I am a city girl.
I live in a small city near London and I’ve lived in big cities all over Europe. I love city architecture and city design and city culture. I like city sounds and city transportation and city grocery stores.
My city urban contemporary lifestyle requires balancing flexible work hours, set deadlines and the urban culture where I’m living.
For London, the day starts when the taxi drivers are driving and the city is open. While living in London, I learned to plan my day to start around 700 and work to start at 900.
Because of the commute from the surrounding villages, many Londoners start their workday at 1000. If you live in the city and walk to work, you can have one hour of quiet before everyone else arrives from their village life.
London is not a 24 hour city culture but a 700 to 2300 city lifestyle.
In my current small city life, I have more money to invest. A small city life allowed me to buy a car, invest in a business project and rent a storage space. A small city life requires less money and less flexibility and less overall budgeting.
A London urban lifestyle required more of my money, more budgeting and more fiscal flexibility. My current money budget input is still the same as when I lived in Notting Hill.
Urban London employees makes between £2000 to £8000 and I fit in that range. If you’re making on the low end working as an art historian or start-up founder, your lifestyle will include living with someone in the city in a shared flat/house where you share the bills or in a bedsit or small studio where the bills are included.
I was told, as a single person in London, not to live in a suburb (which means a village.) As a single person (singleton), I was required to live in the city of London so I could have a life. The problem with living in the city as a start-up founder on a art historian budget was finding a place to live and eating. This required expert budgeting and choice flexibility.
Living on a budget without using a credit card is a challenge I accepted when I moved to London and rented a flat. For four years I lived without using credit but two months ago, Londoners taught me to live using an overdraft, a type of credit card attached to my bank debit account.
For two months, I’ve used my overdraft to pay off a very large mechanical bill. It is annoying to have an added stress to my budget but the bill is paid and for 2024, I’m deciding what emergency budget surcharges are acceptable.
An urban London lifestyle is stressful but worth it if you are a singleton. A small city lifestyle is worth it if you are a start-up founder on a bootstrapping budget.
