sirscotsalot

Hi I am hoping in addittion to reading the information that I can also ask for some advice.. I am moving back to Scotland next year. I have been living in the us for 25 years and finally am going home. Unfortunately I don't have much money. I have worked all my life over here but in mostly miminum wage jobs. I have worked for asda (walmart) the past 17 years. When I was back in Scotland last months I ended up in the ER. I have graves disease and graves eye disease and it was so nice to be treated and to be offered eye surgery. Of course that is not the reason I am going back as I had been planning on it but it really did make the decision easier as over here with my health insurance the deductible is so high that I rarely see the doctor even though I should. I will only have about 5000 pounds to my name when I return. My sister said I can live with her till I get on my feet in Elgin which is a really nice town. I have my national insurance number so I should be able t o find something. I am probably going to need some assistance and don't know if I qualify. Do you know if I would be eligible for housing assistance allowance? or job seekers allowance. I am getting away from a bad marriage with as I said not a lot of resources. Thanks for any advice. Also my daughter who is 26 and was born in Scotland is thinking of living in Scotland. She has been over to visit but I told her it would be a culture shock. As much as I would love her to live there I want her to visit and see if its for her and her 7 year old son. I wrote to the consulate and they told me he qualifies for Dual citizenship since his mother was born in Scotland?? She is a medical lab tech(has an associates degree). I wonder if her qualification would work for her to get employeed in a hospital or doctors office?It's going to be a big move but I am ready. Thanks for reading my post. Please don't feel I am a scrounger. I have worked all my life and am sure I could get a couple of jobs once I am there but may need a little help in starting out.

Sherlock Holmes

Hi there and Welcome to B.E.

You might want to re-post your question here in the moving back to the UK section.

Thanks for posting in the Welcome Inn first though, it helps us to spot new members and for us to say hello.

Enjoy B.E.

Alistair.

Jerseygirl

Hello and welcome to BE.

As your post is so detailed I am going to move the thread over to our Moving Back To The UK forum. The questions about assistance has been asked and answered many times before...therefore please read through some of the old threads as you may find the answers in there. Failing that we have a great supportive group of people who frequent the MBTTUK forums. I am sure they will do their best to help answer your questions.

Good luck.

sirscotsalot

thanks for moving my post and for your helpful advice..

Jerseygirl

I forgot to mention there are several threads for people around 50...many have lived overseas for years and are in a similar position as yourself. There's loads of information about renting, bank accounts, social security, etc in the threads. Here is the current one but there are a few more...take a look down the index pages for the thread titles. There is also a search engine...the tab is in the blue bar at the right hand side of this page. Go to advanced search and search thread titles...put it something 50 or 50's and you should be able to pull up a list of the old threads. Give me a shout if you require help finding them.

NiHao

Just wanted to see hello and welcome! I'm sorry I don't know the answers to your questions but I think if you have a look around on here you will find lots of info (you can use the Search feature) and hopefully some helpful person will be along to help too

Its exciting and scary to be moving back after such a long time but others here have done it and I'm sure will have lots of good advise and just reading their posts about their experiences is helpful and encouraging.

Good for you for making this big change in your life, it sounds like it will all be for the better and if your daughter and grandson were to be able to move too that would be wonderful. However, you are very wise to urge her to visit first. I know there are another couple of forums that are geared towards Americans moving to the UK so it might be that she would get some idea of the culture shock from reading some of the posts there - although its nice to see that lots of the Americans end up enjoying lots of things about the UK

http://www.uk-yankee.com/ is one of the forums

this is the other but I think there is a small membership fee to have full access http://www.americanexpats.co.uk/

Also your daughter could try doing a google search for American expat blogs those can also be a good source of real life experience.

Welcome again and I look forward to hearing more about your adventures as you move back home

dunroving

The only thing is, if you start reading the 50's threads, by the time you finish, you'll be 60.

Jerseygirl

Well there is that....

Mummy in the foothills

sirscotsalot

thankyou. Lots to read and great information.

sirscotsalot

I am so fortunate to have my sister to help me out when I get there. I am feeling better about my decision. At first I thought I was terribly selfish about the whole thing, but now I have come to a decision that its best for me and in the long run I feel my daughter and her son would be better off in Scotland but she will have to decide when she comes to visit. I just don't know how to find out if her qualifications in the us will work in the uk. I guess I could e mail the NHS and see if lab techs over in Scotland have the same kind of schooling as they do over here. Thanks everyone.

Brigette

This made me laugh out loud!

sirscotsalot

why?

Englishmum

Because in the 50s/60s thread on this board, there are 10,168 posts (at the time of writing). Hope you're a fast reader!

sirscotsalot

oh yes. I did notice a ton of information.