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Emigrating from South Africa to the UK: submitted to this site by a South African (2001)

See also: Emigrating from South Africa to the USA

Boring stuff

There's tons of it. The most important boring stuff is about officialdom. Lets get on with it.

Right of Abode.

This sums up the first hurdle you have in coming to the UK - your right to live and work here. I know of the following categories:

1.      Citizenship - if you have British birth certificate, you are entitled to a passport. Very simple. Obtaining a copy of your birth certificate entails a visit to Somerset house and £15. A local solicitor will get it for you for about £60 all in.

2.      Ancestry - my ticket in. If you can produce one natural born British grandparent from either side of the family you are entitled to an ancestral visa. This is a visa for 4 years, full rights to employment and NHS, recourse to public funds (i.e. the dole) prohibited. At the end of four years, provided you are gainfully employed and have not been a burden on public funds (e.g. social services) you will be entitled to permanent residence for one year, where after you may apply for citizenship. You may not leave the UK for more than 3 months a year whilst you are on the visa. Your visa does not entitle you to travel in the EU. Your visa is valid for 6 months from date of issue, after which you will have to re-apply.

3.      Under 28 - if you are under 28, and you come from the Commonwealth, you can live and work here for 2 years. However they are getting stricter on this.

4      Sponsored - If you have a job, and an employer willing to sponsor you, you can get in. However you have to prove that you are not stealing a job from a British person. You need a solicitor for this one. Also, getting citizenship can be tricky at the end of all this. I don't know the details.

5.      EU passport - if you are a EU passport holder you may live and work in the UK.

6.      Marriage - If you marry a UK subject, you are entitled to citizenship. You are subject to the typical 'green card' type interviews about your spouse's preferred colour underwear etc. Since the victory of Tony Blair's labour government, gay unions are recognised for purposes of this head.

7.      Back of a meat truck - if you are an illegal immigrant, this is your ticket in. Be careful of freezing to death. Also, they are starting to check these trucks at the border. Remember the attempted illegal immigrant who stowed away in the wheel bay of a 747. His asphyxiated frozen corpse dropped out onto the runway at Heathrow on landing.

There are other categories, which I am not too familiar with. I have, for example, anecdotal evidence only concerning an alleged visa to work for a limited period in the UK in an employment that is other than your normal occupation.

If you need forms, dial the British Embassy from a fax phone. Go through automated system and the correct forms will be faxed to you. Yes, you can submit an application on a faxed form.

Seeing as I know the rigmarole for the ancestry visa, I might as well set it out. If you have no ancestry, or you are getting in another way, skip this section.

You need:

·         Birth certificate (full certificate required; ensure you do not submit abridged particulars taken from general population register or the original one the hospital gave your mother when you were born;

·         Both your parents' full birth certificate;

·         British birth certificate of grandparent, issued by the Somerset house in London. If you have been a bad boy or girl, and haven't seen your granny for 20 years, and are too embarrassed to ask her, you can apply for a copy of her birth certificate directly. When applying for a copy, you will need to specify at least: Year of birth of your grandparent, maiden name only, and county or district in which born. They keep the stuff in huge quarterly registers, divided up by county. If all goes well, you could get your certificate within 20 minutes.

·         Marriage certificate if you are taking your spouse along: note you must get your full marriage certificate, not an abridged one or the one the marriage officer handed you on the day.

·         Proof of sufficient funds to keep you going in the UK for a while. My wife and I submitted £1 500,00 each and this seemed to satisfy them. This takes the form of a statement of assets and liabilities, and copies of most recent bank statements.

·         Proof of employability: preferably an offer of employment. In my case they were satisfied with proof that I had attended an interview in the UK, a letter from an employment agent in the UK (originals only) confirming that in his opinion I would easily obtain employment, and a copy of my CV.

·         Letter from a UK sponsor guaranteeing your accommodation in the UK, supported by a gas or other utilities bill proving he is the owner of such premises. If he is a tenant, the consent of the owner of the premises must be submitted. It is wise to include a paragraph in this letter where your sponsor guarantees your living expenses as well as your accommodation.

