So, I'm going to London in the spring and my mom told me that in London everything is twice as expensive there as it is here in America and that I should start saving now. So anyways, is that true?

London is expensive pretty expensive.

1 Britsh pound is about 1.83 US dollars.

I remembered a Burger King whopper costing me 3 pounds in London. That's 5.51 US dollars!

So yes, London is expensive, so don't bother doing any shopping there. You just get ripped off. Stick to sight seeing.

Yes, it's true.

A good tip is when you see something in pounds (for example, £3.20), to multiply it by 2, so you would have $6.40 as your total in US dollars.

I am Him pretty much summed up my thoughts. I didn't really find anything worth buying, anyway.

And yes, you SHOULD start saving now. I went to London this past March and had a lot of fun. I brought enough money for me to have about £171 and it had to last me the 10 days I was there.

Just a little thing I noticed when I was there- shirts seem to cost about the same as here. I brought a Hard Rock Cafe London T-shirt there and it was £15 - that's about $30. That's the same thing you would get if you brought a T-shirt from Hot Topic or Wet Seal or whatever. ;)

How long are you going to be in London?

We're leaving on a Friday at 9 and coming back the next Friday. We're gonna get our passports soon, we're planning to go unless something happens with all of our "world issues" and my parents would think it was unsafe.


Thanks for the advice :)

Yes, the U.K. is very, very expensive compared to America - we don't call it "rip-off Britain" for nothing!
Miss Vicki's tip of multiplying the UK price by 2 to get the U.S. equivalent is quite good. It's not totally accurate but it's close enough.
Using this logic, here's some examples of what you can look forward to paying when you get to London:

A CD album will cost you the equivalent of about $26.
A CD single will be around $8.
A Big Mac will set you back about $6.
A DVD will burn a $40 hole in your wallet.
A regular magazine will be about $7.

This is the kind of $h!t us Brits have to put up with on a daily basis! :mad:

Originally posted by Ewan's My Man
We're leaving on a Friday at 9 and coming back the next Friday. We're gonna get our passports soon, we're planning to go unless something happens with all of our "world issues" and my parents would think it was unsafe.


Thanks for the advice :)

No prob :D

You'll get a lot of sightseeing done in a week.

World issues. Don't get me started. We'd been planning my trip to London since the spring of 1999. We were going to go to London when I was still in HS, but we had to postpone the trip two different times. :o

Originally posted by Mossopp
Yes, the U.K. is very, very expensive compared to America - we don't call it "rip-off Britain" for nothing!
Miss Vicki's tip of multiplying the UK price by 2 to get the U.S. equivalent is quite good. It's not totally accurate but it's close enough.
Using this logic, here's some examples of what you can look forward to paying when you get to London:

A CD album will cost you the equivalent of about $26.
A CD single will be around $8.
A Big Mac will set you back about $6.
A DVD will burn a $40 hole in your wallet.
A regular magazine will be about $7.

This is the kind of $h!t us Brits have to put up with on a daily basis! :mad:

How are your salaries? Do Britons get paid more to survive the high cost of living there, or are paychecks about the same there as here when comparing the same jobs?

Originally posted by Cashodeen
How are your salaries? Do Britons get paid more to survive the high cost of living there, or are paychecks about the same there as here when comparing the same jobs?

It's like this:
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
If you're lucky enough to land a job with a good company then you're laughing. My mate Sarah does f#ck-all other than type a few letters every day and she gets £15000 ($30000) a year.
I have been slightly less fortunate -
I am employed as an Accounts Assistant - I'm totally qualified and aswell as my regular duties of preparing accounts I also do payroll, filing, answering telephone calls, scheduling meetings for the Boss, greeting clients that call into the office, processing timesheets for all employees in the office, photocopying, faxing, reconciling petty cash, typing and franking outgoing mail.
I make minimum wage. That translates to £7000 ($14000) a year.
It's a sick situation. I work my arse off and get practically nothing while others who do practically nothing get rich beyond their wildest dreams.
I don't know much about wages and salaries in America so I couldn't really draw any legitimate comparisons. All I know is my job SUCKS!!!!! :mad:

Hey Mossopp, is there a set minimum wage over there? In my state, it's $5.15/hour. That'd work out to £2.58/hour.

