How do you do it and is it worth it?

Yeah, bascially, you won't have any disposable income to speak of, but you will also be living at a comfortable standard of living - if that makes sense. You won't go wanting for nessecities.

Remember that Reading and a lot of Berkshire is called the Silicon Valley of England, lots of hi tech companies which translates to very expensive housing.  Reading also has some dodgy areas to it and doesn't have a very good reputation if you have a family.  The villages and towns surrounding Reading can be very nice and very posh, however.  Will your husband be traveling by train or car to work?  If so, it might be possible to live somewhere like Twyford or Maidenhead or heading out west of Reading depending on where work is.  Unfortunately, if you are looking to buy a 3-4 bedroom place comparable to what you might be used to in the States you are looking at £350K to over £400K, maybe even half a million £s.

In your list you have phone at £50, are you including mobiles in this?  Our landline costs are about £15/month including a few calls to the US/month.  Mobiles can run you on average about £15-30/month depending on the plan.

If hubby does get £40K/year he'll be alright, remember that translates to $80K/year.

If hubby does get £40K/year he'll be alright, remember that translates to $80K/year.

I'd disagree slightly on this Matt - What you've said there is a direct Currency Equivalent, which is currently almost spot on with the $2 USD to £1 exchange rate.

However, 'earning' £40K is not the equivalent of earning $80K in the US in terms of the 'buying power that 40K brings you'

In the simplest of ways '£40K GBP only buys you a smaller proportion of requirements in the UK compared to what $80K does buy you in the US'

and I do mean the above in 'general' terms - obviously with scrimping and saving and careful money management, £40K in the UK can be made to stretch quite far.

For the OP - From the sums you've given it boils down to the usual evaluation - Are you prepared to give up/compromise enough of your personal lifestyle in order to ensure you earn more than you spend on a monthly (any time frame really!) basis when you are here?

This is a preliminary outlook you've given, and there are elements of costs and requirements you've not included as yet. However, on the flipside, there are elements of living here which haven't been exploered  - such as a cheaper place to live both house size and regional .. 

So best bet is to research as much of what you can find out, base it on personal information and use that to compare different aspects to see if it's worthwhile for you.

By personal info i mean things like the actual figure printed on a job offer (if when that appears) the actual rent amount negotiated etc  - althought currently you do have a very good idea of what to expect.

Like others have said, maybe moving to just outside of London or another part of the country could be an option, Costs are relative no doubt, however much as I hear 'costs were balanced out as when living in the USA and then here they turned out to be much the same' is not the 'usual' case - although it can be common.

Good luck !

DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Dennis,
I take your point and, yes, certainly housing will be one thing that will be quite a bit more expensive, especially as they're looking to live in Berkshire.  However, I think there are a number of things that you can compare between US and UK where the costs aren't wildly different, certainly not to the level of housing costs!

While the $2 to the £ comparison is a bit of a red herring and the money won't go as far as that, I still think £40K for a family of 2 with baby on the way is easily sufficient to get by provided expensive tastes are not involved, ie eating out all the time, renting a very large, expensive home, etc.

It can be difficult to very precise because of regional fluctuations, even from counties and districts right next to each other as utility rates, for example, can vary wildly.

Yo Matt!

Yep I agree, in 'most' items needed on a daily basis for 'life' then the higher cost comparison for the equivalent item isn't as absurd as house prices. I'd say a good 90% of these items are indeed substantially more expensive here, but the extent does indeed vary. I find a lot of posts where people have said food (mainly Dairy) is cheaper here, so there are always 'some' items which do cost less, but they're usually far and few between.

Moving onto your second point, what you say is spot on and true - in an ideal world! unfortunatly, the vast majority of the population DONT spend wisely overall and quickly find debt levels rising. I'm not implying that to the OP at all - but as an overall view.

I've spoken to many people who live/work in London and the 'general' thing is that £40K isn't enough for a single person - unless significant compromises were made. It is of course very 'open' as I know for a fact that £40K is perfectly liveable in London and many posters here as well as people I know do with much less than that. Again, on the broader level, the OP & family I beleive are on the same sort of postion as people I know i.e young late 20s early 30's professionals with partners/spouses and young kids.

Without wanting to delve into the '40K IS enough debate' - then with carefully researched places to live, wise and accurate spending, careful evaluations of lifestyle then it most certainly can be enough to live in outer London, that is also enhanced to an extent if you live in the home counties as the 40K will stretch that bit further.

To the OP, good luck !

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I've spoken to many people who live/work in London and the 'general' thing is that £40K isn't enough for a single person

I find that amazing!!!  I and most of my friends manage nicely on far less than that...and are still larging it in the pub every Friday!


