whatever

Finally, after weeks of house-selling torture with two different buyers and a chain as long as Patrick Moore's eyesight, we have just received a call from our solicitors to say we have exchanged!!!!!!! The relief is unbelievable. I was suprised to feel a twang of sadness that our house was not really ours anymore. Anyway, within a nano-second I was over that and glad that we are one HUGE step closer to getting on with the next chapter of our lives in the US of A! It's all becoming very real as we start to follow the path that so many of you Brits on here have already taken. Hairy Scarey at times but bloody exciting all the same.
Enough of my rambling - (no need to reply to this), just wanted to share

ScousePete

Thought you'd got divorced

snorkmaiden

Congrats

whatever

ha ha ahah ha LOL
No, I'm planning on keeping 'THAT' ball & chain

Dufus

Congratulations, we waited for our Exchange for what seemed like forever, then we lived in a hotel for 2 weeks in London, then 2 weeks in a Miami hotel, 4 weeks in a Miami apartment and then finally moved in to our house.

Each challenge is big, cannot wait until all I have to think about is what I am going to do at the weekend.

I know how relieved you must be feeling that it is getting closer.

Cheers

whatever

You must have been so relieved to finally move into your own home. That is what I dream of at night! We too have to stay in hotels (that takes cats), rent an apartment, rent a car until we get our state license's etc... the list goes on doesn't it?!.
Any other time we would give our right arm for 4 days off in a row but this Easter weekend was the worst. We spent most of it staring at the walls with nothing to do but wait for Tuesday (today) to see if we would exchange once all the solicitors were back in the office. We were supposed to be exchanging last week (day before Good Friday), but it didn't happen! Usually we would be doing the 'what should we do this weekend' thing but we couldn't strip the house incase we had to go back on the market, we couldn't go shopping because we already have too much to ship and I have to say, it feels so good to be moving forward again... just hope we complete without any hitches - I have to say, our buyers are very very VERY strange. They are cousins and are not a far cry from the Krays

Dufus

Yup, non working days are the enemy when any of this happens. Anyone who has been through an interaction with the BCIS knows that one all too well.

We bought a car from International Autosource and so that was not as bad as it could have been, apart from waiting 10 hrs to take a driving test in a Spanish speaking test centre etc, etc.

So, when are you coming over ?

BTW - Progressive insured me with a UK license - the cost was extortionate but no more than if I had a US license.

Worst problem we had was buying a cell phone, we gave up and bought one on pre-pay as we made a house offer 2 days after arriving and needed to be contactable.

Sincere good luck

scrubbedexpat099

In CO things happen very quickly, like 3 weeks from offer to completion.

But then most deals are not tied in to a chain, still not quite sure why not, perhaps people are jus more willing to sell first and then rent or take the chance.

And do not worry about Easter messing things up for you in the future, no 4 day weekend here!

whatever

We are planning to be there by the end of May, but now things are ticking along, it may be mid-May. It's all geting very exciting/scarey now!

That's interesting what you said about the mobile - oh pardon me, 'cell phone' .
I presume it is okay to buy a pre-paid or pay as you go type phone? My son has one (no worries of him running up the bill etc..) here in the UK but you STILL need to register it etc... is that the case there? We will be in a hotel for the first few days so no real address to register it to. I'm thinking maybe we ought to keep one of our UK mobile phones up and running just until we can get one there.

Dufus

Well the cell / mobile perfection thing alludes me still.

We went with T-Mobile on a package called EasySpeak - so good it is not even on their own website It works OK but is expensive to run and the credits run out in a certain period of time even if you don't use them. IMHO not as good as the UK pay as you go offerings at all.

Virgin Mobile are here though as are Cingular and AT&T who also do Pay as you Go type deals.

If you have an unlocked triband phone then you would just have to buy a SIM, and they never even asked for my address when I bought mine.

I may have the credit status to buy a car and a house, but not to get a useful mobile deal. Also you use minutes when someone calls you too, so lose / lose.

Still, it is one less bill each month I guess.

whatever

Yes I've heard that. I can't believe they charge you to receive a call!!!!! It seems as though they are behind the UK when it comes to mobiles, which is unusual given that the US is usually one step ahead and usually cheaper.

Do people tex message over there? My family and friends and fellow workers tex all the time for about 5p - 10p per tex. Tex mad we are! Is it like that over there?

sibsie

The Pay as you go phones work out really expensive as the incoming calls eat into your minutes.

I'm with Verizon on a contract phone and have 400 mins a month. The other half pays the bill so I'm not sure how much it is but I think it's around $40 a month.

I can't say I've found that too many people are into texting here. I used to text him outdoors when I was back in Spain and used a website to do it from.... http://www.munsoned.com/text.cfm
~

Pulaski

Yeah, but the incoming calls eat into all cell phone minutes in the US!

It really depends on what you plan to use your phone for. Our phones are used for "I'm on my way home.", "Meet me in five minutes outside JC Penny's.", and "I'm stuck in traffic and will be late." I paid for 110 minutes last year, and had more than half of them left at the end of the year (they expire after 15 months).

Cost for cell phone for 2003: $96 + $60 for phone (which makes it free in the second and later years). I don't believe that there is a "contract plan" on offer that would give me a year's usage for $160, is there?

suzieque

We have a shared deal and all our mobile to mobile calls are free along with the usual free weekends and evenings which by the way over here is after 9pm which caught me out. The text calls aren't free like the calls are when they are to my husband so never use it.
We use this instead of home phone. I have just the cheapest nothing package on phone so I can recieve calls and use phone card to Uk otherwise only use mobile find it cheaper.
I am not sure if it is just where we live but utilities are much more expensive over here.
Suzieque

Pulaski

Hang on, there are always swings and roundabouts - if you phone a mobile from a land-line in the UK the phone company really makes you pay for the privilege (isn't 25p/minute on BT?), whereas in the US when phoning from a land-line there is no distinction between phoning a cell phone and a land-line in the same area. .... Some you win, some you lose.

Also the costs of building a cell phone network are a function of the area to be covered, and therefore it has obviously been massively more expensive to build the networks in the US than it was in the oh-so-compact UK.