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Hey Mossopp, is there a set minimum wage over there? In my state, it's $5.15/hour. That'd work out to £2.58/hour.

If you're between the age of 18 and 21 then minimum wage is £3.80.
If you're over 22 minimum wage is £4.50
But believe me - in Britain you CANNOT live on minimum wage! I'm on the verge of losing my home because I can't afford to pay my mortgage and all my bills. I can't even afford to turn the central heating on at the moment and I can't turn the lights on unless it's pitch black because I can't afford the electricity bills.
There's so many people demanding so much money - insurance payments, mortgage payments, factor fees, electricity bills, gas bills, council tax...
It's a struggle every day. :(
If I don't find a better job soon I'll have my home taken from me. That's how bad it is for millions of people in Britain.

Originally posted by Mossopp
It's like this:
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
If you're lucky enough to land a job with a good company then you're laughing. My mate Sarah does f#ck-all other than type a few letters every day and she gets £15000 ($30000) a year.
I have been slightly less fortunate -
I am employed as an Accounts Assistant - I'm totally qualified and aswell as my regular duties of preparing accounts I also do payroll, filing, answering telephone calls, scheduling meetings for the Boss, greeting clients that call into the office, processing timesheets for all employees in the office, photocopying, faxing, reconciling petty cash, typing and franking outgoing mail.
I make minimum wage. That translates to £7000 ($14000) a year.
It's a sick situation. I work my arse off and get practically nothing while others who do practically nothing get rich beyond their wildest dreams.
I don't know much about wages and salaries in America so I couldn't really draw any legitimate comparisons. All I know is my job SUCKS!!!!! :mad:

Crap! I'm sorry. That royally SUCKS! $14,000 would be hard enough here, but with the cost of living being so high over there, I don't know how you do it. It's even worse than others get paid better when you do far more than them. :mad:

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Hey Mossopp, is there a set minimum wage over there? In my state, it's $5.15/hour. That'd work out to £2.58/hour.

Dang... in WA I think it's gone up to $7.16. It was 7.01 last year. But I think everything costs more here...

Originally posted by Cashodeen
Dang... in WA I think it's gone up to $7.16. It was 7.01 last year. But I think everything costs more here...

Yeah, rural states have lower minimum wages because the cost of living here is at a lower cost. When my dad sold his house in 2000, I think it went for something like $222K. That was for a 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath house. That may sound pretty cheap...but remember the wages and costs are lower over here so we still have to work hard for stuff like that. The last apartment I lived in had rent that was like $500/month, I think. That was for a 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment. It was pretty spacious, too. But like I said...wages come into play here. So what is considered expensive here may not seem expensive to you. :lol:

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Yeah, rural states have lower minimum wages because the cost of living here is at a lower cost. When my dad sold his house in 2000, I think it went for something like $222K. That was for a 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath house. That may sound pretty cheap...but remember the wages and costs are lower over here so we still have to work hard for stuff like that. The last apartment I lived in had rent that was like $500/month, I think. That was for a 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment. It was pretty spacious, too. But like I said...wages come into play here. So what is considered expensive here may not seem expensive to you. :lol:

Heck yes, your state is far different than here. I've tried to find how our state ranks compared to the rest in the cost of living, but I couldn't find anything. I think we have the best minimum wage, but we certainly are not the most expensive state to live in. Other factors go into deciding minimum wage, but I couldn't figure out why we have the best.

Originally posted by Mossopp
It's like this:
The rich get richer while the poor get poorer.


Hey Lorna! Long time no see!

Yes, I totally agree with you about the UK prices. I just want to die when I realized I paid over six bucks for my coffee this morning :eek:

I was just in Scotland last weekend, dang, I should have looked you up! :wave:

Originally posted by Mossopp

I am employed as an Accounts Assistant - I'm totally qualified and aswell as my regular duties of preparing accounts I also do payroll, filing, answering telephone calls, scheduling meetings for the Boss, greeting clients that call into the office, processing timesheets for all employees in the office, photocopying, faxing, reconciling petty cash, typing and franking outgoing mail.
I make minimum wage. That translates to £7000 ($14000) a year.


