind the scenes selectively or en masse.
As others have said, your budget will allow you to eat, maybe monotonously but healthily. The cash allowance to an unemployed single person in the UK per week is £71 btw.
We went to Poundland when we stayed with my sis in Portsmouth - I couldn't get over the low cost of the food (compared to here in Nova Scotia, anyway)...I lost my job as well a few months before we were to go away, but nothing was going to stop me. Luckily, my husband has a good paying job, and I have been saving money 6 mos ahead to make sure my portion of the bills would be paid while we were gone...my husband and I eat on about $80 canadian dollars a week and we aren't starving...even 50GPB a week is about $80...unless you eat grand, you could prob spend maybe 30-40GPB a week for food (for one person) and still have 60-70GPB left for other expenses...just be frugal...you can do it! Good luck :)
Wow, there were so many responses when I woke up this morning..lol, so a big thank you to Nicole, Marco, Ralph, Keith, Ceidleh, Ted, Nancy, Diane and of course Nigel :)
Firstly just a quick response to Ralph! I do understand the benefits of saving for a holiday, and without going into the full circumstances of my employment situation over the past 6 months, lets just say that this holiday was booked back in July and everything paid for by September, so all I had to do was get my spending money together which, if things had gone the right way, I would have had just over 1,000 GBP. But things didn't go that way! So I felt by your comment that it made it look like I waited until the last second to start saving.. which I didn't.
Thanks Nigel for all your helpful knowledge of the Oyster Card, zones etc etc. I will definitely not be travelling during peak time ! :)
To all you wonderful people who gave such awesome advice about supermarkets, which ones were best and eating out suggestions - thank you! I am pleased to say I'm not really a big eater, so taking snacks to nibble on as I walk is probably what I will end up doing and eating a larger meal when I get back to the apartment. I will enjoy shopping for food and seeing just how well I can do. :)
This will be a great trip and nothing is going to spoil it. :)
Somebody out there will call me a sexist for saying this, however I think it's sane advice. Befriend some lad or lass either online now or in person as soon as you arrive, and before you know it, he/she will be paying for your vacation. Shake what your mama gave you...
Linzi, Sorry to hear of your situation. You have a great attitude to not let it get you down. Yes, it is possible to live on 150.00 for food and any other expenses for 2 weeks, but you will barely squeak by. I have been in the same situation, years ago, first trip to England.
You have already gotten tons of great suggestions, so I would add, take a look at food stalls (Borough Market) and food carts/street venders for cheap sandwiches and crepes. Some stalls at Borough Market give free samples of cheese, bread, sausages; so just keep strolling around and eating samples for a free lunch.
One of the best meals I ever had in London was a bowl of soup with a slice of bread in an Indian deli. It was a small, neighborhood shop with takeout and eat-in tables. Cost: 1.5 GBP.
I could live for a couple of weeks on fresh bread, cheese, and fruit, and an occasional bowl of soup.
Coffee can be a big expense in coffee shops. Make your own at your place. The instant coffee in England (bought in grocery store) is decent and drinkable. I just add milk and don't care if it's not the greatest coffee in the world.
If your apartment is centrally located, go home for afternoon tea. You could even take your own tea bags from home. A package of digestive cookies doesn't cost much and will probably last a week or two.
Some stores sell things like nuts and dried fruits in bulk. This can save money as a way to carry food for snacks. Take baggies with you from home.
Sometimes the pasties sold fresh in pastie shops are inexpensive. One small pastie makes a full meal for me.
There used to be a Chinese buffet in the Leicester Square area that charged 5 GBP for "all you can eat."
If you are frugal most of the time, you should have money for a few "real" meals in a cafe or restaurant.
"Any other expenses" could be anything. For me, that would mean a day-trip to Windsor by train and a visit to the castle. There are possible expenses involved with entrance to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's. If you follow advice in the RS books, these places can be visited at no cost when visiting for worship services. There may be inexpensive bus fares to Windsor.
Somebodies post just twigged an idea. If you like coffee or tea( both of which are super easy to bring from home) why not pack a small thermos( a good quality one can keep drinks hot all day) , you can fill it in the morning and use if for a hot drink break while you are out and about. My personal experience with London is its cold and damp, and a hot drink would be really nice with a sweet bun from a bakery in the middle of the day .
Page:1 Next ›