·         Air ticket: you don't need to submit a copy, but if you have it, submit it. It should be return. If you are getting a one-way, wait till after you submit your application to buy it and just say you intend to buy a return ticket.

·         Money: We needed R500 per applicant.

·         Passport: submit valid passport. Try to submit a clean passport valid for a lot of years. If you plan to travel in Europe from the UK on an SA passport, you will need lots of free pages in your passport for visas, and your ancestry visa will take up two pages. You don’t want to have to walk around with two passports because your ancestry visa is in the old full one and your Shengen is in the other new empty one (more of Shengens later).

·         Time frame: if you have a job lined up, and you are prepared to drive to Pretoria and stand in a queue, allow 48 hours. Get there before 8am - they close the doors at 8h30. If you are not in a hurry, allow 2 weeks. Don't forget your visa expires 6 months after date of issue - i.e. you must present yourself at Heathrow within 6 months of issue.

·         Once you've got it all together, take 2 packs to the Embassy: 1 pack with all original documents, and one pack with copies and the money. They will check the originals, keep the copies and return all originals there and then.

Preparing to leave.

Obviously, do not try to cancel everything on the last day. South African Insurance companies particularly are remarkably obtuse about canceling policies and practically refuse to do so whilst your account is still feeding them lolly monthly. Start giving instructions to cancel debit orders and stop payments at least 3 weeks before.

Power of Attorney - if you have someone you can trust, give him or her a power of Attorney. You can get a pro forma from the CNA or Waltons or your attorney and then have it signed and commissioned whilst in South Africa. Strictly speaking it does not need to be commissioned, but banks especially get sticky if it isn't. POA's no longer attract stamp duty, though you should check this. If you can, go to your bank and give them a copy of the power together with a copy of your ID book, and a letter confirming that you have granted power of attorney to whomever. You should limit the term of your POA - preferably to 1 year. It is not wise to let such documents hang about forever. Make a note at the end of the power above the signature clause under the blank clause marked 'special provisions'.

Internet banking - if you are keeping your SA account, geet wired. Allow the banks at least two weeks to get your access up and running. I know they say they can do it in 1 day - do not believe them. They will stuff iit up - they dropped my overdraft limit to R1 after a week because my branch didn't send some or other piece of paper. If I'd been overseas at the time that would have been a bitch to fix. Set up your account beneficiaries before you leave - or do so in an Internet cafe whilst paying pounds later.

Make sure you have a card type driver’s license. These can be swapped for valid UK driver’s licenses on application. Forms are available from any UK post office.

If you have a no claim bonus history, get an appropriate reference from your Insurer. The no claim bonus can be transferred.

Do not bother getting a bank reference. They are not accepted here, unless you plan on meeting the bank manager personally. More on banks later.

Clothing - do yourself a favour and get decent walking shoes. Make sure they are broken in - do not try your luck with new shoes. You will walk a lot. I do not recommend good ol' SA hiking boots; they are for rocky terrain rather than pounding tar - rather get Nike Airs or equivalent. Really. Do not skimp on this one or You Will Regret It. Heed my wisdom, born of much pain. Thermal socks are good too.

Other stuff - if you are coming in winter, bring moisturiser. Tough guy SA men, abandon your machismo on this point or you will have cracked and bleeding cheeks, which are neither comfortable nor attractive. Lip Ice is good if you are a lip ice kind of person.

Generally: The Rand is very week. The Pound is very strong. Ergo, bring as much in the way of small toiletries like toothpaste, shampoo, moisturiser etc as you can, unless you particularly want to pay R30 for a tube of toothpaste in those crucial first few months. You want to keep all your money for tube tickets and food, and it doesn’t take much to cram a few extra cans of deodorant in the suitcase.

Luggage.

Check your allowed weight carefully. Remember that SAA charges R200 per kilo of overweight. Be very careful of the attitude, 'I'm going for a long time, I'll pay a bit of overweight.' Consider sending some baggage as unaccompanied luggage, or for large pieces, as cargo. Phone SAA or BA passenger services for details on unaccompanied luggage.

