Hi, my name is Luis and I'm from Brazil. I recently received an invitation to move to Sheffield, but I have a very vague idea about the cost of living there.

Could anyone tell me what I should expect to spend per month with things such as gas and electricity bills, telephone, broadband, television fee, cable/satellite, water bills, council tax, transportation, supermarket (including food/groceries, cleaning products, basic stuff and so forth), entertainment (cinema, concerts etc.), newspaper/magazine subscriptions, and literally any other typical bill one might expect to face living there? I will be moving with my wife, so, I suppose I should roughly double all supermarket, transportation and entertainment costs, right?

I'd like to know that in order to know whether the salary I'm being offered might be enough to support myself and the wife there, plus some additional costs we can't get rid of here.

I know I can find a furnished house for about £500/pcm, but I have no idea about how far they are from downtown (where I hopefully will be spending most of my time). Are there areas I should avoid at all costs (either because they are too far away from the centre or because they are not very safe)? By the way, is there an on-line city map of Sheffield? I mean, a complete one.

Does Sheffield have a service such as the one provided by Telewest Broadband (that includes telephone, satellite and broadband services in a single bill)?

Also, is it safe to live in a ground floor flat? I mean, we will spend most of the day out, so the house would be empty for potential burglars to break in. Is burglary very common there?

Thanks very much in advance.

Kind regards,
Luís

Ok but a lot of the things you mention will depend on how much you use them (elec, gas, telephone, etc), and a lot are standard costs not specific to Sheffield but England in general (newspapers, internet, telephone, etc etc).

Broadband, for a 512k connection will cost you around £15 - 20 a month depending on the ISP and whether the service is capped. Expect £25 - 30 for a 1mb connection.

BT telephone line rental is approximately £10 a month. The cost of telephone calls will depend on when you ring, where you ring, and what type of phone you ring.

Television fee is the TV licence, which is a legal requirement if you are to own a TV. AFAIK this is currently £121 annualy for a colour TV. If you want a digital satellite service such as Sky or a cable service such as Telewest, then expect to pay between £20 and £35 a month for their packages. Digital terrestrial TV will cost you a one-off cost for set top box, at around £50.

Council tax will depend on the value of your home, but I think you should expect around £1,200 a year for this.

Cinema - depends on which cinema and at what time, but typically around £5 per admission.

Newspapers - national daily papers are about 30p for tabloids, 50p broadsheets, more on saturdays and about twice as much on sundays. The local Sheffield paper is called The Star and is 32p Mon - Sat. There's also the Sheffield Telegraph (weekly and with a good housing guide in) but I can't recall its exact price off the top of my head. Something like 90p - £1.

Areas - these have been discussed in depth in this forum so you should be able to get a feel for the good and bad areas. Since you want to live near the city centre though, you should expect a higher chance of crime. Crime in Sheffield is however less of a problem than in other major English cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, London, etc.

I'll leave some other people to fill in the gaps.

Originally posted by t020
Ok but a lot of the things you mention will depend on how much you use them (elec, gas, telephone, etc), and a lot are standard costs not specific to Sheffield but England in general (newspapers, internet, telephone, etc etc).

Broadband, for a 512k connection will cost you around £15 - 20 a month depending on the ISP and whether the service is capped. Expect £25 - 30 for a 1mb connection.

BT telephone line rental is approximately £10 a month. The cost of telephone calls will depend on when you ring, where you ring, and what type of phone you ring.

Television fee is the TV licence, which is a legal requirement if you are to own a TV. AFAIK this is currently £121 annualy for a colour TV. If you want a digital satellite service such as Sky or a cable service such as Telewest, then expect to pay between £20 and £35 a month for their packages. Digital terrestrial TV will cost you a one-off cost for set top box, at around £50.

Council tax will depend on the value of your home, but I think you should expect around £1,200 a year for this.

Cinema - depends on which cinema and at what time, but typically around £5 per admission.

Newspapers - national daily papers are about 30p for tabloids, 50p broadsheets, more on saturdays and about twice as much on sundays. The local Sheffield paper is called The Star and is 32p Mon - Sat. There's also the Sheffield Telegraph (weekly and with a good housing guide in) but I can't recall its exact price off the top of my head. Something like 90p - £1.

Areas - these have been discussed in depth in this forum so you should be able to get a feel for the good and bad areas. Since you want to live near the city centre though, you should expect a higher chance of crime. Crime in Sheffield is however less of a problem than in other major English cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, London, etc.

I'll leave some other people to fill in the gaps.

Could you repeat that again please.

