In our How I Manage My Money series we aim to find out how people in the UK are spending, saving and investing their cash to meet their costs and achieve their goals.
This week we speak to Kate Rudeshko, 30, who lives in Hounslow, west London, with her dog, Kim – named after Vitalii Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv Oblast in Ukraine. Kate came to London soon after war broke out in Ukraine, where she had been working as a successful TV presenter. Now, in the UK, Kate’s actively looking for work and is surviving on universal credit and dipping into her savings to get by.
Monthly budget
Income: I receive £834 a month in universal credit and am actively looking for a job. I am using some of my savings to help with my living costs.
Outgoings: Rent, with all bills included, £1,200; groceries, around £200; mobile phone bill, £10; council tax, £100; eating out, £50; clothes, £30 but often less; Netflix, £7.49.
I also pay £60 for Kim to be groomed every two months. Kim’s dog food is about £50 every three months. I’ve got PetPlan pet insurance for one year and this was free as I’m a Ukrainian refugee.
I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and fled to the UK in May 2022. My parents, who are divorced, are unable to leave Ukraine. My mother is a government worker and my father, being male, cannot leave the country either. I wanted to come to the UK as I know the language and once spent a month at a summer school studying English in Cambridge.
Before coming to the UK, I had to register on a website which teamed me up with a host family to live with. It all happened very quickly and I ended up living with a couple in London, who were happy for me to bring my dog.
I only had one phone call with them before arriving and was nervous as I had never met them, didn’t have a lot of savings and my family would still be in Ukraine. But I took the risk and flew to London on 17 May 2022. I had to bring my dog over by bus and ferry at a later date, which proved to be very expensive and time-consuming. It ended up costing me about £630 to get him to the UK.
My host family were brilliant and I’m very grateful for everything they did for me. They’d signed up to the hosting scheme for six months so I eventually left and moved to a Gravity Co-Living apartment block in Hounslow in November 2022. I’m really enjoying living here and pay £1,200 a month for my rent and all bills.
When I first arrived in the UK I was given £200 by the Government, but that was it. It was a one-off payment. Until I applied for universal credit I did not receive any other money. My parents can’t help me out financially as they simply cannot afford to.
I currently receive £834 a month in universal credit to live off. While helpful, it doesn’t even cover my rent and bills. I have had a couple of jobs since being in the UK, but they were temporary and the last one ended in March this year. I worked as a researcher for The Wall Street Journal for six months and as a producer for HLabs for three months.
Before I came to the UK I was working as a television presenter in Ukraine. I worked for ICTV, a national channel. I can’t reveal how much money I was making a month as the terms of my contract were confidential. I really miss my old job. I was meeting new people every day and it was an amazing challenge.
While I was living with my host family and had a job, I could save around £1,000 per month. However, now that I do not have a job I am eating into my savings. I know that I could easily live on a salary of around £2,000 a month after tax in the UK, but I’d like to earn about £3,000 a month. This sum would enable me to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and pay all my bills without having to worry about money so much.
Money is a real worry because everything is so much more expensive in the UK than it is in the Ukraine, particularly rent. Public transport in Ukraine is much cheaper and there’s no council tax to pay each month. It’s particularly hard to live in the UK without having a job.
Needless to say, it would be impossible for me to buy a property in the UK at the moment. Prices are high and I have no credit rating here or any income stream other than universal credit. I would also have a real uphill struggle to get any sort of loan.
I am determined to get a new job and start earning money again as soon as possible. At some point in the future I would love to be able to buy a home in Ukraine, but that seems to be a distant dream amid the ongoing war.
I simply do not know what tomorrow will bring. War in my country has taught me that material things like clothes and cars are unimportant. It has also taught me the importance of taking each day at a time, including when it comes to my finances.
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