Cargo

I sent my computer across cargo. I sent hard drive, monitor, printer, scanner, modem and plugs - total weight 45kg. Total cost - R1 100,00 (about R20 per kilo, plus sundry charges) Not bad when you consider that the cheapest rig you can pick up UK-side is about £500 for an entry level no-namer, without sound and graphics cards. Most of the weight is the monitor. Consider buying a new 17-inch in the UK for about £220 to reduce the cost of cargo and (more importantly) make the box easier to carry. Also, monitors in particular don't travel well - make sure it is very well packed in a packaging that can resist a 10% deformation. Pack the monitor on its head or the pedestal will crack, and it will probably crack the tube housing at the same time. Computer Connection in Woodmead will pack your PC for you for 10% of the value of the computer, the lovable rascals! Deliver the packed box to SAA cargo the day before you leave, and pay.

When it gets to Heathrow, terminal 4, you have the day of delivery and another 24 hours before you start incurring storage charges of £6 per day. Go to Heathrow terminal 4 on your arrival, (a trip to Heathrow from the city is about an hour in the car each way, so get it done whilst you are there) and fill in the forms to authorise them to clear it and deliver it to you. This will set you back about £30 but its well worth it - it will take you about 6 hours to clear the item yourself (if you intend to do it yourself, go early - the customs office closes at 3pm), and then you'll still have to get this bloody great box back to wherever you are staying. Rather let the pro's do it - also you will pick up fewer problems with customs.

Be sure to mark your description of goods on the customs clearance form 'personal computer - not for commercial resale'. (Don't be an idiot and tell customs about the state of the art sound blaster, the 2 tandem Voodoo 2 graphics cards, the custom software and the other expensive goodies sitting inside the box - you pay 0.9% duty on the value of the item. As far as they are concerned, it’s just a cheap outdated box with a CD and stiffy (floppy) drive. Tell them the value is about £200 for an old clunker, say PII, to £350 for a new PIII box to be safe.) 

The only thing to remember is that on the day they deliver you will have to sit at home the whole day and wait for it. You can specify morning or afternoon delivery - for another £10.

Best time to go to London.

Opinions differ. Generally, people say go in summer - give yourself time to get adjusted whiilst its still warm. My suggestion is midwinter or soon after - December or January is best. By the time you get a job and a place to stay, spring will just be starting. And you'll be gung ho enough to endure 2 or 3 months of winter in the beginning. Just beware of the thousand-mile stare of the Londoner coming through 8 months of winter.

Existence

Generally, in SA, you can prove you exist with an ID book. In the UK you need the following three things or you are a Social Problem:

1.      A fixed address

2.      A GP

3.      A National Insurance number.

Lets take 'em one by one.

A fixed address.

If you are staying with friends or relatives, you can use that. If you want to rent, you need to prove your financial standing, which means you need a bank account. However, in true classic catch 22 style, most banks won't give you an account unless you have a fixed address (more of this when I unleash my full vituperative power against the banks later). Let us assume that you have a fixed address. You now need a…

Local GP

You absolutely have to register with a GP for NHS reasons. This is easy, but you have to remember that GP's are paid by the state. There's no reason for them to take you on as a patient unless you fulfill the state's minimum requirement that - you guessed it - you have a fixed address in their area.

National Insurance number.

This is the equivalent of the US Social Security number, or the SA ID number. Of course, in SA there are no social benefits so its pretty irrelevant if you have one or not, but in the UK its handy because you cannot get paid by your employer without one. You need a written job offer to get one - take your job offer in to your nearest office and apply. 

The best office to apply to is 60 Commercial Road, just to the east of the city, and within walking distance of Aldgate tube station. Get there early - 8h15 (office opens at 8h45) as they stop taking applications after about half an hour. Be prepared to spend the morning there. You will be formally interviewed so dress nice and be nice. They will get nervous if you um and ah about your address and contact details - they do not want vagrants. 

Take along two forms of identification - your passport AND another form - your SA ID or birth certificate will do. Have details of previous trips to the UK. If you are not instantly deported, you will be assigned a temporary NI number, which will mean you can be paid by your employer. You will be charged 'emergency tax' i.e. a penal tax rate until revenue processes you and assigns you a permanent NI number, where after you will be re-imbursed. Remember to ask for form P45 to submit to revenue or they will write you a snotty asking for one. 

