Food & Groceries

Online Delivery

Many online groceries services have a limited number of slots and release them at the same time. Which makes it hard to get a slot that works well for you. Some online groceries release slots at midnight (looking at you, Waitrose) so you are forced to sit in front of computer at 12am and furiously refresh pages.

Tip
 Use recurring slots

ASDA does not have this problem as it has weekly recurring slots. You book weekly slot (or several) on the same day and time very week. You can also skip them if you don’t want to use them this week.

Tip
 Use specialized services

Oddbox is a service that delivers a different selection of fruits and vegetables to your door every week.

Good quality organic meat and dairy can be ordered at Farmdrop[1]. They usually have free slots for the day after tomorrow.

Offline

Tip
 Go visit your local corner shops and food markets. They are not usually the cheapest options, but it’s fun and sometimes you can find unique products.

Food delivery

  • I personally use Deliveroo[1] as it has the most polished mobile app and many listed meals have a photo.

  • Another options is Just Eat. Their app is confusing at times, but it might have cheaper offerings in some cases.

  • There’s also Uber eats.

Utilities

Internet

The are two decent options in London:

  1. HyperOptic

  2. Community Fibre

So check their coverage map by entering your postcode.

Gas & Eletricity

In UK you can switch between energy suppliers at no cost.

  1. The only thing you need to do is to register with the supplier you want to switch to.

  2. They will notify your old supplier.

  3. Profit!

Tip
 Switch your energy supplier as the default one you will get with your appartment is usually one of the expensive onces.

There’s a few sites that ask for your postcode and show your the cheapest option. Check out uswitch.

Bulb — probably the best option

In most cases Bulb[1] is the cheapest option.

Banking

Credit cards

Important
 Get a credit card even if you didn’t use them in your home country.

Why?

  • Section 75 protection for things costing between £100 and £29,999.99. Just one example: In 2019 when Thomas Cook’s travel agency crashed many people lost the money they paid for upcoming vacations. But only if they paid with debit cards. Credit card owners have received the full amount.

  • Building you credit score. The exact detials are unclear, but it might be useful to have a credit card history if you are planning to borrow money to buy a car or house.

  • Some cards have cash back. It’s not much, though.

Debit cards

At the same time credit card often have fees if you pay not in GBP or if you use ATM.

Open an account in a bank that has a good mobile app. Monzo is probably the most popular option here. It allows to:

  • Receive instant notification

  • Split bills

  • Search through transacitons

Note

  • Use credit card for purchases inside UK.

  • Use Monzo to withdraw from ATM and paying in US dollars or other non-pound currencies.

House hunting

There are several sites to look for appartments to rent. Usually new appartments appear in many of them at once. Hence I would just recommend using Rightmove which seems to be the most pleasant to use.

Things to consider

Online Shopping

Install Honey[1] and use it with your Firefox or Chrome. Sometimes it saved you £30-£40 or a large order.

Subscribe to Amazon Prime.

1. Contains a referral link but at no expense to you.