Living in America 2012--Because It Is No Longer 2011

[MmeBucket]

This is what happens when I start threads--they get stupid titles. Someone else needs to start the next one. Hopefully we can get this one filled by 2013.

Link to old thread for reference

Not much happening here. The kids have been off school for 25 days. I am soooo looking forward to them starting school tomorrow. Except it is my day to help, so instead of getting a break from my two, I'll have 22 of them to deal with.

Kickass I agree. I lived here in the 80's and remember watching the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games. You didn't see anyone apart from the Americans. That has changed and watching the swimming they did a segment on Rebecca Adlington before her race which they didn't do for the American who came in 2nd. I DVR'd the gymnastics and they showed Beth Tweddle and Rebecca Tunney from the British team as well as gymnasts from Romania, Italy, Brazil, France and Australia. The commentators were very complementary about their perfomances.

Kickass oh I hate lazy American-bashing. I love Britain but am Irish, so can see the lazy stereotypes spouted about Ireland too (no doubt the same goes on for French, Germans etc). I tend to offer my own sweeping generalisations about Britain whenever I come across American (or any other nation) bashing!

MmeBucket wow, cartooning camp - how cool does that sound?!? And I practically needed a nap by the time I'd read how busy you're going to be for the foreseeable future

Want2be thank you for your wise words about France - eurotunnel ticket is booked , though we'll go in Sept rather than Aug as the ticket was way cheaper. Good luck with those interviews - the bank one in particular sounds amazing. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you

Zam welcome . I've not yet moved, am still in London and we're moving to NYC in Sept, with the plan to move out to northern NJ after a month. This thread is a font of info (though there's a DC thread too) and v welcoming. There are a few who moved while pregnant or with small babies who may be able to offer tips. My DC will be 2.6 and 6 months when we move.

Want2b, some camps around here really aren't that bad. We do a lot of church based ones (We're not religious, but have a really good friend with a DH that's a pastor at a non-pushy church) and they're pretty cheap. From 10-30 dollars a pop, so I have spent about $120 total for 3 weeks of camp for DD and 4 weeks for DS. (Including the cartooning one he's at this week, which obviously is tons of fun for him) Although there are certainly plenty of ones that can break the bank to be found. It is the sports that get us. It will cost us over $500 for both of them to be in football (American football, not soccer. I wish it was soccer, it would be half that) for the fees and equipment and fundraising, and that's just their sport for fall, although it is the most expensive one.

Hello and welcome, Zam!

Hey, just checking in with some fellow US-dwellers to ask a question: is it just me or is the US retail banking system utterly crap??

My bank is HSBC and don't offer direct debit facilities or any form of electronic interbank transfer apart from a wire transfer which costs $30 every time I use it. It seems that Americans just use cheques all the time to pay bills but surely that's so inefficient?

Is there any bank in the US that offers normal banking facilities like we have in Europe? Do I really have to contend with cheques and fax machines and wire transfers like it's 1987?? I rang up my bank about this today and the only recurring payment facility they offered was to register a payee with a recurring date for payments and they would then POST a BANK DRAFT to the payee on that date - yes a bank DRAFT, something I learned about in school and have never had to use since they invented THE INTERNET and electronic banking... what is going on?? How can Americans be happy with such crap service? Any ideas?

(Apart from that I love living here by the way so this isn't an anti-American rant - I just don't get the banking system!)

I pay my bills online for free. I think it depends on your bank. I use a local credit union and it has free online bill pay. But I can't transfer to friends or family accounts online. I can transfer between accounts of my own that are in the credit union only. Bank transfers do cost money for each transfer.
But I have heard from many who have moved here quite recently that the US banking system is in the stone age in comparison to the UK

We have Wells Fargo, and we do pretty much everything online. All of our bills are paid online. Don't really recommend them for customer service (on the rare occasions we've had to use them).

OK, thanks - maybe it is my bank then. It was DH's company who suggested HSBC and we were already with them in the UK so it was easy. I might look around for another bank now that we have a credit rating.

Weirdly, I can pay my utility bills online no problem or even over the phone and almost all other bills have some online payment facility. There is just no facility for making interbank transfers electronically it seems. The banking system here really does seem to be in the stone age, compared to Europe.

Hello! Just popping in from the German thread where I'm usually at home!

My dd is looking for a pen-friend in the US and I was wondering if any of you have or know a 12 or 13 year old who would like to write to her. She' goes to school in Germany and speaks english, french and german and she'll be 13 in October.

We've been to Texas before and dd loved it and has been asking for ages if she can have a pen-pal!

MmeBucket OMG that is cheap - so jealous. Camps here are so expensive - about $2-3K for the summer for each child. The YMCA does offer financial assistance but the joke is that to live in this town you would never qualify yet families living in neighbouring towns with high disposable incomes get assistance.

Napa Banking wise I would avoid HSBC. They were a nightmare to deal with and things were so bad that I also closed down my UK account with them. Who are you trying to send money to?

Yes, I didn't like having our UK HSBC account either, Want2Be. Their customer service is terrible. When DH's company set us up with HSBC again I groaned inwardly but actually their US customer service is better so we decided to stick with them until we had a better credit rating here at least (I think that takes 6 months-1 year).

The bill I want to pay is monthly rent and the landlord is an individual, not a company. It seems everyone here when we ask around uses rent cheques, which I find bizarre. The last time I came across the concept of a rent cheque was in a house-share as a student around 1998 when we had a really old-fashioned landlord who didn't want to use direct debit (probably dodging tax....).

