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- Alfredo Mellone, 30, got here to London in search of a brand new life – however ended up hating it
- He says the town labored him too arduous, ate up all of his time and ruined his food plan
- Did your life change after leaving London? E-mail [email protected]
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An Italian expat who moved to London seeking to make it massive within the capital says it left him poor, chubby and overworked because the cost-of-living disaster and the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Alfredo Mellone, 30, from Naples, moved to England in 2019 with a head stuffed with goals, hoping to profit from what one of many world’s most numerous and busy cities has to supply.
As an alternative, after discovering a job as a waiter and a room in a Zone 2 flatshare for £550 a month, he discovered himself nearly destitute and dealing at the very least 45 hours every week simply attempting to interrupt even – dedicating much less time to his hobbies reminiscent of sports activities.
The scenario worsened as Covid lockdown hit in 2020, with Mr Mellone furloughed from his hospitality job and compelled to tackle one other job with Ikea packing up click-and-collect orders simply to make ends meet.
However along with his hire rising by £100 a month, his weight ballooned 40kg (greater than six stone) as a result of he might solely afford to eat chips and had no time to go to the fitness center, having beforehand been a CrossFit devotee.
Did your life change after leaving London? E-mail [email protected]
Alfredo Mellone says he moved to London to profit from the town’s alternatives – however left after changing into depressed and chubby
He claims to have discovered the town too costly to stay in – with a big a part of his wages eaten up by his hire and basic residing prices
Mr Mellone sitting in Covent Backyard in 2020. He was furloughed from his ready job after lockdown hit and later needed to discover different work to maintain his head above water
He says costs in London are too costly for younger individuals – and since transferring to a different European nation the place transport and on a regular basis treats like a glass of wine are a fraction of the fee, he says he’s happier.
‘The bills in London are exceptionally excessive, they weren’t reasonably priced with only one wage. I had this sense of regularly trying to find methods to earn cash and it was a bit disturbing,’ he instructed the i.
Alfredo spent three years in London, his ballooning weight and the British climate making him depressing.
He labored extra time shifts in his ready job and took on different non permanent work after restrictions eased to be able to hold his head above water.
In July 2022, he moved to Valencia in Spain – the place he says the tempo of life, the perspective to work and the price of residing are a lot better.
He now works for Amazon in a gross sales job – incomes as a lot as he did within the UK however along with his cash going a lot additional.
In London, he purchased a bicycle to get about to be able to keep away from costly Tube fares – the place day by day Oyster fares for Zones 1 and a couple of are at present capped at £8.10. In Valencia, 10 public transport journeys may be made with a €4 ticket.
And he says {that a} £12 glass of wine in London may be discovered for €3 in most Valencian cafes – with the town encouraging ‘motion’, he says, as a result of there are not any fears of being unable to afford your journey.
He added of his time in London: ‘Due to my monetary wants, I labored six days every week and my time off was spent in mattress. It meant neglecting sports activities, hobbies and well being to dedicate your self to serving plates.
‘(In Valencia), there’s much more respect for individuals’s working hours, there isn’t any expectation of extra time, which in London is extra of an imposition than an expectation.’
Regardless of Mr Mellone’s expertise, London continues to rank extremely as among the best cities on this planet in quite a lot of polls and surveys.
Final yr, a research assessing cities on ‘liveability, loveability and prosperity’ rated the UK capital because the primary metropolis on this planet ‘regardless of Brexit’.
And TimeOut’s checklist of the world’s high metropoli, revealed in January and primarily based on each residents’ and its writers’ views, put the town at quantity 4, simply forward of Liverpool and behind high ranker New York.