Remember it is your own obligation to keep Her Majesty's Revenue Service (!) updated with your current address.

Banks

I must be calm here, because the temptation is to hysteria.

The Reserve Bank or Exchequer has published certain money laundering regulations. These provide that the Banks have to go through certain fairly rigorous procedures to ensure that they do not facilitate money laundering. London being what it is, money launderers often deposit 'dirty money' onshore and disburse it from legitimate accounts held at Lloyds, HSBC and the like.

The upshot of this is that the Banks require that you satisfy them that you are not a money launderer. There's no real way to do this, but the way they have tackled the problem is to require you to identify yourself satisfactorily. They call it providing 'proof of identity'. To do this, you need - yes, a fixed address! If you don’t have that, you could show them that you have another bank account held in London. Neither of these options is very helpful.

One bank I tried suggested that I get a statement addressed to my London fixed address by my South African Bank. The mere thought of trying to explain this to a South African Bank official was too much to bear, but I eventually managed to get round this problem with an introductory letter from my employers. I have had occasion to inspect the money laundering regulations myself. They provide for fairly stringent steps that a bank must take to screen applicants. However, they also provide for where such stringent steps are not appropriate, For the benefit of the gentle reader, I proceed to undertake the agony of analysis of the relevant provisions as follows:

We are dealing with The Money Laundering Regulations 1993, made by HM Treasury, which came into force on 1 April 1994.

In terms of clause 7, no person (read 'bank') shall 'form a business relationship' (definition in clause 3 but including a bank account as per Para 4(a) - ' deposit taking business'.) unless they maintain the procedures set out clause 5(1). Clause 5(1)(a)(i) details certain record keeping procedures and imposes certain identification requirements on the bank set out in detail in clause 7. Clause 7 in turn requires the bank to maintain 'identification procedures...as soon as reasonably practicable after contact is first made between that [bank] and an applicant for business (i.e. you)...' whereby the bank requires 'the production by the applicant for business of satisfactory evidence of his identity' (clause 7(1)(a)). What is 'satisfactory proof of identity'? Well, as indicated, the banks interpret this to mean a fixed address, but there is no requirement in the money laundering regulations requiring a fixed address. In fact, clause 11, entitled 'Identification procedures; supplementary provisions' provides (under 11(1)(a)) that 'For the purposes of these regulations, evidence of identity is satisfactory if it is reasonably capable of establishing that the applicant is the person he claims to be and the person who obtains the evidence is satisfied, in accordance with the procedures maintained under these Regulations in relation to the relevant financial business concerned that it does establish that fact'.

So, given that, I don't see why a passport is not sufficient evidence of identity, where it is plain from the passport that you are a recent immigrant, unless there is (possibly) an internal Bank regulation requiring the official quizzing you to obtain proof of address. So if you are battling to get a bank account for this reason, you may want to get bolshy and ask the bank to produce a chapter and verse of where proof of address is required.

I am however not an English Solicitor or an employee of HM Treasury, and I accordingly emphatically deny that the above is legal advice of any kind whatsoever and you rely on it at your sole and absolute risk. You are encouraged to consult a legal practitioner for up to date and correct advice as opposed to mine, which is my own personal view of the applicable regulations and is probably wrong.

I have however heard from other SA travelers that Barclays is more lenient than other banks in their identification requirements. You might also try seeing a manager with a South African Bank reference - you could try explaining catch 22 to him. However I can positively testify that the lower level functionaries at the banks will not help you. The upshot is that the money laundering regulations will frustrate you and will not significantly hinder the money launderers, but hey.

There are two comparatively easy ways to get round this: the first way is to register for NHS - the doctor will only ask to see your passport, and the address on the NHS card will be accepted by the banks.  

The second way, if you do have a place to stay, is to change an account into your name, and then after 1 or two days ask the service provider to send you an interim account.  An account-opening letter is not enough. 

Bank or building society?