When we rented we used bill pay. You set it up as a recurring payment and the bank sends out a cheque to the landlord. If the landlord has a lockbox then the funds are directly deposited into their bank account but most don't have that facility.

The banking laws are different here compared to the UK. With a direct deposit the person/company you are paying has the right to go into your bank account and withdraw the funds they deem are owed to them. If this is done and you don't agree to it the bank are left in a very sticky situation because there is another law that says they should not allow this. The result is that most banks will have you set up payment using bill pay. That way, you the customer is the one initiating the payment, not the person/company you are paying.

I would go with a credit union in your state. We are with Provident Bank and the fees are reasonable. We get 2.54% on the first $25K for as long as we do 10 credit card transactions with our debit card, have at least 2 direct deposits and recieve our statements electronically. Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo charged us far too much in fees.

Another thing, be very careful with your debit card. Not many people know this but debit cards to do not have the same protection legally as credit cards when it comes to theft. With a credit card the merchant loses out (but can claim against their insurance if large enough) but with a debit card you lose all funds withdrawn using fraudulent transactions until you report the card as stolen. I used to work for a bank and it was the hardest thing to have to tell people who had their cards stolen and didn't call in until the morning after because they though that reporting the card as stolen to the police was enough.

I have found that a lot of organizations charge you quite a hefty fee up front to set up a direct payment so still use checks for a lot of things. I have had a SSN for almost 2 years and never missed a payment but still have a poor credit score.

For serious things like mortgage or the better credit cards you need a 4 year credit history. I have lived here for almost 4 years but the first two don't count as I was on a visa not a green card.

I've been watching this conversation with interest, as I was about to come and ask what bank people would recommend. I like the sound of local credit unions, being a co-op banker in the UK. Can anyone recommend a DC one?

The other thing I've been wondering about was where people would recommend getting household stuff from? We're moving into part furnished accomodation, but I think we'll need to do a big shop for brooms and tupperware and laundry racks and towels and all that kind of guff. John Lewis would be the obvious choice here! We'll be near a very big shopping centre (I'm working up to calling it a mall) so lots of shops to choose from. Sometimes lots of choice makes it harder!

whimsicalname Go and look in Target for household stuff, they have great sales each week. You can look athe ad online on www.target.com things like 2 pack of bed pillows for $5 this week as everyone is getting the teens ready to go off to college. they are also great for towels laundry racks kids clotes, sort of like Tesco I always thought, but not as much food. When I want something different I go to Home goods they are part of Marshalls and very much like TK Maxx which is TJ Max here.

Macy's is the nearest to John Lewis

I'd definitely go to Target for the household stuff. I like something like Bed Bath and Beyond for linens. I call Macy's my Mothership, because I love it so much, but I don't really think the quality of their towels and such is worth the price they charge.

Actually mme, I agree about the cost v quality at Macy's. I am starting to think it isn't much better jcp, at least as far as clothes are concerned.

I haven't bought any bed linen since moving here. I will have to face it sometime but our beds are metric sizes and duvet covers aren't as common over here.

As much as it pains me to say it, as much as I've loved Macy's in the past, the quality of their items seems to have steadily gone down the past few years, and I just realized that I haven't bought anything there since right after Christmas.

whimisical This is a website that lists credit unions.

It might be worth you getting a costco membership (or borrowing one!) as I have found their bed linen and towels to be very good. For kitchen stuff I got a lot on amazon and didn't have to bother schleping around the shops. The best was the pot and pan set from cuisinart that was $100. The same set was over $200 in the department stores and at bed bath and beyond.

MmeBucket I agree that Macys isn't what it used to be. Bloomingdales is expensive but their customer service and the quality of what they sell is amazing.

Have just got back from 10 days in Canada. I hadn't realized it would be so expensive. Not horrifically so, but about 30% more than in MI. It was a good trip but nice to be home again

When we went to Canada, I told DH that we might as well go on a cruise to Alaska (the only place I ever want to take a cruise to) as with all their added taxes, our trip to Canada would cost just as much. He didn't listen, and sure enough, it actually cost slightly more to go to Victoria and Vancouver than it would have to get a mid-grade cabin on a 7 day cruise.

Crazy days here. Nightmare week of watching 2 kids that are usually quite good for me. (American) football practice started for DS, 2 1/2 hours a day, 5 days a week, it will start for DD tonight, 1 1/2 hours a day, same time as DS', but in a totally different spot. We also had their birthday party on Saturday (DS actual birthday, DD will be next Monday), and I'm 6 days out from getting 2 kids 24/7 for 7 days.

Just making a tentative introduction to say hello as we may be facing the prospect of moving to California in the near future. DH is currently interviewing with a company in Cupertino (not Orange )

So in a major flap at the moment!

By the looks of things i don't think we could afford to rent in Cupertino so advice on cheaper neighbourhoods with good middle and high schools would be fab

Deep breaths

I am finding myself walking round the house, looking at our tons of tat and mentally deciding whether to

eBay it
Bin it
Ship it

Betty how far is he willing to commute? The freeways get really chocked up with commuters at rush hour (should be rush hours!)
Theres a few Cupertino brits over on www.britisexpats.com
I had a friend who lived in Sunnyvale for a long time and her Dh would commute back there for work.

Hi California, a 30-45 min commute would be fine. We are keen to avoid the really pushy schools areas but obviously want the DC's in good schools.

Looking for a walkable friendly neighbourhood, our budget for rental will be £3500 max

Would love to hear any recommendations