Robyn Mansir says she was struggling to save anything in Manchester so decided to move across the globe
Robyn Mansir moved from Manchester to South Korea(Image: Robyn Mansir)
An expat who previously struggled to save any money living in Manchester says life is much better – and substantially cheaper – now she lives in South Korea. Robyn Mansir, 27, made the ambitious move across the globe four years ago, leaving her one-bedroom flat in Ardwick to take up a teaching role in the south east Asian country.
She says her living costs are much less where she now lives in Seoul, paying just £300 a month for her accommodation and less than £50 a month on energy bills. The transport system is a huge improvement and much more affordable, while the entertainment and nightlife options are very impressive.
Ms Mansir is originally from Bristol and moved to Manchester to study at university. She stayed in the city after finishing her studies and secured a steady job. But the high living costs made it impossible to save.
‘I couldn’t save any money’
She said: “I had a good job as a scientific research paper editor and lived in a neighbourhood I loved in Manchester, but I was always having to watch what I spent and couldn’t save any money, like most 23-year-olds out of university. It was hard to see how my financial outlook would improve.”
Robyn says her bills are much less and she feels a lot safer(Image: Robyn Mansir)
Recent research from international bank services provider bunq found that Manchester is the fifth most expensive city in the UK to live in, with average living cost of £1,720 a month. Ms Mansir’s home city of Bristol was even more expensive, where average costs are £1,908 a month.
The numbers are from bunq’s Working Abroad Index, which compares the cost of living across 75 cities across the world. London was the most expensive city in Europe, with the average bills of £2,810 a month. The capital city ranked fourth globally, behind US cities New York, San Francisco and Boston.
‘I wanted to do something exciting’
Looking at her options as she was just getting by in Manchester, Ms Mansir decided the time was right to try living abroad. She said: “I was 23, without kids or pets, and I wanted to do something exciting with my life rather than just settle into a routine. It felt like a now-or-never moment.”
After completing a TEFL course to teach English, she chose South Korea as her destination. She said: “South Korea kept coming out on top – it’s consistently rated one of the most liveable countries for being safe, clean and offering a high quality of life. I’d never been before, but that almost added to the appeal.”
Slashing costs and finding home
Ms Mansir secured her first role in Suwon, roughly 45 minutes south of Seoul. Her accommodation was included as part of her teaching package, saving her £350 a month right away and allowing her to save money and travel across Asia for the first time.
Four years later, she lives in Seoul’s Dobong-gu neighbourhood with her husband, a Korean UX designer, and works part-time at a private English academy. The couple utilises South Korea’s jeonse system—where tenants pay a large lump-sum deposit to live rent-free—paying just £300 a month in loan interest for a three-bedroom apartment.
Beyond housing, her everyday expenses dropped sharply:
Transport: She describes these costs as “negligible” compared to the UK thanks to cheap, extensive subway, bus, and taxi networks.Energy bills: During August—the most expensive month due to air conditioning—their three-bedroom apartment cost roughly £49 total (£6 for gas, £35 for electricity, and £8 for water). They also don’t have to pay any kind of council tax.Dining and leisure: A night out including a meal and alcoholic drinks costs around £10–£15. Taxis home are similarly inexpensive, and there are a lot of entertainment options like cinemas, sporting events, and karaokeHealthcare: Funded via a 3 per cent salary tax for employees. She said: “While you do pay at the point of service, the costs are significantly reduced. The wait times are much faster and the quality of care is really high.”
There are some financial drawbacks – salaries are generally lower than in the UK and fresh produce is notably more expensive.
Home visit
Ms Mansir was recently back home in the UK for a couple of weeks, the first time she’d been back since spring 2025. She says the differences are still noticeable. She said: “It’s a mixed picture to be honest. Public transport has actually improved – the capped fares in Manchester and on the London Underground make it feel more reasonable than I remembered.
“But eating and drinking out has increased dramatically. There’s a slightly daunting feeling when you’re handed the bill and you genuinely don’t know what the damage is going to be – that’s not something I experience day to day in Seoul anymore.”
She said that coming back to Manchester, she was shocked by how much prices in the city centre have increased. The expat said: “The more expensive areas now feel more comparable to Bristol in terms of eating out, which was definitely not the case when I was at university there. It makes you realise how much you recalibrate your sense of normal when you’ve been living somewhere else.”
Safety benefits
She said one key difference that has meant to lot her is the relative safety of living in South Korea. She explained: “The crime rate is remarkably low and for the first time I could walk around the streets at night without feeling nervous – something I’d never really experienced living in a UK city.
“It’s a freedom that sounds small but actually changes your daily life in ways you don’t anticipate until you have it.” In South Korea, leaving laptops or bags unattended on café tables is common practice—something she said would be “unthinkable” in Manchester or other UK cities.
If anyone is thinking of trying living abroad for a season, she said it is absolutely worth a go. She said: “Living somewhere so different teaches you an enormous amount.
“One of the biggest things is perspective – you quickly learn that life can be organised very differently and still work well, which challenges a lot of assumptions you didn’t even realise you had.” She said she has learnt the virtue of humility in having to go through the basics of setting up your life in a foreign country.
She said: “You stop taking things for granted. Things like the right to vote, or being able to do your banking on an app – you don’t think about those until they’re not automatic anymore and you have to go through a whole process just to access basic services.
“But there’s also a real freedom to it. I love being a foreigner in the sense that there’s an anonymity to it – I’m not expected to live up to Korea’s societal expectations as much and it’s really interesting to interact with people from an angle of curiosity about each other’s cultures. I sometimes feel like I live in my own bubble, which is fun.”