Husband wants to leave the uk post budget….

[Maryaliceyoungx]

husband wants to leave and don’t get me wrong - I do see why. We are being hammered in the budget, we drive shitty cars, the rain is shit… life in the UK can be pretty shitty right now. he works for a US based company and I am a US citizen as I was born there and spent my life until my early teens there (parents are British and were working out there) so I see why he wants to go -it would be good for his career and would be potential to make money without the huge tax burden of the UK (company based in low state tax state)

but I don’t want to go… I love my life here. I love our village and my kids lovely village school. My family is here and I worry my parents don’t have so much time left.

however i do have to recognise the money aspect- my husbands job could be impacted by AI so i think he is right in thinking we should max out our earning potential while we can and we just won’t be able to do that here as it will just be taxed away.

aibu for sacrificing potentially huge earnings just because I love village life? Would it even be cheaper? I would insist upon private school in the US(went to state school in the us and have a lot of trauma from that!) and we wouldnt sell our house here so would need to rent. Most recent trip to thr us - over a year ago and cost of living was sky high.

I’ll be honest - couldn’t care about the politics. Politics are shit whereever you go!!

This isn’t really that accurate. State schools are amazing in many areas, the ones my kids have attended have more opportunities than any state school in the UK and facilities that top most private schools. The no time off thing is very outdated these days too, most people have more than enough PTO and there are plenty of public holidays. Many states have paid family leave etc. I have never had an issue finding quality, yes maybe food is more expensive thank the UK but where I live many things are grown in my state so we have an abundance of fresh produce. While the US is technically employment at will there are a lot of job protections in place in many states and companies don’t just fire people for no reason, they get sued for doing that which is very costly. I work in HR/employment law
and getting rid of people is extremely difficult even if they are terrible employees! This isn’t true in every state so that is why it’s virtually impossible to make any comments on what OP would encounter without knowing where she would live

I don’t want to even visit America at the moment let alone move there. I’m not saying the UK on the whole is ideal (!!) but I personally find the way America is heading a bit scary and ‘Handmaids Tale-esque’. My husband wants to visit family near vegas next autumn but I’d really rather just go to Center Parcs 😁

Not sure I’d be feeling that secure in the US as an immigrant at the moment. The list of who is ejected green card or not, as a spouse or not seems to grow longer by the day.

And lower taxes are great until medical bankruptcy stares you in the face, then there is the guns issue and the vile politics. There is a reason emigration from the US is rising.

I used to love the US but wouldn’t go there even for a holiday now.

There is a lot more to life than the size of a house and Stilton cheese .

There isn't more to life than an extra mature davidstow though.

I agree with that assessment.

People who find food exorbitantly expensive in the US are shopping in the wrong places.

State schools are truly excellent if you choose your catchment wisely.

However...
Low tax states tend to be Republican. This will make a huge difference to your sense of feeling 'at home'. The cultural differences between low tax and higher tax states are significant.

And if your marriage fails, or you want to leave and your H doesnt, you might find yourself stuck there.

Lots of UK schools do 'loose dog in the playground' drills.

They also do fire drills.

In the US, they do tornado drills in many states. Also fire, hazmat, and shooter drills.

Better to do the drills than to be unprepared for a fire, hazmat, tornado, or shooter situation.

Try it, you will probably find you love the change.

She already lived there for quite a long time and doesn't want to go back, why do you think she'd like the change? (Particularly given the US has its own CoL issues, post-pandemic).

She lived there a long, long, long time ago.

As I said, give it a go, you'll probably find you love the change.

Biggest regret was not emigrating in the 90's when husband had an amazing opportunity....go for it and don't look back.

As someone who has spent years living abroad due my husband’s work I would say your village life near to family is priceless. Don’t underestimate the strain on your relationship of having no support network or friends. If you go, I believe you will choose to spend the children’s three month summer holiday back in the UK. If your husband joins you for two weeks that leaves him 10 days annual leave for the rest of the year. So very little family time and the cost of flights back to UK coming out of his salary increase. So you are missing out on wider family time, but also quality time together. If his motivation is earning as much as possible for the next five years or so would an alternative be, you and the children stay here and your husband works abroad for a few years?

OP, I can't see whether you've answered which part of The States you're considering moving to. This entire discussion is fairly meaningless without that essential piece of information.

Also, a few of us have asked whether you have been filling in tax returns each year ever since leaving the US. If not, that is an extra and not inconsiderable complication you will need to face.

The other questions I would be asking myself are firstly whether the children would be guaranteed a place back at the their current school if things didn't work out for you. Even if they are able to do that, bear in mind that friendships will have moved on both for you and for them. You won't just be able to walk back into your current life.

