jaq

Hello, I'm new here.

I'm a Briton and recently married a lovely American girl. We live in London at the moment, but are considering moving back to Boston, since that's where my wife comes from and her friends are. We think we'd be better off there, do you think that's realistic?

The main worry for me would be finding a job - but I'm an experienced programmer/IT consultant so I'm assuming this will not be impossible.

I've looked around the forum a bit but if you have thoughts to share on the experience of moving to the US I'd be grateful.

cheers
Jaq

krizzy

A lot of people in IT are still out of work in the Boston area ...we had 4000 full time people in IT on the Cape in 2000....we now have a few hundred...........things have been picking up.......but the pay is still poor the cost of living still high.....
I think you'd do best asking this question in a different part of the forum.........

sibsie

If you're living in London then you won't find the cost of housing and living here as expensive as people in other parts of the US do. I'm a Londoner and find Boston cheaper in general. Well aside from heating bills which last winter were running to $600 a month.

I live 40 miles from Boston and am a big fan of the city. It's small, easy to get around, has lots going on, is on the ocean and is cute. There are some dodgy areas but those are pretty easy to spot.

Work wise I have no idea but local friends of mine are complaining about the IT industry and lack of openings.

Word of warning. Weather. It sucks. If you think the English climate is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet! Winter is six months long and it's cold. Bitter, biting, stormy nasty cold. It can get you down. The upside is that you're only a few $s and a couple of low cost airline hours to places like FL and SC which are a welcome respite Nov to May.

jaq

Which forum would you suggest?

sibsie

I'd have thought this one would do.

krizzy

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I thought mine were bad at $250 a month...but saying that my house is at 59 degrees most of the day.....in the evening we run it at 67.....so I'm sure if we were warm...our bill would double or more.......

I love Boston too.....Cape Cod where I live seems to have better weather than Boston and above......we miss a lot of the snow storms and thunder storms......the first 2 years we were here were beauiful.....then we had hot long humid summers.....and this year a hell of a lot of snow......

The spring and fall storms can go on and on.......high winds driving rain......but if you ask me the weather all over the world is going out of wack......
My husband is in Telcoms......hit hard up here in the last few years.......

krizzy

A differant part of this forum....maybe more to do with moving over to the USA from England.......not a different forum......sorry....

krizzy

I saw a job topic about IT....in working abroad.....I just thought that may help......

sibsie

That was with Eastern, the propane people. We don't have natural gas so have one of those huge tanks. It really cost an arm and a leg to run and that was with a state of the art heating system. We've since had to move in with my insane, elderly and sick MIL so our bills should go down a hell of a lot this winter.

Weather wise, I'm on an island too and we miss some of the huger storms and get about 5 degress below the mainland summer temp. The blizzard was a bastard though and hung on to Rockport for hours after it had ended elsewhere. Then last month we got the worst Noreaster since the 60's and that one stayed around for four days.

krizzy

The bills sure are a shock.....and the price of food......I also find I talk more about the weather here than I ever did in the UK.....
Are there many people from MA on this forum........we are the only Brits around for miles now......most lost their jobs a few years ago and have moved to other parts of the USA......
Getting back to the topic.....job wise.......my husbands company has been taking on people......or taking people back on who were laid off.......a lot of people are leaving the area and moving down south..SC/NC....seems to be the place to go....the cost of housing in FL right now has put a lot of people off moving there.......I think they had 4 or 5 people leave in the last month..proving that jobs are around if you look....but mostly out of State......

sibsie

There's a few of us around but not too many on a really regular basis.

Now here's the thing. I have friends down in Miami and Pompano. They're American and have lived there for years. They are just about all selling up or renting out now citing, the "Jerry Springer" society as their reason for having had enough of FL life. A couple of them have already moved to NC and a couple of others are heading to the West Coast. My best friend is off to Afghanistan where he works as a mercenary but he said even that is better than South Florida! I only visit FL and have never lived there, but I'm wondering if it really has changed that dramatically in recent years.