SA hasn't had building societies for years, so we tend to look down on them as wannabe banks. In the UK this is not really true and you should consider moving to a building society as soon as possible. The banks pay almost no interest and they charge a fortune for services. However: it costs nothing to open an account, and there are no auto bank charges if you use your own bank's teller. There are no fees for cheques or chequebooks. The major banks (or rather the most visible consumer banks) are HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, and Abbey National.

ISA's - these are savings schemes which are legislatively encouraged. You can save up to £500 per month in these tax-free. They are managed funds, rather like SA endowment policies, but with interest rather than maturity values.

Looking for places to stay

Understanding the price range is easy: cripplingly expensive at the low end to knee tremblingly overpriced at the top end. Some properties in London cost the same as a small country.

Understanding the Geography:

Firstly, there is the great North South divide: North London is a bit contemptuous of South London. I'm really not sure why, but basically it seems as if North London feels that its trendy and in touch, and South London is for families to go and breed in. In times of yore, South London was considered the place of 'the average Londoner', such that 'the man in the Clapham Omnibus' (Clapham being in the heart of the South) became a legal concept denoting 'the average man'. (Clapham is actually very trendy now)

In addition, the tube does not really penetrate to the South so it’s a bit more cut off from the culture and hubbub of Central London. So that’s the general distinction, but having said that, London is also divided into the cardinal points of the compass. If one has to paint in very broad brush strokes, the East is where the poor live, the North is where the Yuppies live, the South is where the families live, and the West is where the landed gentry live.

But each pocket of London has its own character. Take North London, which I am starting to know a little bit better. Overall it’s a bit like Melville - trendy, more up market, with pockets of poverty. It is connected by the Northern tube line which runs from Morden in the South, through the centre of the city, and then splits: one branch goes to High Barnet, the other one goes to Edgeware. Its very name - the Northern Line - indicates the prejudice against South London, even though the one end of the line starts in Morden, deep in South London. Each stop on the Northern Line has its own character - so by way of illustration, once you get out the City, Angel is where the successful artists live. Next is Kings Cross, where the poor artist wannabees live. Further north, in Camden, is where the students live - like Yeoville in the old days but busier and nicer. Further north is Hampstead where the rich Wasps live. North of them is Golders Green where the rich Jews live. Just North of them is Brent Cross, where the poor Jews and ultra Orthodox live. North of them is Hendon, home of retired rich Wasps, and still further north again, at the utter end of the Northern Line is Edgeware, where the South Africans live.

Renting.

There’s too much to say about this, so I'm limiting myself to bullet points.

If you intend to work in the city, you need to be out no further than zone 4. That’s about 40 minutes on the tube in the morning. Try for zone 3.

Cost of rentals - you should look for one bedroom at aboout £200 per week for an OK place, to £300 per week for a 2-bedroom place. Those are mid range prices - you could get cheaper. By way of illustration, and as a rough rule of thumb, a place you rent for £200 per week you could buy for about £120 per week.

You need to search hard for a nice flat. Lots of them are grotty and overpriced. Many are built funny, with the toilet in the kitchen, the bedroom in the garage etc. - the legacy of conversions. 

Your dictionary is as follows:

You need to rent before you can buy for a few reasons. Firstly, you won't know London, and you need some time to work out the kind of area you want to live in, the schools, shops, tube and trains etc. Secondly, you can't get a mortgage without at least a 4-month job history.

Deposit - usually 4 weeks. Note that you get charged weekly, but you pay rent monthly. This is so they can squeeze another 2 weeks rental a year out of you (do the math 52/4 = 12.2)

Flats generally come furnished or part furnished. 

How do you find flats? Go from tube stop to tube stop till you find an area you like. Then walk around the station area to all the estate agents and see what they have. On a specific day of the week, a free property newspaper is published.

Buying

I haven't bought myself but I know the following:

A half decent place costs about £180K upwards.

London is home of "gazumping". This requires some explanation, as it is very different from the legal scene in SA. Now in SA, the binding moment is the moment when the seller and the buyer sign the offer to purchase, which becomes an agreement of sale at that moment (even if there is a suspensive condition requiring sale of the buyer's property). In London, things are not that simple because either the buyer or the seller can always pull out, or "gazump" at any stage, seemingly if he feels like it. I'm not to familiar with the documents, so I don't fully understand the process, but it seems to me that this is how it works. If all went well, the parties would sign, the documents would be prepared, and when they were ready and everything was ready, the parties would "exchange", literally meet and exchange title Deeds and money. 

