$40 dollars a day in the Uk

[Tadpole]

Hey im going to the UK during the month of June, '05, with a buddy to backpack and fly fish. We want to keep the price around 2 grand.
$900 avg. for a round-trip plane ticket from Atlanta to London then back from Edinburgh.
$375 dollars for a combination of Britrail and Scotrail for 23 days.
$40 dollars a day for 23 days. That comes out to be $920 for daily costs.
So its about 2 grand in the end.
But is 40 dollars a day avarage enough for Hostels, food, the occ. pubs , and so on? We want to to keep a tight budget but not so tight our trip his handicapped because of money restraints. We dont mind staying in small independet hostels or eating small meals.

So anyone been to the UK recently? Perhaps you could let me know how much is needed to stay over there and any other tips and advice. Plus, does anyone know of a cheaper way to get to the UK from America? Hell we'd Fed-Ex ourselves over there if we could. B)

[butterj]

watch out with the fly fishing, it can be really expencive over here. if you want to fish in most fly fishing lakes they will try and charge you a fortune. rivers can be up to £200 a day (most expencive), but there are places you can go, lakes at the top of mountains or rivers where know one is looking. Your best finding out locations that have good fish as most rivers are course fishing. Oh also you might want to get a licence or not as the case may be, you are very unlikely to get checkd corse fishing but fly fishing on private land is another matter as salmon and trout is mostly private.

[Tadpole]

Really...thanks. I didn't realize they charge you for fishing the lakes and rivers. I haven't researched that area yet, still working on th budget area. Are there any public fishing areas...where one could just get in and fish.

How much is a decent meal over there?
How much does a drink cost at a pub?

[butterj]

about £2 a pint
meal £5 in a pub
meal £6 - your life savings in a resteraunt

[butterj]

Well for corse fisshing you need a licence then you can fish in most rivers, buy fly fishing asuming your after trout or salmon, scotland is the place but most is private best bet is ask in a fishing shop. you may have to look on web for shops as there normaly off the beaten track

[Tadpole]

Alright sounds good. Thanks for the meal prices, this helps me clear up my budget better. I will definitly check before fishing either on-line or at a fishiing shop. I dont want to trespass on someones property.

Hopefully the price for some of the fishing spots wont be too high...i dont want to have to scrap the fly fishing plan. But you have to do what you have to do.

[TheWills]

40 a day for booze alone maybe!!!!! HAHAH Ok just kiddin we are plannin your trip here not mine I havnt been but 40 is quite a handsome sum, I reckon you could be fine with that.......Food wise just hit up the local supermarkets and get those microwave pasta packs, those are like 2 bucks and they will do you in nicely for those few weeks, also if you can walk there do so, its just alot cheaper too walk around then take a cab or something, and thats about al the cost saving advice I have for now since I havnt been too the Uk sorrry I cant help more.

[Tadpole]

haha 40 dollars for beer...Im only 17!! How much do you think i can handle.

Ill be 18 when I go this summer. A 12 pack of Budweiser does just fine for me in the states. I doubt i can handle to much UK beer, however. But hey at least its cheaper to get me buzzing

Will 20 bucks be enough for hostels a day, on average?
That will leave $20 for food and other things.

[omisan]

I don't know about the rest of the UK, but in London you're looking at £10-£20 a night for a hostel in the summer, which with the current exchange rate is nearly $20-$40... That'd mean eating a lot of brown sauce sandwiches!

[beergal]

brown sauce sandwiches!

love em love love em

especially when you have the munchies after a night out

[suzyanne]

hi, i think you might struggle on $40/day cos thats like £20 right now and a hostel is gonna set u back at least £10 a night (£20 at least in london). tho i know that british hostelling international owns some basic cabins in some countrysideareas of the uk that are cheaper (about £5).

food in the UK is relatively expensive too. best bet is whats been said already, buy your food in a supermarket: as an example, buy a loaf of bread and some spread and youll pay about £1 and it lasts all day, buy 1 prefilled sandwich and u r lookin at £2.50! also, never, never buy food on the train, buy it b4 you get to the station, they mark up prices considerably.

[Tadpole]

Thanks for the advice. We might have to bump it up to
$50 min. if it looks it it will be too thight with $40. Hopefully we can work up enough money in the next couple of months to bump the daily budget it up even higher, hopefully.

Anyways thatnks for help on my budgeting issue. Plus if there is anymore advice on this, please do share.

[butterj]

definatly take the supermarket idea with you, they can be really cheap in comparison to eating out. but i expect you might still be quite shocked by the price, i'll just get my last recipt.

Somerfield Supermarket

White Bread 0.59
Water 0.49
Bacon 1.99

well get a pack of ham and bread between you for £2.50, not to bad as said before dont by ready made it costs alot more. and definatly avoid train food i tryed to get drunk and ran out of £20 and i was still soberish.

[TimmyJames1976]

use the hostel search on here, u can find some london hostels that are $20. I booked for two nights at a so-so one for that, so they are out there. it all depends on how much u think you can skimp, but $40 a day is really pushing it. im planning on about $70-75 a day, and im worried. either way, good luck and have fun.

[Tadpole]

Sounds like making rour own meals, most of the time, can really save money. I will definitly do that.

Im still a little confused on the pub drink prices.

Ok, If I spend $10 in the US i can get a 12 pack of budweiser (12 cans with around 5% alchohol). If I spend $10 at a pub in the UK...how much will I get compared to the US?

[omisan]

US$10 can probably get you about 2 pints at the typical pub... I've hit a student night or two in London with drinks for as little as £1.50, though, so you might want to sniff those out. At the store, you can generally pick up good, canned beer for about £1 a pint.. mind you, each one is significantly larger than a US 12-oz can, so you're looking at about US$10 for the equivalent of 8 good US beers.

And note, no matter how many lager louts swear by it, Carling is crap! Then again, you do like Budweiser...

[Tadpole]

haha hey Budweiser isn't too bad once you get use to it. There are alot better beers but they cost alot more as well.

[butterj]

Ah you get used to carling too, it's cheap its shit it gets you pissed,

Sainsburys Supermarket
Carlsberg Export 4 * 440ml Cans £3.94

Pub
£2 - 2.50 a Pint

Normaly you can get 8 cans for £5 of either Carlsberg or carling in a Supermarket

[skorch]

Czech Budweiser, Budvar (same name, but different company) is pretty good.
mmmmm.. Czech beer.

[Tadpole]

Cheers to your advice guys it will come in very handy on my trip.