Have you moved to the US?

[otterbaby]

And plan to stay forever? Could you tell me about your experience?

Thinking about returning to the US (where I'm from) with DH & DC for good and would love some outsider perspectives. I'm having a difficult time looking at it without an unbiased opinion.

Not us, but family friends. They moved over and stayed for approx. 15yrs but moved back to the UK as the health insurance became so prohibitive. They were older and looking to retire so no work based insurance, higher age costs etc. They said the worry kept them awake at night.

@Mull thanks. I can definitely see how that would be more difficult - I am banking on us getting good health insurance through work but it's definitely an added stress.

I recently moved back to the UK after 10 years in the US. Cost of living for us was way higher - our state had a monopoly or only two choices of utility providers, cable and 1 for water so you couldn’t shop around. Groceries and mobile phones were more expensive (and we shopped pretty modestly) and then you obviously have the huge outlay for health insurance. We also needed to run two cars - gas was cheaper than here but two car lease payments every month soon adds up

The other big outlay housing and then property tax if you buy. Flagging this as it’s linked to schools -general rule of thumb seemed to be better area with better schools = more property tax (as your local property tax gets put to local school budgets) if you rent it’s usually reflected in the rental price. If it’s a not great school district and you send to private school, that’s more $ to consider

If you want to live near the big hubs on the west or east coast, housing in nice commutable areas to the city for jobs is not cheap

The big one for me would be schools (see above) and your view on politics and gun control. They all defined where I would / wouldn’t live (state wise)

it really depends on what you want out of the move and where you want to live