Analyst 1 - live home or near office?
Will be starting full-time in August in Canary Wharf and wondering whether anyone can share their experiences/thoughts on living arrangements. Need to just check if there's an obvious answer here :)
Option 1: Move out to an apartment within walking distance of the office
Option 2: Stay at home, commuting on the 3 mandatory days and WFH on the other 2 (when most of team WFH)
Home is about a 65 minute commute and then about the 60 min drive Uber in the evening.
Conflicted about saving for a deposit to put down in 2nd/3rd year versus convenience as a 1st year.
Thanks!
Edit: ignore handle, IBD hours
Live at home. How is this even a question
Why tf is this getting MS? What, you didn't have enough "independence" whilst at uni? Life isn't one big frat experience, grow up and learn some money management. There's a reason why Asians have so many properties and its because they don't waste their salaries on rent and just live with their parents
Asians have so many properties because the exclusively sell to other Asians off market. At least, that is the dynamic I have seen in my city with the Chinese, Vietnamese and Indians. They keep it in the family so to speak.
Thanks intern. Let us know when you start working for real if you still want to live in your parents’ basement.
Some people value sex, social life, less travel time (and thus more time for gym, hobbies etc) over saving a bit more every year.
Cultural differences.
your life sounds boring
I had my fun at university. I'm not going to bring sin and debauchery into my home, it's unsustainable.
What time are you expected in the office? From your handle if you're in ER I presume very early in the morning right?
Ignore handle - typical hours 9/9:30AM to at least 9:30PM in the office, with frequent work until midnight (in office or home). Thanks for double checking :)
home - i was in the same boat with same commute. It's doable and you can really save + live like a king/queen
Appreciate it - at what point have/would you consider moving out?
Would recommend just save until you can buy a place
Don’t think you are really living like king / queen with your parents. That phrase gets way too overused here
Fr what king of king / queen lives at home with their parents. They run their own castle that’s literally the whole point
I would move out, no question. Horrible to live at home as an adult. The only thing that will do is create conflict in the family when you are not able/willing to help out etc. The money for a deposit will come later down the line anyways.
I would also say don’t live at home. Sure you’ll save money but as everyone says the money will come later and a years rent saved (~18k) will be covered by a bonus soon enough.
You’re only young and living in the city for a while (maybe) so I would make the most and take advantage of all that London can offer - do you really want to be getting a train in to see your mates on a weekend or worrying about getting Ubers/trains home? Also the banking lifestyle is tough when living home at parents, you will want to be optimising not worrying about helping out and making life difficult with your family.
Also would caution against necessarily living in Canary Wharf - great that it’s close to the office, but it’s dead on weekends and I would rather take a slightly longer commute - somewhere on Jubilee or Elizabeth line (~20min max) - to live in a nicer/more buzzy part of town
I know this has been covered before, but do you have any recommendations for areas? I am attracted to CW because of the new developments, as I would prefer to live alone in a studio or similar.
Rate for a studio in CW should be around £1700pcm (excluding bills) in a high-rise tower within 15 minutes walking to CW offices. From my experience of looking, prices remain pretty consistent wherever you go (particularly for new developments) and tend to be pretty similar, so distance is the selling factor.
Take a look on rightmove and can draw an area around your office. Can find the name of the building/road and google maps it to the office, then work out what your personal boundaries are.
The commute you’ve mentioned would take away 2 hours of your day - sure we all HAVE to travel but if you went for an option which is more like 20/30mins door to door you’d have an extra hour every day. That’s an extra hour you can sleep, gym, or even better, work lol. Also to save enough for a deposit you’d probably need to live at home for 3/4 years (assuming you wanna buy a decent, centrally located property; 20% down payment, mortgage of 5x annual comp). That’s a long time to make those sacrifices imo.
Imagine working IB hours and making IB money and still living with your parents.
Imagine how much you’re going to miss out socially and also just sheer character development
fr how bored/boring do you want to be
I'd move out. You're going to have very little free time, why would you waste it commuting?