In South Africa, a property transaction can take about 3 months from date of signature to finalise. In London, it can take double that, if it happens at all. "Nightmare" is the statement most often used to describe the process. It is apparently a lot easier if you are a first time buyer as there is less chance of a problem arising at the purchaser side of the chain.

Mortgages: Banks usually supply a mortgage up to 3 times (they say 2 and a half times but they are also desperate for business) your (or you and your spouses) combined income. So to purchase what I called "a halfway decent place" at £180 000,00 (you'll be lucky to find at that price but it is not impossible) you need a combined income of £60 000 per annum. The average British household salary for two thirty-something's is £54 000 per annum.

Area is crucial in price. If you buy in the South, it’s cheaper. If you want something in the North, like in Hampstead, you will be lucky to get a shoebox for same price. If you want in the West, get your soul ready for sale.

Deposit: you need 5% of the purchase price and legal fees. There is transfer duty payable from 1 to 6% (like SA)

Buying to rent

In the first flush of one's first salary cheque in pounds, the temptation is to have grandiose plans of buying properties on Clifton beach for holidays. It would be a good idea if you could do that, but a far better idea if you are looking for investments is to become a landlord in London. Why? Because, unlike in SA, you can rent for more than the mortgage.

Generally, rentals in London are about 30%+ above the mortgage cost, which means your rented flat or house is self funding, with an additional and handsome monthly income, which you can use for beer money, or to plough back into your bond. If it's your first property, then the deposit is 5% of the purchase price, but if it’s a second or third property, then the deposit is 15% of purchase price. However, once the property is yours, and you have decent tenants, it should be a very good investment. London properties keep their value, so if you need to re-sell, you should make your money back and then some. 

Your only problems are the problems that all landlords face, which are demanding tenants, old and decrepit buildings and the like. There are loads of ads in the papers from bond companies looking to give you bond rates on these "buying to rent deals". Forget your dreams of a house on Clifton - you can get houses cheaper in Spain and Portugal, which you can drive to, and both of which countries are slowly becoming suburbs of old rich Londoners.

Hospitals and Schools

This is NHS, so you go to the hospital that services your area. Schools operate on the same principle. So it’s a consideration when choosing an area to live in. Lots of people move home so that they fall into the right "catchment area".

Finding Work.

I suppose I should really have dealt with this above. Basically the situation is that there is loads of work in the UK. Unemployment as at March 2001 had just fallen to below 1 million, with 28 million adults gainfully employed. The inflation rate is below 2%. There is a slowdown of the slightly overheated economy, but Britain’s problem is a lack, rather than an abundance, of labour.

It is relatively easy to get "a job". Having said that, it is rather more difficult to get a well paid one. The average weekly wage is about £480.

If you want to live reasonably well in London, you need an annual salary of - and I'm guessing a bit here - £38 000,00 for a single individual, and £50 000,00 for a couple. By "living reasonably well" I mean living kind of like a well off student in Yeoville in the days when I was a student - rented flat, with all the conveniences, as well as a car, and some pocket money. Given that your tax rate is around 35% for salaries over 25 000 per annum (22% for salaries under that) and that your rent is going to be about £200 per week - you do the math.

A starting position - say bank clerk - pays about £18 000 a year - the rough equivalent of a starting salary of R2 000,00 per month in SA. £30 000,00 is the salary a yuppie with a few years work experience gets - the equivalent of a take home pay of about R4 000,00 in SA. I'm being so general now that I kinda wonder if this is being helpful.

Anyway, looking for jobs starts in SA on the Internet. Here's my advice:

Troll the sites like www.monster.co.uk and www.jobsunlimited.co.uk and make contacts with as many agents as you can.

Before you send out CV's look at the kind of companies you intend to apply for and make sure your CV uses the same kinda language they do.

Try to tailor your experience to the company.

