New Member! NYC to UK...Maybe?

Have a good trip KFDancer, while you are gone, I'll be dishing out the visa advice 🤣

I grew up in Tx so good margaritas are a must!

Thank you for that website!

It's so hard to miss family events. All my family live in TX, they almost never come to NYC to visit We get to see them about 2x a year and we're committed to making that happen from the UK as well. (we've included budgeting for our flights plus one imaginary child into our budget sheet haha). I miss bday parties and anniversaries etc here in NYC so I'm used to that. The hardest part for me I think will be visiting friends. My core group of college friends kind of scattered (Seattle, Dallas, Denver and me NYC). We all get together once a year in a different city and that may no longer be possible unless I can get them all to do tx forever and combine it with a family trip haha.

Enjoy your trip to CO! Best of luck traveling with the kids as well. One plus about living in a different country is your kids are well traveled at a young age! I still meet people who have never left the US as adults which is crazy to me

One thing that has remained very hard for me to adjust to in the UK - the times stores close here!  My local Boots has recently extended their weekday opening hours - all the way to 5:30pm.     Considering I never get out of the office before 6pm, that really doesn't help!  Probably a different story in London though.  They have Mexican food too!  I'd probably be much happier if I had access to a burrito and a margarita whenever I wanted.   

You say it as a joke, but it's actually true.  I've got a great burrito place near work, and one not far from home.  I eat a proper burrito or tacos at least once a week and I'm happy.  I'm satisfied that both are at least as good as you would find in the states. 

Too bad I can't get other Mexican food.  I need to order some tamales.

Have a good trip KFDancer, while you are gone, I'll be dishing out the visa advice 🤣

I certainly hope to have a good trip.  Just wish I could drink margaritas everyday!

You say it as a joke, but it's actually true.  I've got a great burrito place near work, and one not far from home.  I eat a proper burrito or tacos at least once a week and I'm happy.  I'm satisfied that both are at least as good as you would find in the states. 

Too bad I can't get other Mexican food.  I need to order some tamales.

I'm officially not talking to you anymore!  At least I can have a small smirk at knowing the guacamole sucks in your burritos.     You know the guac sucks...  it's okay to admit it.

Enjoy your trip to CO! Best of luck traveling with the kids as well. One plus about living in a different country is your kids are well traveled at a young age! I still meet people who have never left the US as adults which is crazy to me

Off to Florida actually (not able to swing Colorado with another kid on the way and unpaid maternity leave   ).

Yeah, my kid is well travelled.  But that's because of me.  My British husband is shocked at how much more he travels now that he has met me.  My FIL has never left the country (UK).  Happens everywhere.  So while my daughter had 40,000 air miles by her first birthday - I'd rather she knew her cousins and grandparents!  I'm at the stage in life where family is paramount to anything else.

Ah sorry! I didn't quite know where Clearwater was so just assumed also CO since you said boulder haha

My Husband traveled all over Europe and Asia when he lived in UK, but he knows people who have never left UK either. We're both just very into traveling.

I think your story also makes a good point, just because we move to the UK now doesn't mean we can't move back to US if that's what's best in 5-10 years.

So spoke to HR and found out what my salary would be in London and it's 20,000 pounds less than what I make now. With the cost of living in London being fairly comparable to NYC I think my husband and I will feel an approx. 40,000 pound cut in salary. Yes we'll be able to live/get by but it will be a huge adjustment in our lifestyle.

There's got to be something wrong with our calculations, do you believe that you and your husband could survive a 50,000 dollar drop in salary?  And still live and make rent in NYC?   I'm willing to believe that people in London have less disposable income but nothing like that. 

Then again I don't have a garbage disposal and only buy used cars.  Also I had to say no for my daughter to go on the geography field trip to ICELAND cause it was ridiculously expensive. What school takes a field trip to Iceland?

Well that's what we're doing this weekend. We have a budget spreadsheet for our current life and we're going to calculate out everything we can for UK with our expected salaries that our HR departments gave us.

My company is very into people having fluid transfer between offices even internationally so I just asked for a salary estimate and got what my direct counterpart in London makes. I could maybe negotiate a bit of an increase but since I'm the one initiating the transfer I don't have a ton of pull and I doubt I could get more than a few thousand increase. My husbands company is not as open to people transferring so he hasn't asked for an estimate and we're going off what we found off glassdoor which showed he'd also be making 20K less, same as me so we figured that was pretty accurate.

But short answer is yes, technically we could live in NYC on 40k less. We both lived here for grad school and pretty much did it then. Our life was way different but it was possible.

I leave for my annual trip to the US tomorrow - woo hoo!

Have a great time! 

Off to Florida actually (not able to swing Colorado with another kid on the way and unpaid maternity leave   ).

Yeah, my kid is well travelled.  But that's because of me.  My British husband is shocked at how much more he travels now that he has met me.  My FIL has never left the country (UK).  Happens everywhere.  So while my daughter had 40,000 air miles by her first birthday - I'd rather she knew her cousins and grandparents!  I'm at the stage in life where family is paramount to anything else.

Can you get Maternity Allowance, KFDancer?