I was really, really surprised when my wife and I moved to London, England 2 years ago. In rural Japan I was spending not much more than $10k a year (although

I was really, really surprised when my wife and I moved to London, England 2 years ago. In rural Japan I was spending not much more than $10k a year (although I had subsidized housing from my job). To put it mildly I'm very frugal (and like living lightly). In England we were living in an admittedly nice flat in Watford, but I swear $40k would be tight. I think train fare alone for my wife and me was something like $12k a year. Rent, utilities and council tax was probably pretty close to $20k a year. Not a lot of room left for anything else. We also had to budget for a vacation abroad so that we could see the sun ;-) (I'm only partially joking...)