Vicky

To put a slightly different spin on this debate... Even if you can work out an appropriate comparison, the numbers don't tell the whole story. Yes, buying power is somewhat less in the UK than in the US. However, the societal expectations are also somewhat less, in my experience. This is a case where peer pressure works in your favor to some degree! The difficult bit is to switch from comparing your situation with that of your peers in the US to that of your peers in the UK. A scientist in the UK may make less than a scientist in the US, but the UK scientist makes the same amount as his friend in the office next door. (I hope that makes at least a little sense--I'm having trouble saying what I mean!)

A lot depends on your values and what represents "quality of life" to you. Is that a big house and a nice car? proximity to your family? the culture of a particular country? etc. The numbers do look scary--they always do. But there are plenty of people here getting by just fine on those salaries. You might find it a little reassuring to look up average salaries for the region--I think that will probably make £40k sound decent!

Best of luck with the decision. I had a slightly easier time of it, as this was the only job offer I got, but it was still an agonizing decision to go ahead and take the plunge. We were desperately worried about the financial aspects. But it's working itself out now that we're here, and I'm glad we did it. Really, our quality of life is much better in many ways, even though we don't have so much stuff.

Elynor makes a good point about relative salaries in the UK.

You haven't mentioned whether your husband will be working in academia or for a science-based company, or what kind of scientist he is, but the average salary for academics is below £30,000.

In general, a graduate or a post-doc researcher can only expect between £18K and £30K as a starting salary and university lecturers are often in the range £25K-£35K. Even the head of a university department will only be earning around £50K (estimates are from job adverts seen in New Scientist magazine).

Although public sector scientists can get higher salaries than this, it really depends on the research field and particular company (which is also true in universities - a senior lecturer in Physics might only earn £40,000, but a senior lecturer in genetics or infectious diseases, for example, might receive up to £80,000).

To be honest, once I have my PhD, I'm not really expecting to earn more than £25K or so in the first few years, no matter what job I decide to do and at the moment, it's only a dream to earn more than £35K!!

Remember that Reading and a lot of Berkshire is called the Silicon Valley of England, lots of hi tech companies which translates to very expensive housing.  Reading also has some dodgy areas to it and doesn't have a very good reputation if you have a family.  The villages and towns surrounding Reading can be very nice and very posh, however.  Will your husband be traveling by train or car to work?  If so, it might be possible to live somewhere like Twyford or Maidenhead or heading out west of Reading depending on where work is. 
If hubby does get £40K/year he'll be alright, remember that translates to $80K/year.

I agree that Reading can very dodgy in certain areas and the nicer places you pay for big time. (unfortunately we live in Reading due to my job). Its dodgy and expensive at the same time.    The train costs from Reading to London annually is £3800. Shocking yes considering its a 20 min journey to Paddington. Matt is correct there are some lovely villages outside of Reading. Goring and Pangbourne are also some nice ones but very expensive.

I have to agree with Dennis on the £40k thing, I don't think its that liveable in London or in Berkshire unless you have been settled for quite a while and have a mortgage thats not OTT. Of course if you cut corners anything is doable...it just depends on the standard of living you are used to or what to have.

Dennis,
You mention London but hasn't the poster mentioned that they'd be in Berkshire?  That's not even outer London but a Home County.  Granted, it is still more expensive than a lot of other places in England.

I always thought it was just Americans who mistook England for London and Britain for England!  Even Jon Stewart calls Britain, England.  I always thought if I made it on the Daily Show (god knows what for!) I'd correct him on that

I really have to give a BIG thanks to everyone responding to this post. It is such a hard decision to make. I didn't know Berkshire was considered a more expensive place. Hubby would (hopefully) be working at AWE which is about 20 minutes commute from Berkshire. Not necessarily his first choice (he'd rather be in academics not contributing to bomb building  ) but does offer a much higher salary range for his field that would make our move possible with the later hope that he could at some point in the future transfer to an academic setting. Luckily he isn't in post-doc status anymore (that was a pain in the bum!) and I think he has some good negotiating points because of his relationship with his current company and AWE.

A couple of posts mentioned livings costs I haven't taken into account yet...please let me know any suggestions. I'm worried that I will miss something! Although I have calculated visa expenses into my cost of moving from the U.S. which is under a whole different budget scheme!

I keep hearing that the quality of life is worth the "consumer" down grade. Right now we have two cars and enough money every month to buy plenty of groceries, pay all the bills, save a little bit every month and still have some extra to go out at least twice a week (once for breakfast, once for dinner) and to a movie if we wanted. So there are truthfully things I would be giving up---like going for coffee at the local cafe every morning, digital cable, cell phones and the like.

But everyday my hubby comes home and I can tell he really misses England. I've always moved around. I've lived on the East Coast the West Coast the Southwest and it has never been an issue for me...but I don't have much family and I will admit the idea of living close to his family and friends sounds SO appealing.

