The co$t of £iving

People ask me all the time if moving to the UK has been a culture shock. In short, no. But I will say the biggest shock has to be the cost of living. I knew that London was notoriously expensive, but holy toledo. This is on a whole new level. In fact, this just in: London is now the most expensive city in the world, Hooray! Considering I've ticked off 3 of the 20 cities on that list, I'd like to think that's pretty good going? Or that maybe I have a penchant for luxury living? Or maybe that I'm just really bad at picking where to live. Regardless, London is pretty insane. And that just becomes compounded when I really need to buy those all-American comforts to seal the deal on a 'home-away-from-home'. Take Lucky Charms for example. Spotted a box of those bad boys at a specialty shop (just off the road where I spotted 2 Bentleys, a Rolls-Royce AND a Ferrari. Yes that's ONE block) for £7.95. At today's exchange rate, that's a cool $13.05 for your daily a.m. sugar rush. But all joking aside, even the simplest pleasures like going out to eat on a Friday night are having to be taken into consideration when deciding whether I will be able to get a bus to work rather than running because I don't want to top up my Oyster card yet again. I have actually begun running from work (literally, not figuratively) quite regularly these days. Run-commuting is all the rage here, people running around like little hi-vis fluorescent bumble bees zipping down the sidewalks in the mornings and evenings. Handy really, considering this takes out the need to join a gym. Think positive! And rent? Don't even go there. Actually, I won't go there. I'll just leave it at a figure I saw the other day saying something like 100% of everyone in London pays 150% of their monthly income towards rent(actually, I think it was 59% of Londoners' income goes to rent-although this figure jumps to 91.4% near the borough of Westminster, about a 10 min walk from us). Anyway, I keep telling myself (quite convincingly) that, amidst all of the financial woes of life in London, it's totally, totally worth it.

This is a block in Sloane Square, where the obscenely priced market is located and also where some of London's most expensive real estate is (unfortunately, it's mostly just the real estate and not the people. Most of the properties are investments from overseas. See: London's housing problem.) But isn't it just so lovely?