I get a package from Telewest that includes 1MB broadband, cable TV and phone. This costs me around £55 per month (including phone calls).

With regards to travel, weekly bus passes cost around £11.

My water bill is around £180 / £200 per year which I think is typical.

Supermarket bills vary widely - if you are prepared to shop around (and at local shops and markets) and use fresh, in season ingredients - you can reduce bills.

Cost of entertainment also varies widely. Sheffield has free art galleries, many parks and the peak district (a national park). Concerts range from small venues showcasing local bands (free to around £10) to the arena which puts on international bands and shows (around £25 to £50).

Overall, Sheffield is probably mid range value wise in the UK but costs (inevitably) are rising.

Hi Luís,
in UK we lose a chunk of our earnings in tax to the Government. These taxes are National insurance and income tax. They are extremely complicated to work out, so I won't go into it. However expect to lose around 25% of your earnings in these taxes.
In Uk we are extremely embarrased to talk about what we get paid, it is a national trait, so you will probably not get straight answers from most people about what they get paid, and if you bring up the subject, you might be ignored.

You haven't mentioned what line of work you are in or level of training/qualifications.

As a rough guide though :-
by law we have a minimum wage £4.85 per hour, appx £9500 per year. This is extremely low and you would really struggle to have a good living on this.

Median Average wage for a full time male, in UK is around £24000. with this you should be reasonably comfortable, and be able to afford everything you want on your list.

Originally posted by poppins
Could you repeat that again please.

Ok but a lot of the things you mention will depend on how much you use them (elec, gas, telephone, etc), and a lot are standard costs not specific to Sheffield but England in general (newspapers, internet, telephone, etc etc).

Broadband, for a 512k connection will cost you around £15 - 20 a month depending on the ISP and whether the service is capped. Expect £25 - 30 for a 1mb connection.

BT telephone line rental is approximately £10 a month. The cost of telephone calls will depend on when you ring, where you ring, and what type of phone you ring.

Television fee is the TV licence, which is a legal requirement if you are to own a TV. AFAIK this is currently £121 annualy for a colour TV. If you want a digital satellite service such as Sky or a cable service such as Telewest, then expect to pay between £20 and £35 a month for their packages. Digital terrestrial TV will cost you a one-off cost for set top box, at around £50.

Council tax will depend on the value of your home, but I think you should expect around £1,200 a year for this.

Cinema - depends on which cinema and at what time, but typically around £5 per admission.

Newspapers - national daily papers are about 30p for tabloids, 50p broadsheets, more on saturdays and about twice as much on sundays. The local Sheffield paper is called The Star and is 32p Mon - Sat. There's also the Sheffield Telegraph (weekly and with a good housing guide in) but I can't recall its exact price off the top of my head. Something like 90p - £1.

Areas - these have been discussed in depth in this forum so you should be able to get a feel for the good and bad areas. Since you want to live near the city centre though, you should expect a higher chance of crime. Crime in Sheffield is however less of a problem than in other major English cities such as Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, London, etc.

I'll leave some other people to fill in the gaps.

Hi

For telephone -BT is £10 and then you can choose a service like 18866.co.uk which charges only 1 p per connection for a phone call and you can call as long as you can. You can also get talk talk which is nowadays free and do evening and weekend calls free.
Averi

Thank you for your replies so far.

Hi, Averi, on the live chat, the other day, someone told me I could get Telewest Broadband, and have broadband, telephone and cable/satellite TV for £46.50. Maybe it's cheaper than getting all three services separate, right? Thanks for the help!

Hi, t020. I intend to rent, not to buy. Are Council taxes charged on top of rent? Or only if the ad clearly states so? £5 for cinema sounds reasonable (even though it's twice as much what is paid here). Thanks for your help!

Hi, muddycoffee. Thanks for the cultural tip. I would not dare ask anyone about their income, but I would need to know what a decent salary would be to support two adults (me and the wife) there and, at the same time, pay some bills down here. I am a BA in advertising, but will hopefully be working in another field (cannot disclose that yet) with mid-level managerial (50% of the time) and production (related to writing texts) responsibilities. That's what I was thinking, about £24.5k upwards. Anything under that would make things a bit difficult. Thanks very much!

Hi, psyn. A friend of mine had mentioned Telewest, but she wasn't sure I could get it in Sheffield. But, the day before yesterday, someone told me that at the chat room. In terms of supermarket, are there those megastores, such as the US chains Sam's Club or Costco? Thanks once again for your help!

Originally posted by poppins
Could you repeat that again please.