I am taking the advice of looking into cheaper living options. Thanks so much! All advice is appreciated!

And...I do feel a lot less anxious knowing that families do survive off of this kind of salary range and that there is hope that it will not always be so tight!

And...I do feel a lot less anxious knowing that families do survive off of this kind of salary range and that there is hope that it will not always be so tight!

I think the way to try and make things work is to remember that you can't expect to live exactly the same way as you do in the US - the cost of living here doesn't really allow for that. Things like going to a movie every week or so or even going out for food twice a week is going to eat into your budget. The average UK movie ticket costs about £7 ($14) per person these days and even going for breakfast can be pricy (depending on where you go, of course, but I've seen cooked breakfasts being advertised for $10 per plate!).

I'm not saying that you definitely won't be able to do these things, but it's unlikely that you will be able to lead the same lifestyle in the UK that you're used to in the US - you're probably going to have to budget for these things and limit how often you do them.

An example of the differences (I noticed this yesterday) is the cost of going to the zoo. My 16-year-old brother visted our local zoo yesterday (something I haven't done in about 15 years due to the price) and his adult ticket cost $20 - compare this to the Rio Grande Zoo, which is just $7 per adult and it's a big jump. Suddenly a family day out to the zoo costs a lot of money!!

It's really a matter of finding a balance - yes, you can you out to eat once or twice a week, but in order to do so, you might have to sacrifice some other things (like how much you can put into your savings); or it could be a case of spreading things out - i.e. go to a movie one week, then go out for dinner the next week, or only go for a coffee every other morning instead of every day.

I think it is worth you getting a cell phone here (I only know one person who doesn't have one!) - although the cost of contracts etc. can be higher than int he US, you can get good deals on minutes and text messages and it doesn't have to cost a bomb.

In terms of digital cable, you can survive without it, although you'll only have 4 or 5 channels. There is an option, though, to buy a 'freeview box' for about $50, which will give you extra channels for free (although the range isn't as extensive as the channels on digital cable).

I keep hearing that the quality of life is worth the "consumer" down grade. Right now we have two cars and enough money every month to buy plenty of groceries, pay all the bills, save a little bit every month and still have some extra to go out at least twice a week (once for breakfast, once for dinner) and to a movie if we wanted. So there are truthfully things I would be giving up---like going for coffee at the local cafe every morning, digital cable, cell phones and the like.

When we were living in Baltimore, we'd go out at least once a week and order a pizza at least twice a month and movies every weekend.  Now going out to a meal is a treat, but it feels that way!  It's a special event and one we talk about months later!

You'll find once you have a baby, movies turn into rentals anyhow!!

I still go out for tea several times a week... I've just found places that are cheap and I'm sure to bring along plenty of snacks for the kid so I don't have to buy anything for him.  The Community Centre here serves a great cup of tea for 40p!!  And the bonus is they have a soft play area for kids!

As for cell phones... my hubby and I just got pay as you go phones.  Remember that for people to call your phone here it cost THEM, for you it's free!  Plus people text a lot more here, which is only about 10p a text, depending on your plan.  I think I spend about £20 every three months or so and DH can make his £20 last up to six months!!!  (I send a lot of texts to other mums about meeting up and such! )

You will have to make adjustments, but I do feel they've improved my life.  I'm a MUCH better cook than I used to be!!   So meals at home aren't really so bad!! haha!

You haven't mentioned whether your husband will be working in academia or for a science-based company, or what kind of scientist he is, but the average salary for academics is below £30,000.

In general, a graduate or a post-doc researcher can only expect between £18K and £30K as a starting salary and university lecturers are often in the range £25K-£35K. Even the head of a university department will only be earning around £50K (estimates are from job adverts seen in New Scientist magazine).

To give you an actual data point, I'm a first-year postdoc at a university and I'm making nearly £27k. I'm in theoretical physics, but at my university it doesn't matter what field you're in, at least for postdocs. My office mate, who's been a postdoc for two years, owns a house and two cars and has a baby on the way, and she and her husband are basically living on her salary. (Admittedly, this is in Northern Ireland which is fairly inexpensive, and they bought their house a few years ago before the housing market here went bonkers...)

I should also point out that they (eventually...long story...) covered my relocation expenses, and the maximum amount was very generous (wish I'd known that before we moved...). So if your husband can pin down a job before you go, it could be very helpful.

As for things to do on the weekends, that's one of the areas where I find things better in the UK! Here in Belfast we have loads of gorgeous public parks with fantastic gardens, the sort of places you'd pay $15-20 to get into in the US. I walk through the nicest one, complete with historic palm house, every day on my way to and from work.  And most of the National Trust houses and gardens and historic sites (even castles!) are only a few pounds.