Secondly, what is this going to do to your career? Will you be able to go straight back into your current job at your current salary or will you be taking a permanent hit on that? That's a huge consideration in my opinion.

I have done what you are considering and lived all over the world for the past few decades, including in the US, so I am not speaking from a position of complete ignorance here.

We are British but moved to the U.S. immediately after the pandemic when borders opened up and had to move back last year when DH lost his job. We loved it out there and you can buy nice cheese (at least you could in our state).

We are in a similar position to you now which is that we pay a tonne of tax in the UK and DH works in a industry that pays a lot better in the U.S. we also have an option to return (new job and an approved greencard for all of us that is nearly available to be collected)

Things you will find hard:

1. I assume DH will be on an L1 visa, that means if he looses his job you can’t change companies. You will need to apply for a spousal GC and you wouldn’t be earning enough to do that. This is the worst case scenario for you. He has to leave the U.S. and you and the kids are settled there.
2. Renting was crazy expensive where we were (good school district). Look up private school fees as they are a lot more than here.
3. Not having a credit score is really hard. It doesn’t follow you overseas. This makes it hard to rent somewhere, get a car and even open up bank accounts - I was rejected for a savings account!
4. Food in general is a bit more of a minefield. For example lots of cereal has ingredients that are banned in the UK. You can work it out but it’s not easy.
5. you mostly can’t live in walkable places unless you live in nyc or something. You need to drive everywhere.. but this means parking is generally easy. In the uk I look up on google street view to find parking restrictions and it’s often residents only with no option to pay. In the us it was ample free parking almost everywhere I went.

Things that are great:

1. if your company pay for top insurance, healthcare is WAY better there. If you need to go to urgent care, it’s like a ten min wait, tops.
2. nature. They have amazing nature if you live near it. The national parks are amazing. We were 20 mins from the beach and about an hour and a half from skiing.
3. Size of house is much larger in the U.S. we just had so much more space and our garden was huge (2 acres) and this was normal.
4. As you know, salaries and taxes are better, especially for middle-high earners. Once you are a high earner it’s not really that much better in the U.S. for taxes. No idea what your husband earns but from like £3-400k it’s not much better all things considered.
5. you can file taxes together. If you are working this means he basically gets your tax free allowance/tax bands (I’m oversimplifying it a bit).

we’ve found lovely communities in both countries. When we left our friends came and helped us pack and found homes for the furniture we were getting rid of etc. the had a key for the cleaners who were coming and let them in for us and drove us to the airport to help as we needed two cars with all the bags we had.

Everyone else says we’ll be kicked out and you say I could be stuck there. Which is it?

Thank - this is so helpful!! Can I ask where you were?

regarding pt 3 I have an American bank account and fill out a us tax return already

We can get Stilton everywhere in the US. The misinformation about the US on MN is widespread and very tiresome.

Sorry if this has already been said. 488 mass (more than 4 people) shootings in US in 2024. More than 10 children shot dead every single day in US. That’s all I need to know.

Loose dog or fire drills are nothing like shooter drills. I can’t imagine kids knowing what happens so frequently in the US,seeing the footage on tv and having to regularly be subjected to drills where they have to hide, be silent and think an active shooter is in the building. Let alone the fear parents must have when they send their kids daily to school. I follow a fair few accounts on insta and the fear is real.

Imagine having a government who doesn’t give a shit about the safety of kids in school, who facilitate young children being ripped away from parents on the street, that prioritises a ballroom over people having no access to medical care and those that do being one diagnosis away from medical bankruptcy, that doesn’t give a shit about the disabled, that uses the word retard……the list is endless and the worry is from US citizens all over social media.

That’s a good start but it’s not a credit score. Just like when I moved from the states to the UK, you’ll be starting from scratch. It probably won’t be a problem with the money you’ll have (we aren’t high earners), but it was odd to have to pre pay 6 months rent and weirdly hard to get phone contracts - just simple stuff. Easily sorted usually by just throwing money at it.

I don’t think they would be, but if your kids are American citizens that would be easier. But it sounds like they’ll need visas too?

Misinformation!! 🤣You’d have to live in Mars not to be away of awful things that are going on in the USA.

I live in the US, not “in Mars”.LOL

Not sure what “away of awful things that are going on in the USA” means.

And yes, misinformation on MN is a thing. Saying there’s no edible cheese and we can’t even get Stilton, when I show you that its available in any average grocery store.

Ahh that’s good! I would advise getting an AMEX in the UK as they let you just move your account to the U.S. and it’s a good way to build a credit score quickly.

We were in CT but commuting distance to NYC

The rest of us have a free press, you have a president that micromanages the press, only lets the press he chooses to ask him questions and says that anything he doesn’t like is fake news.

connecticut Is where I grew up :)