A blog post detailing how it’s cheaper to live in Barcelona and commute to London than rent a flat in London has gone viral.
30-year-old Sam Cookney did the sums and explained his findings on his blog Best Burger in North West London.
Assuming he worked four days a week in London and one day at home in Barcelona, Cookney found he could save 387 € a month – and rent a much better flat in Barcelona than he could in London.
“So, Zoopla informs me the average asking price for a one-bed flat in West Hampstead (chosen because I know and like the area, and seems not a stretch to suggest that a young professional may afford to live there) is £1,505,” he wrote, “Throw in council tax (say £75) and a zone 1-2 travelcard for me to get to my job in the City (£116.80), and we get a total of £1,697. To make it a level playing field, let’s convert to € at today’s exchange rate, and I’ve got 1,979€ a month to play with.
“For Barcelona, I’ve looked in the Les Corts district because I used to live there, and being a fairly upmarket residential district, it’s a very decent and fair comparison to West Hampstead.”
For 680€ a month Cookney found he could rent a three-bed flat with three balconies, a stone’s throw away from the metro, in a nice safe area of Barcelona. There’s no council tax in Spain.
As for the commute, a cursory glance at Ryanair in November revealed returns from Barcelona to Stansted nearly every day for 34€.
“It’s 6€ to and from Barcelona’s el Prat airport (and I can walk to the airport train in five minutes from that flat) and then £14 return to Liverpool Street with Terravision (so 23€ in total on transfers each day). I can then walk to my desk by 9:30am, with time for a Pret coffee and bacon and cheese croissant en route,” Cookney wrote on the blog, “So, to recap, we now have fixed commuting costs of 57€/day, four days a week, for four weeks a month, which gives us 912€. Add on our rent of 680€/month, and Barcelona’s total comes to 1,592€.
“This still leaves me with 387€ free compared to my London life, with which to enjoy fine bottles of 5€ Rioja on.”
The blog was picked up by newspapers and websites with thousands of people reading about the possible money saving of living in Spain and working in London.
Whether anyone could deal with the stress of flying on Ryanair four days a week, every week, remains to be seen.
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Comments
C Tax £75 you'll be lucky
Anyway the whole enterprise depends on one key area that also screws up having property in America - air flight costs. Ryan Air might be €34 "nearly every day" but wehat happens on the day you must be in London and it is €54 (or to get back to Barca) or more to the point, when the price increases permanently?