A Management Trainee In London On £35,200

This week: "I moved to London for my first graduate job last autumn. I was really happy to move to the city as I felt ready for something more exciting after going to uni in a small town. I love London and love having my first proper home with my boyfriend, B. We have been together since school so it feels like a long time coming, getting to have a home and build a life together in a new place. Financially, I constantly feel torn between broke and boujie. I’m either spending way above my means and saying yes to everything or I’m convinced that spending £3 on a coffee is going to bankrupt me. I do have an awareness that I’m young and I’m new to the city and the most important thing at the moment is getting all the experiences in rather than worrying about saving lots. It’s unsustainable for us to live in London forever and we both want to move back to Wales at some point to live close to our families so for now I’m loving the dinners, concerts, theatres and markets, even if my bank account isn’t so much."

Occupation: Management trainee 
Industry: Local government  
Age: 22 (about to be 23)
Location: London 
Salary: £35,223 
Paycheque amount: £2,119 
Number of housemates: One: my boyfriend, B. 
Pronouns: She/her 

Housing costs: The rent is £1,600, which we split based on salary. At the moment I pay £770; until a couple of months ago, I was paying more than B.  
Loan payments: £59 student loan, straight out of my paycheque.  
Savings? £9,334. I’ve worked hard to save this up but it’s sitting in a savings pot on my banking app so I am tempted to dip into it probably too often. I think my parents also have about £4,000 saved up for me but I’m not completely sure.
Pension? £190.79 comes out of my paycheque, which is 6.5%. The local government pension scheme is really 
good and it works out as me putting in a third and them putting in two thirds so I think they top it up by around 13%.  
Utilities: I split all of these evenly with B. For my share, it’s £54.50 council tax, £10 wi-fi, £17.50 water, £49.54 electricity and gas, £9.82 contents insurance, £6.12 TV licence.  
All other monthly payments: I’m still on the family phone plan, which I’m very grateful for. Subscriptions: £3.50 for my share of Netflix, £8.99 Amazon Prime.

Yes, I did an English degree, which I loved. The Welsh student loan system is much better than the English one, although it’s still means-tested for grant versus loan. Even though I have massive student debt now, it means I got all of my maintenance and tuition costs as loans so I never had to ask my parents to support me, which was great. I topped this up by working in a restaurant on weekends and in the holidays.  

I was definitely raised to think talking about money was rude. While I appreciate that my parents didn’t want a child running around telling her friends how much her dad earned (I had a few of these friends), I do wish we had talked about it more. I just feel a bit clueless about what a good salary is, what your living costs should be, how to properly budget etc. And don’t even get me started on things like investing, I wouldn’t have a clue. My parents did teach me that it’s good to live below your means when it comes to living costs and housing so you can say yes to experiences.

I moved out for uni but went back for long stretches in the holidays. I moved out properly when I moved to London with B after graduating. 

This is a tricky one because I feel responsible for myself now in terms of my day to day but I still receive quite a lot from other people. I use other people’s subscriptions and my parents pay my phone bill. I know I have a good salary and can be savvy so I think I could be more independent than I am now. 

My first job was in a school uniform shop when I was 14. Slightly embarrassingly, I sent them a letter asking them to reconsider when they stopped selling my favourite style of school trousers — they liked it so much, they gave me two free pairs of trousers and a job! It was bad pay but I loved earning my own money and I spent it on going to lots of gigs.  

Yes and no. I am so lucky that I can live in central London and still do a lot of things like holidays, meals out and fun stuff in the city. However, I’m not saving at all and I often spiral towards my overdraft at the end of the month. I don’t feel well off, despite B and I being DINKs with good salaries for our age. I worry the most about losing our flat because I love living here but we could very easily be priced out. And I worry that I’ll never be able to afford a dog.

I received £1,000 from my grandad when he passed away when I was 16. I used this to buy a laptop, which I used through my A-levels and uni and wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise.