Thinking about moving to USA

[TwoJackRussellsandabean]

Hi there,

my husband is starting to talk about moving to the US in the future, but to give us an idea of how feasible it might, especially if he is the only one working I'd be really interested to get some advice on general matters.

Say we moved to Seattle for example, what would be a reasonable salary to be able to live off if only one of us was working and to allow us to have an acceptable middle class type lifestyle, nothing massively fancy but just to cover living expenses, a decent house in the suburbs and a little money to put aside?

I would assume that he would get health insurance for the family included in whatever package he might manage to get with any employer, but I understand that US employers dont offer as much annual leave, on average would four weeks leave be reasonable or would that be far more than we should expect?

I can see the advantages and the disadvantages of us moving over there, but having some idea of what things cost and how much money we might be looking at needing would help to decide how seriously we might look into the whole thing.

Thanks :)

[Rubyx]

My sil lives there and my cousin and another cousin has moved with his family.
I would say around 4000 dollars a month, this allows my sil to eat reasonably well, clothe her kids at a fairly decent standard and run two cars ( you can't do america without cars) and pay the mortage on a lovely home with lawns and a pool. In addition they pay savings policies and have some cash savings. If your husband gets medical and subsidized housing this can be reduced accordingly. ( My sil lives in NewJersey)
Go to a site like trulia.com and check out the houses.

[SansaLannister]

'on average would four weeks leave be reasonable or would that be far more than we should expect?'

Unless he's a real high-flyer, that's far more than you can expect. And they won't like you taking more than a week or so off at once, even for high-fliers.

Seattle is not a cheap place to live, either.

If he has a real high-powered job, he should get health insurance for himself and dependents, but with most employers you need to pay for some of it (it's tax-deductible, though).

[scotgirl]

One word...

VISA.

You need to do some reading. Unless he has a US passport and you go through the green card process, he will need to get one to work. The company will have to prove that at US citizen can't do the job (or he is the best option) to get one. Your visa will be linked to his and will allow you to live there, but not work (you will have to go through that process too)

If he loses or changes his job you will need to leave the US or get another employer who will sponsor your visa.

It is a difficult county to work in unless you have a US passport or get a transfer with your existing UK company who will do all the visa stuff for you.

I think people forget, because of how easy it is to work across Europe that it is not like that everywhere!

With regards to cost - it varies wildly. Cities such as SF, Boston etc are expensive. Texas etc is cheap.

[TwoJackRussellsandabean]

Thanks guys,

we would only go if there was a job offer in place and a visa etc, not just on the off chance, but he reckons that he could earn twice as much as he does in his current job elsewhere and as a specialist commercial artist one of the places which we might look is the US, but I would want to know that we would be making a sensible financial decision, hence asking people who already live in the country rather than just listening to people trying to sell the place to us.

Also, wouldn't be selling our house in the UK so we could come home if things went tits up so to speak!! I figured that I probably wouldn't be able to work and having done so for the last 15-20 years that's a major consideration too.

[cherrysodalover]

I reckon for seattle you would need about 75-80K a year to get by-no savings on that but a family could get by and have a US holidays once a year-2 weeks is standard holiday allowance- 3 weeks is very good and usually only after being with a company for a few years.
Health insurance runs at a grand a month i'd say if you are paying for a family of 3-4 and even when the company pays we still make up 300 odd dollars a month so that is a shock after free care in the UK.The care is great though.No free pre school- but childcare is much cheaper here.

[SansaLannister]

Yes, you will need to pay co-pay/percentage of cost of care unless you are on a plan like Kaiser in a Kaiser hospital (and even Kaiser has co-pays for visits to GP, NP/practice nurse, PA/physician's assistant, etc.).

They will send you many bills and you will likely have to chase up the insurance company.