Commuting 2 hours will be extremely draining. The primary objective as a junior is to make sure you are a good performer and to ensure you don't burn out. The extra comp you save won't matter once you hit associate/VP level.
Appreciate the perspective - thank you :)
Everyone is telling live at home and it makes the most sense financially. I agree. I lived at home my first year out of school to save but I wasn't in banking at the time. It was a tremendous help for me financially.I want to give you the other perspective, though. Today, I'm in banking and chose to live next to the office (my apartment is 350ft from the office) and it's been the best decision I've made. I don't deal with a morning commute. I have enough time in the morning to get a workout in, shit, shave, shower, and iron my clothes all while making it in before 9:30.I cook a healthy lunch at home everyday. Which has been amazing both financially and health wise. On late nights I don't deal with a commute home. If it's 1-2am, I have a 2min walk then I can quickly wind down and go to sleep.
Thanks for that; if you were starting off as a first-year out of college in banking today, would you still have chosen to live at home?
Given the length of your commute - absolutely not. An hour each way is a lot. It may not seem like a lot now, but when you’re in the thick of the job fully staffed it will take a toll on your body.
I was lucky in that, I only had a ~40 commute and my job at the time was a hard stop 9-5. It’s easy to absorb a longer commute when you know you’re getting off at a normal time, than at 11pm - 1am when you’re already exhausted it will hit harder.
Id recommend you getting your own place. Doesn’t have to be in the heart of the metro where the prices are the most expensive, maybe a 10-20min commute each way max. You’ll be thanking yourself later.
I wouldn't really worry about FOMO or missing out on your 20's - realistically, most people that choose to live at home will move out after 1-2 years. You can save up a deposit quickly on IB money, and 4.5x £75/80k will carry you quite far. You could realistically afford a £400k flat after 1.5-2 years tops with prudent saving at home.
On the question of renting, do you think £18,000 per year is worth about 200hrs in saved commuting time? If someone paid you £85/hr to sit on the Tube, would you take it?
With 400k you won’t be living in London - this is unrealistic and you’ll be at home a lot longer than you think if you plan to buy a place as your first move to London. Please don’t choose to live at home for this reason
I was wondering how you sell the fund to LPs. As you are investing across the cap structure it seems like the LPs are investing in a black box. How do they know what kind of exposure they are going to get?
Are you crazy? IBD hours are extremely draining and to then decide to live a 2 hr commute away from the office is absolutely nuts, when everyone else will only live 20 mins away. Yes, you'll save some money, but will have very poor quality of life with such a long commute and will likely struggle to perform well in your role given you'll be so tired all the time.
Honestly, surprised people in the thread are saying you should live at home. Saving for the deposit can come later and you want to give yourself the best possible chance to smash the analyst years and do well in your career rather than making your life difficult with a 2hr commute.
I would move out. The hours in IB are rough as they are. Imagine you have to work until 2am a few days in a row. You're home by 3am. You're going to be in the office at 9 so most likely you will be getting up at 7 or so if you have a 60 min commute. IB is completely draining you on energy as is, don't make it worse by removing 2 hours of sleep. The money you make as an analyst is not what will make you financially independent. Your goal is to survive the dog years in banking to make a ton of money as you get more senior. Don't increase the risk of burning yourself out just to save some rent money.
What is your Uber budget at that point?
If the morning commute is via Uber as well, wouldn't you be looking at like $30K on Uber over the course of the year?
I guess maybe there's a small subsidy from the firm on late nights...
It wouldn't be a small subsidy, there's no caps for transport in evenings as long as start point is your office and end point is your address (or something resonable i.e. not making 5 stops along the way).
That said 100% think it's worth it to move out. As other have noted, think of it as an investment with probable high returns if it helps you succed in making it to Asso/ VP quickly and without burnout/ leaving. Even just within the 12m, likely you could jump your bonus pool/ ranking by using all that extra time wasted commuting.
Really? That seems stupid of the bank not to put a cap on that, but good for him
Now I actually think he should live at home and see if he can break the record for most value extracted out of the firm by maxing out every perk
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