Back sort of on topic. I have an unnatural fixation with the weather. I have Todd Gross' channel 7 weather page set to my home page and I'm obsessed. I can't stop myself! I never gave a flying **** before. It's not normal. Help me.

krizzy

People are just moving around the country all for different reasons.......we have a house in FL a few miles from Disney.......we would move there if hubby could find a job......I find the cost of living so much cheaper there.......but a job is a job......my kids are moving down next year.......no chance of them ever finding a place to live on the Cape.......we have nothing to rent up here.......just motel rooms.......a lot of Brits are buying holiday homes to rent out.....its like Little Britain around the Disney area.......lucky enough I have a lot of Amercians living full time where my house is......but we still have a lot of short term rentals owned by Brits all around us.....
I've always been into the weather......spent my summers in Cornwall... I wanted to be a fisherman......so by now I've got good at reading storms......only one got me last year.....but then doing that turn around out at sea foxed everyone.......

krizzy

I've just been reading the topic on IT in the US..it all seems very depressed still.......
My husband lost his job a few years ago.......thats why we have a house in FL too....we were going to move there......but he got his job back in a buyback from Lucent......he was in the end out of work for just a few days......they let him keep all his lay off money .....thats how come we could keep the new house in FL.......

Its not nice losing your job in the US........its happened to us many a time in England....but here its very scary.......
Hubby is a Sr Test Eng.....in Telcoms....VOIP....stuff like that.......
He wanted to go back into Space and Defence....but he'll need to become an American to do that.....he had a bit of interest in FL when we looked for work there....but we've only had our GCs 3 years....

MiniBrit

Hi Jaq and welcome to the site!

I moved from London to MA and as already mentioned, you shouldn't find it too expensive as you are used to London prices. I find eating out is much cheaper, but I dont live in Boston itself, Im in a small town to the South West of Boston.

Yes, the weather kinda sucks, it seems to rain a lot but at the moment it not too dissimilar to merry ol' England. However the thought of the winter scares me, as I hate the cold. My husband moved here from California last November for a job so he had the full 5/6months of bitter cold and snow. I was lucky and didn't move here until May so I missed last winter. It was tough on poor hubby coming from warm & sunny Cali, rather a shock for him as you can imagine. One thing I will say about the winter though is that many people I've spoken to tell me that last winter was particularly nasty, and that some winters can have only 2 months of snow... Wow I hope that this coming winter will be one of those.

Anyhow, on the positive side, because of all the rain its very green here and pretty much looks just like the UK, except bigger. When I visited hubby in Cali I used to wonder how I would adapt to living there as its so very different to the UK it feels more 'alien'. On the east coast there is a lot more history (obviously) and I find more of a sense of community because the towns are laid out like UK towns with old churches and so on, as opposed to large wide roads (designed for cars, not horses!) and mall after mall in Cali (although you can easilly find malls here too). Basically I believe I have settled in a lot quicker as I feel more 'at home' here than I would have on the West coast. Another thing, as soon as peeps know Im a Brit they treat me like their long lost cousin or something, they definately love the Brits out here, well thats been my experience so far anyhow!


I really love living here, but my opionion may well change after my first winter. I think that if you dont mind months upon months of sub zero temperatures, and you get a place with good heating and a garage so you dont have to dig your car out of the snow every day, then you'll be OK.

MB

krizzy

Welcome to MA MiniBrit.......I've been here over 5 years now.......most of the time I don't find the winters that bad.......my first thanksgiving here everyone was still wearing shorts.......year before last it was in the 90s in May and still there 6 months later.......I can't remember having any rain that summer.......but hell can it get humid up here......I find it way more humid than FL.......

Last year was a blizzard.......not that common.......we had 6 ft of blown snow all round our house and could not get out.....we had to dig out with large pans after removing part of the screen door..........