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Comment by kami8845 | Hacker News Reader

You can live on £1000 per month. Of course it's not as much fun as spending more money (especially since the people you see on the street seem lavish in their spending). It's very easy to get accustomed to an expensive lifestyle.

In SF, is it possible to rent a single room 15 minutes walk from where all the tech companies are located for $800 / month? Because in London you can.

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Pretty hard to live off £1k a month in London. Rent is going to be ~50% of that minimum, then you have council tax + bills. Doesn't leave much at all for transport/food and whatever else might come up.

£1k is a bit less than the recommended monthly cost for students in London of around £1.1-1.2k, depending who you ask. That presumably assumes sharing a flat/house with others, but also probably assumes living relatively close to the university.

The "London Living Wage" works out to about £1200 per month, after tax. There are people earning less than this in London.

If the startup doesn't need to be in London they could cut costs significantly by being further out of London in the suburbs, or in a satellite town, and taking the train in when necessary. But this can put off potential employees. Maybe it could work at the beginning.

I was offered a single room (small but livable) 5 minutes walk off Brick Lane for £535 all incl. If you work in Shoreditch you can easily walk to work, so no transport costs. That leaves £500 for food & other spend. If you cook for yourself this is very plausible.

Of course finding a room like that and getting it over the other dozens of people who want it is not that easy, but that's a system you can hack too.

Hmm. Almost exactly $900, with a quick bit of searching.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-5357172...

I'm curious as to how you can assess lavishness of spending of people walking by on the street; presumably you're very good at identifying branded fashion?

In the TV show "Project Runway" they pit a bunch of fashion designers against each other. At the end they judge the clothes that they've made. One of the more positive they can say about a piece is "It looks expensive". The trained eye can quickly ascertain things like that (the material, the cut, the stitching). One of my friends (she works in fashion) says she can immediately tell if a guy is wearing high-street brands (H&M and the like).

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