Write a short CV, which is little more than a summary. Then write a chatty covering letter with details of the work you've done. Have a section like 'recent projects I worked on included... 'and then set out some of the stuff you have done.

Send out at least 30 CV's to agents. They all reply, but very few do anything. Most say you must phone them when you get to the UK. But you should get a hit rate nevertheless of agents who will market you without seeing you of about 1 in 10. If you have good experience, many HR departments have budgets to fly people out for interviews, but you can't count on it. 

What I did is I planned for a holiday in the UK, and went for interviews whilst on holidays to test the waters and get proof of employability. The agents were more willing to market me because they knew I was coming over for interviews anyway. Then nearly a year later I went over.

Brits are more open to taking on SA people than you think, but work permits are a big problem. I cannot give any advice on coming on holiday and trying to get sponsored whilst you are here, but I suspect it’s a big no-no. You should check it out before trying your luck.

Cost of living.

High. Here's a sort of summary of what a single person might expect to pay monthly:

1.      Rental including local taxes etc £1000

2.      Phone £30 (and going up since the licences for the package switching network debacle)

3.      Cell phone £20

4.      Transport (4 weekly tickets from zone 3) £100

5.      Food and necessaries £300

6.      Sundry charges: £50

7.      Entertainment - 2 West End shows and a movie - £70

8.      Total: £1570.

Note there is no provision for clothing, holidays, savings etc. This is of course a very rough idea. You and I, gentle reader, may also have totally different ideas of what a good standard of living is etc. My standard is roughly middle class suburbanite.

Shengen visa's:

I said I'd get back to Shengen visa's. This is the blanket name for visa's issued to non – EU residents traveling in Europe. If you are living in London, but are on a South African passport, this is the visa you will want for traveling in Europe. "Shengen" is the name of a small town where EU representatives signed a treaty. Basically, the EU is treated as one country for the purpose of visa applications, and each country is treated like a branch office of the EU for the purpose of visa applications. So the idea is that you can apply at the embassy of any member state, say France, and your visa will be valid for entrance to any other European country.

This, however, would be way too easy, and account must be taken of 1000 + years of European nationalism. There are thus a number of further rules:

Anecdotes:

The Italian embassy is the absolute worst to apply to, requiring at least 3 trips to get your visa. The visa form is difficult to understand, being badly translated from Italian, and they are picky and may refuse your Shengen. They sometimes insist on stupid things like a letter from your hotel (what backpacker has that?) and bank statements. You need to apply at least two weeks in advance.

The French embassy is the easiest: If you are prepared to stand in the queue the whole day, you can have your Shengen same day. They are less stupid about formal requirements. This does not mean they are a pushover however, so have as much as you can.

You may not be granted a Shengen on your first visit to the continent from the UK, but if you come back timeously and haven't been a soccer hooligan, you should get a Shengen the next time you apply – I am told this is the legacy of South African's particularly abusing the Shengen system in the pass to gain access to Europe for extended periods.

Visa agencies will submit applications on your behalf for about £20 per application. Pricey, but it saves you standing in queues. They will do the whole thing by post and you need never actually deal with it.

Travelling abroad from the UK:

Really easy and cheap. You can pick up flights to most European cities for £40 or less. These flights usually leave from Luton or Stanstead which are less convenient than Heathrow because Heathrow is on a tube line. There are however regular buses to Stanstead (from Golder's Green tube) and Luton (from Victoria.)

If you want to go to France or Holland, the Eurostar is fabulous. Note that there are plans to extend Eurostar to the south of France. You will need to change station to Gare L'Est. The Eurostar leaves from Waterloo (on the Northern Line) and costs around £100. Its convenient because it takes less time than flying (if you count travelling to the airport and checking in) and dumps you at Gare du Nord in Paris or at Brussels central.

If you want to visit the continent on the cheap, the best is a bus (around £20 to Amsterdam) but, of course, this means more traveling time.

Also cool, if you are living in the UK, is that you can use your UK bank visa card (not your credit card) to pay for stuff.

The good stuff

You don’t need me to tell you about it.

See also: Emigrating from South Africa to the USA 

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