Why would you want him to? I don't often agree with T020, but this particular post was informative, concise and unbiased. What are you getting at poppins?

K x

regarding supermarkets, there are several major brands that are uk specific, asda (us walmart owned), Tesco, Sainsburys.

I don't think they are exactly the same as us supermarkets (not been to the us yet though). But you can certainly find everything you need in them. Increasingly they are branching out into selling electrical goods and clothing in addition to weekly groceries and food.
Telewest is based in Sheffield, it's not available if you go to the outlying villages though.
Council tax would normally be the responsability of the tenant I think. I guess this is negotiable though.
Regardinig the cost of supermarkets, I budget for £20/week for 1 person to get food and other household essentials. In reality I probably spend £25 to £30 these days as my tastes have got more expensive.

At the moment, I am getting a package from telewest of basic package digital TV, phone line rental , and internet access(unlimited ) for 38 quid a moth, which I think is fantastic.
I live in Meersbrook, soon to move to Crookes,which I am sorry to say there is not a service there from Telewest.

Originally posted by lhktrad
In terms of supermarket, are there those megastores, such as the US chains Sam's Club or Costco? Thanks once again for your help!
Sheffield is full of supermarkets. There are two types, Hi quality ones Sainsbury, Waitrose, Morrisons, and Low Cost Supermarkets Netto, Lidl, Aldi.
Hi quality are the traditional British supermarkets, they have foods from all over the world, and are generally extremely clean and tidy, and they specialise in selling the most luxurious/expensive brands of everything. Having said this some do their own brand budget labels, especially Tesco. They all have nice restraunts / toilets and washrooms / baby changing and large car parks and Petrol Stations[Gas Stations] / Carwash etc.
Low cost are like US supermarkets, they have goods for sale directly from Pallets, and often sell products which are aimed at other countries and often have labels in Danish language. But you can get good quality stuff there.

Visit the web site to get a feel for the price and style of our supermarkets >
http://www.sainsbury.co.uk/
http://www.tesco.com/
http://www.morrisons.co.uk/

http://www.netto.co.uk/internet/nettog/menu/main.nsf
http://uk.aldi.com/

In addition to the large supermarkets, Most districts have a convenience store franchise, which is open late or even 24 hours every day. I have a spar close to me and it sells everything. It is open 24 hours a day, and every day of the year.
http://www.spar.co.uk/

I would say Morrisons were more a mid-range supermarket in the same kind of bracket as Tesco and Asda. Waitrose, M&S and possibly Sainsburys are at the higher end, and Netto, Aldi and Lidl at the lower end. There's bound to be something to suit your budget and taste.

hello every1....i need your help.....i'll be moving to live in sheffield to study university and i have no idea about living there..so ciould you please help me by telling everything i can need like living.......

Originally posted by anababa
hello every1....i need your help.....i'll be moving to live in sheffield to study university and i have no idea about living there..so ciould you please help me by telling everything i can need like living.......

Anababa,
You pm d me by mistake i think, think you meant to pm to20, he could help you

good luck, Poppins

Just want to have an idea on how much I will spend if I choose to live my own (in a one-bed flat / studio flat). Shall I reserve at least
- 20 quid per month for gas/electricity
- 15 quid per month for water
- 25-30 quid per month for telephone rental and broadband

Any ideas?

I am a typical general user. I am now living in a flat sharing with 3 people. so the bills are quite cheap.

I live on my own in a modern 2/3 bed semi-detached house.

My monthly direct debits for utilities are:

Gas £19.50
Electricity £8.50
TV licence £8.51
Phone (BT) £17
Water £14

On top of that I pay
Council tax £74
House/contents insurance £26

If you're renting/a student these might be reduced for you.

I also pay AOL broadband at £24.99, though I know you can get it cheaper through other ISPs.

Hope this helps a little.

thanks TrashyBook. Your information is very useful. Cheers..

Originally posted by Kristian
Why would you want him to? I don't often agree with T020, but this particular post was informative, concise and unbiased. What are you getting at poppins?

K x

Just noticed this, it was just a joke, like when someone goes to a lot of trouble to explain something, then someone says, oh! would you repeat that again please.

Kristian, surprised you didn't pick up on that, think it was before you got handed your mod hat though.

i know nothing about sheffield my self...so i need to know how much will i spend on food , gas , electricity , water , phone and other main stuff.....and most importantly about university and it's fee...

Just refer to the previous replies to this thread and you can find the information you want. T020 and all folks have given details.

As for the university and its fee, you may visit www.shef.ac.uk for information. This link is for the University of Sheffield.

Cheers