Elaine B.

You do realize that there isn't a NHS in the USA You'll be paying a lot more for healthcare. Also after living in Canada £7.25 for a prescription sounds cheap and I'm still amazed that I don't have to pay a penny for my kids medications.

LillyB

Yes of course but the basic over the counter stuff available is still half the price you pay back in UK

Elaine B.

well as long as you don't get seriously ill you'll be fine then.

Jerseygirl

Rubbish...some things are cheaper in the US...others are cheaper in the UK. Spending 2 weeks a year there is nothing like living in the US. I see you are still dreaming of living in Florida...do you know what visa you will be using?

TruBrit

sounds to me like you are paid in £ and converting back to £ as you do when on holiday...... mind you with the exchange rate not so good for the peeps coming this way, prices wont be appearing so cheap. when you are paid in $ you will note things are not as cheap as they appear to you when on vacation.

TruBrit

exactly

deborahjane

A 2 week holiday in Florida great as long as you stay around the tourist areas and don't stray too far of the beaten track.

A better place to live - I don't think so! The crime rate is bad there, education not brilliant. Some things cheaper there but some things expensive like medical bills. I hope you research it well before you take the plunge. It's not the same living there full time as going on holiday there.

LillyB

I understand what you are all saying and have taken it all on b oard, we will have to look at and E1/2 visa at the moment.....but what I don't understand is if things are bad why are you all in US, I appreciate that you are allover and not in all Florida, when you say the crime rate is bad do you mean petty crime or major crime? We have lots of petty crime here, the courts do not do enough to deter crime here, there are lost of gangs with knives etc, our beaches are dirty, in the area that I can access in a reasonable distance, telephones are vandalised all the time, people do not clear up after their dogs, car crime is rife, education bad, some not so bad I am not in a position where I need to considor education now my 3 sons are grown up, I do appreciate that when you live in US you are paid in dollars and shouldn't keep thinking back to the pound etc;
Ok so we have the NHS, and I pay over £125.00 a month to National Insurance out of my salary, I needed a hysterectomy and removal of a cancerous tumor about 3 years ago, in the end after waiting 5 months I sat in the hospital and refused to go home, yet then I was told I would have to wait another 3 days, the tumor was the size of a football !! We could have got it done immediatley had I paid, we still have to pay for dental treatment, prescriptions, if you need physio you get 5 sessions from the hospital FOC then you have to pay the wating time is about 16 weeks, so it's not all rosy over here either, there will be always good and bad in every country, but the standards I have come across in US are second to none.

LouiseD

I really hope that your move works out to be all you dream of. But be careful. As others have rightly pointed out, living in a country is completely different to going on holiday there.

We had similar views to yours before moving to Australia however we found out the hard way that the UK is nowhere near as bad as we thought.

You say that the bottom is falling out of the construction industry. We are currently entering a global recession. Construction is one of the first to be hit. And let's face it - construction workers have never had it as good as in the last 10 years (my hubby is a brickie). It was bound to calm down sooner or later.

Education is not as good as it was years ago. I guess that's why we see record highs in GCES and A Levels?

You can't fly the St George flag? I too live in Lancashire and saw flags a plenty - outside pubs, houses etc... I think there were a few barmy headline cases in the news.

Lots of criminal activities on the streets and children are killing children. Crime in general is down on what it was years ago. There is a big problem here at the minute with kids and knives and it needs to get sorted. But let's face, certain States in USA had huge crime problems. And how many times do we read/hear in the news about a kid in USA gunning down their classmates in mass homicide?

Your other reasons about some items being cheaper when you go away on holiday relate to cost of living in a particular country and the exchange rate. Swings and roundabouts. Personally I found living in Australia far more expensive than the UK, which is why we returned.

TruBrit

hey LouiseD, save your breath...

crystal23

You said it in the first line though didn't you. "I live in Lancashire".

Everything you've said is your experience of where YOU live and not an experience of the whole of the UK unless of course you've managed to live in every county in Britain which I doubt.

I lived in the south of England and when I was back at home in April saw plenty of St George's flags flying along with Union Flags. We went on the London Eye and saw St G's/Union flags flying over London as well so if it's the case that in LANCASHIRE you aren't allowed to fly them maybe you should be getting onto whoever is banning them and insist on your human rights to do so

Cannot fault the NHS in my area. They fast tracked me for an op before I came to Oz. Can't fault the health system in WA either apart from the cost.

I've been a 'victim of crime' in the UK and in Perth. More times in 18 months in Perth than in all my time in the UK.