Sheesh. A friend of mine has a job doing pretty much what you have described and she makes nearly 35 grand a year. She's been at that same job for about 10 years though so she had to kind of work her way up. One bad thing about it though is she has to pay a lot of her own health insurance.

London is rediculously expensive (but so is all of the UK) at least 3 times dearer that the States.
The normal price for a sandwish alone in the city is about £4 or £5. ($9)

Originally posted by Liza
I was just in Scotland last weekend, dang, I should have looked you up! :wave:

Whereabouts in Scotland were you?

Originally posted by Mossopp
Yes, the U.K. is very, very expensive compared to America - we don't call it "rip-off Britain" for nothing!
Miss Vicki's tip of multiplying the UK price by 2 to get the U.S. equivalent is quite good. It's not totally accurate but it's close enough.
Using this logic, here's some examples of what you can look forward to paying when you get to London:

A CD album will cost you the equivalent of about $26.
A CD single will be around $8.
A Big Mac will set you back about $6.
A DVD will burn a $40 hole in your wallet.
A regular magazine will be about $7.

This is the kind of $h!t us Brits have to put up with on a daily basis! :mad:

:eek: And I thought the west coast was expensive...

Originally posted by Cashodeen
Crap! I'm sorry. That royally SUCKS! $14,000 would be hard enough here, but with the cost of living being so high over there, I don't know how you do it. It's even worse than others get paid better when you do far more than them. :mad:

You'd be living in your car at $25K a year here. No way could you pay all utilities, rent, taxes, gas...and still have money for food. Unless you really like tap water and Ramen Noodles...

And I live in a state that's actually pretty cheap!

Originally posted by Miss Vicki
Yeah, rural states have lower minimum wages because the cost of living here is at a lower cost. When my dad sold his house in 2000, I think it went for something like $222K. That was for a 5-bedroom, 3.5-bath house. That may sound pretty cheap...but remember the wages and costs are lower over here so we still have to work hard for stuff like that. The last apartment I lived in had rent that was like $500/month, I think. That was for a 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment. It was pretty spacious, too. But like I said...wages come into play here. So what is considered expensive here may not seem expensive to you. :lol:

:nod: It's $5.15 here too. We sold a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath home that was actually pretty small for $140K in April and bought a 3 BR, 2.5 BA split level with 2 garages for $199K. This house would probably be like $700K or more in CA.

My aunt pays $435/month for rent...and she lives in a freakin closet. Rent here SUCKS.

Originally posted by dawsongirl
:eek: And I thought the west coast was expensive...

Mossopp's right...Not to mention everything else is in PAL format over there. I went to see "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" the last full day I was in the UK, and they had a booth thing where you could buy souvenirs. They had a Joseph DVD selling for £18. That's $35 for a single DVD. :eek:

Originally posted by Mossopp
Whereabouts in Scotland were you?

Edinburgh :D It's so beautiful, wish I had more time there. If you're gonna make it down to London anytime soon, come and see me! :wave:

I was there last week...for 3 days. It's SO expensive. The trick I used though is just think of pounds as dollars :p once you start calculating in your head how much you're really spending, you always end up thinking its too expensive. Be adventurous...because really, how often in your life are you in LONDON?

But yeah, it's ridiculously expensive. Everything we bought there was expensive...souvenirs, food...WATER...geez, this one regular sized water bottle I bought was around 2 something pounds...and then after I bought it I was like oh man...4 dollars for a regular sized bottle of water :eek: here, the most expensive would probably be a little less than two dollars. Then again, down in the subway there were these two girls giving out free water bottles because they were trying to advertise something..hmm.

I dunno if you were planning to do this, but to see musicals in London's theatres is REALLY expensive. Oh man...not even kidding. However we got a pretty good deal for seeing Chicago...20 pounds for tickets on the ground...and plus, they ended up letting us move up around 5 rows closer to the stage since the theatre wasn't too full that night.