Almo

Hi all,

I have been updating my spreadsheet this afternoon (I love my spreadsheet ). This has estimated costs on it for a few things; flights, cat transport, buying a car, deposit/rent, shipping, general start up costs. Some of these categories I can estimate fairly well but my general start up costs category is a bit of an unknown - it's kind of a coverall for keeping us going while we look for work. We are keeping the money from our house sale separate and do not intend to dip into that.

Just wondered how much people are taking/have taken back as a cushion? And for those who have made the move, was it enough?

Cheers

Almo

Almo

Maybe people don't want to talk in pure monetary terms. How about if I phrased it as 'how many months of expenses did you have in savings'?

Pistolpete2

Everybody's circumstances are likely to be different Almo, as in:

• Number of family members
• Time that will be spent with UK family at landing
• Reason for return
• Working, retired or semi-retired - what work?
• Job offers ahead of time
• Area for job search
• Experience and qualifications
• Age
• Expectations of standard of living
• Renting or buying
• Have furniture or not

and

How much does one already have stashed away ready for such eventualities

Much of this is indeed personal.

J.JsOH

I suggest it would be wise to have 6 months expenses minimum if you are expecting to search for employment.

Almo

Yes of course, you're right, and it's not intended to be an intrusive question, I apologise to anyone who thought it was.

I agree that there are many variables which is why I wanted to broaden it. I guess I was looking for an indication on whether people are thinking they might need 3/6/9/12+ months expenses behind them, just as a general sort of exchange of info. I'd hoped 'expenses' might cover some of those variables listed.

Ah well. I never seem to do very well on forums

Thanks for your response Pete.

nun

I don't really get the "taking back" part of the question. In planning my return to the UK I'm making sure I have easy access to my money in my US accounts. I've done some careful budgeting and estimate that as a single person living in the NE of England I'll be very comfortable on 25k pounds in the first year. I'll keep a UK current account of around 5k pounds (I want to stay below $10k for US tax reasons) and top it up from the US when it gets low. I too will have money from the sale of a house and after six months to a year of renting I'll buy a house.

Pistolpete2

You may be able to dig up annual budgets which others have posted on here from time to time.

I do recall seeing budgets of annual expenditure for a family of three/four? a year ago of around 25,000 pounds which includes rent and council tax. Add 3-4,000 pounds to this, to be comfortable, I would think.

Of course there may be one-off start-up expenses, which you refer to, to add to this. But, as per my point, others would say that 25,000 is too much, particularly if they just don't have the readies to hand.

The lowest reasonable annual budget was around 20,000 pounds but this allowed nothing for going out or getting away for a few days or even actually owning and running a car as I recall and rent was 500 per month.

Of course these budgets typically allow nothing for clothing/footware or chargeable treatments/medication, or equipping your house, whether owned or rented, at start-up or from time to time.

BritinFLUSA

Someone after my own heart... ;-)

RedDragon2008

What is the tax implication?

I was planning to use my company credit card which automatically gets topped up in Singapore.

nun

If you are a US citizen or resident the US tax authorities require you to inform them of all foreign accounts when their aggregate total is $10k or more. So to make my US taxes simpler I plan to keep my UK accounts below $10k and make regular transfers from the US.

RedDragon2008

Specifically accounts in your name? ie Personal
In your control? ie Foreign Held Investment Companies?
Access to? ie Trust Accounts?

MrMuffin

I have a question regarding your information, Nun... so as a UKC and dual USC, if I have a UK bank balance that floats over that 10K every so often, say on paydays, would I need to inform the US authorities each time? Or do you keep records and then send them statements at the end of the year?

Thanks, M

nun

If you are a US citizen (or resident) and the total balance of your foreign accounts goes over $10k any number of times in a tax year then when you file your taxes you have to send an FBAR form to the US Treasury Dept. where you give complete details of all your foreign accounts.

For FBAR you have to include any account that you have signature authority over, there are exceptions for accounts that might be connected with your work. So things like defined benefit pensions 9that are held in a trust) where you have no control over the investments would generally not be included under FBAR, but things like SIPPs would be and certainly things like brokerage accounts. Grantor trusts etc become complicated, but the general rule is to include them as the fines for omitting stuff from FBAR are nasty. Of course you should already be filing the appropraite 3250 and PFIC forms if required. Then there is a similar set of rules under FATCA that kick in for higher account values.

MrMuffin

Thank you Nun for the thorough info. It's obviously a good 'habit' of yours to be thorough (sorry couldn't resist.)

nun

..........ha ha, that's a really awful joke.....I like it.