We too have stabbings, shootings and yobs and louts. 2 weeks ago life guards were set upon by a mob of 300 beachgoers whilst trying to help a drunk girl. 2 other beaches had violent clashes and whilst all this was going on at a small carnival drunken yobs decided to fight and chuck bottles around but no police were available because they were dealing with the violence at the beaches.

One of the shoping malls I use (see I said ONE) has hooded chavs hanging around outside the entrance after school and in the holidays. Last year the little charmers were smoking dope so you got a nice whiff as you walked in with kids.

Over the counter medicines are more expensive in Perth than the UK (I can't speak for America) and I have to pay $30 for my daughter's prescriptions here as well as $30 for mine. How I'd love to pay 7.25 pounds and get my daughter's free.

Construction industry is slowing everywhere so I read in the press but funnily enough my husband who is a carpenter has more work than he can handle in Perth and we have no concern about work when we move home as he is trained in another occupation.

Education is pretty crap FOR MY DAUGHTER here but other people have positive experiences but the education SHE came from in the UK was far superior.

You see, these are my experiences of where I live. It doesn't apply to the whole of Australia or even the whole of WA. In fact I have no idea how things are an hour and a half away from me as I don't live there so wouldn't dream of talking about education or crime there.

So why do you, along with alot of other posters, presume that just because you live in some sort of hellhole the whole of the UK is the same. It isn't. Crime and anti-social behaviour is worldwide as are high prices and people struggling everwhere.

You are obviously running away from the UK. I read quite a few forums and see you are looking at Tenerife as a back up. You don't seem to be taking on board what people in America are telling you despite your protests to the contrary.

Maybe time to take your rose tints off or move to a more upmarket part of the UK.

Jerseygirl

How can you say this based on 2 weeks holiday per year in Florida?

LillyB

I dont base my opinions on 2 weeks holdiay per year, I do have English friends who are based in Orlando and I also have US friends who live in Largo who we have known for over 11 years.

LillyB

Hi

Thanks for your comments, yes I did put where I live and what I wrote is an experince of where I live, but this is happening all over the UK not just the part where I live, when you read the news, internet news site, something similar is all over the UK. London having the greatest number of teenage killings by teenagers so far, in one area the youngest attacker of a 9 year old girl was a ten year old boy.
My partner has also been a victim of crime, in June 2004, he was attacked by a gang of four men !! ages 30 -44 for trying to defend a young person whom they were bullying, he was left in intensive care for 2 weeks and has permenant paralisys to his face due to damage to his nerve endings being damaged, when the ring leader was brought to court he had 58 previous offences for violent behaviour. I dont think there is anywhere wherever you go that does not have some sort of bad behaviour.
Re shopping malls, we have a shopping centre which is more or less as you describe youths hanging about both white and mixed race, if you attempt to say anything they play the race card and you can feel very imtimidated by it all. The local councils can be blamed for some part of this, they let it go on, I sometimes feel that as UK citizen I have no rights in the country that I was born in.
I don't presume that all UK is the same as where live but I do know that a lot of the UK encounters the same problems as I do.
I am NOT running away from the UK far from it, I have reached a stage in my life where I would like to work/live in a warmer country where I feel comfortable, I have very close friends in Tenerife this is not a whim, they have invited us out to be with them, they have 2 businesses over there and would obviously help us to settle/ find accomodation.
Having been to Florida many times on holiday and contrary to what you think I do NOT have on any rose tinted glasses, I accept that it is going to be very difficult to obtain a visa, proabably nigh on impossible, but I had to make enquiries as to what where the possibility's, yes I do know that crime is everywhere even in Florida, in September whilst on holiday I met such a lovely US couple who were retired, the man was ex military, they were coming on vacation to UK and wanted to visit Liverpool as they were both big Beatles fans !! What do I tell them Yeah go, but watch your back, handabag, wallet, car etc etc....as Liverpool has one of the highest crime rates in the UK.
I appreciate that moving to Florida to live and work is different to being on holiday there, but why do some people Poo Poo your ideas, when at some point they must have had the same goal as I had, to move to US, but yet their comments are very much on the negative at times, cost of medical insurance/petrol prices/food/etc etc.....yet they have made the move the same as I would like too.

Grayling

Oh dear....you really are naive.

My brother left Orlando 15 years ago to live in Oregon.....because of the appalling levels of crime in Florida.

Get real.

Most of the UK is a cakewalk compared to much of Florida.