Perhaps your wife needs to be open to exploring long term opportunities outside of her current field. There are plenty of opportunities (both here and in the UK) for those with higher education who are talented, driven, committed and open to change. If looking outside of her field you guys could relocate closer to family and benefit from whatever support they can provide to help you get established. You sound like you are pretty versatile and could do the same. It may mean taking a step back down the totem pole but the US presents plenty of opportunity to move back up again fairly quickly.

I don’t personally think the cost of living is double the UK, higher but not double and of course it will depend upon circumstances and lifestyle. Perhaps it is in the big cities on the coast, but there is plenty of land in between. In any case for anything other than menial positions pay is usually higher in the US so that balances out somewhat. The standard of living is better but of course that is subjective, and you need to determine if you believe that, and also if you can handle the generally reduced vacation time and longer hours on the job.

Expenses that you may be underestimating are health care, home property taxes which can be a substantial expense on top of a mortgage, insurance (particularly car insurance) and of course you recognize that food is generally more expensive. Everything else pretty much evens out. For example fuel is less expensive but you will drive a lot more miles and use more. Don’t forget about state taxes unless you move to one of the handful of states that do not have state income tax. There can be surprising additional local taxes such as property taxes on cars, boats, just about anything you own and a city tax on top of federal and state taxes, and others, so your total tax bill may be a lot higher than you anticipate.

Doing a self move without the comfort of employer sponsorship needs commitment and most definitely will be a hassle, but plenty manage it successfully every year. Waiting for the ideal conditions and limiting yourself to jobs in a narrow field won’t be your friend here. You need to determine if you really want to live here, and if so get on with it one way or the other (as soon as your wife has UK citizenship). It’s a lot more than (potentially) improving your standard of living. It’s a complete life style overhaul. If that is for you, make it work despite the hassle and challenges because there will be plenty of those and time will not make any of them any easier, particularly if you have kids. Very worthwhile though if the lifestyle is what you are looking for.

Thanks all for your input, I appreciate your advice regarding the costs, obviously my wife lived most of her life in the USA and we have family and friends in various states we can ask for advice regarding costs (NY, CT, NC) I know it varies state by state, but there's lots of useful tools online for these estimations.

Obviously there's a lot of research to be done in terms of finding a job, we don't expect to both have jobs on day one, but it's pointless uprooting our family in the hope we'll find jobs that may not even come. What I think would be helpful is if anyone has any similar experience (moving back to the US after an extended period abroad). I think that would be most useful advice right now.

Also, regarding the West Coast, we understand the timezone difference and travel costs, we made a decision that 5 hours is better than 8, we want seasons etc etc etc we have to short list states somehow hence our decision to put it down the list.

When we were coming to the end of our first 2 year secondment in the USA, in Houston, my company offered 3 options on new projects for another 2 years. They were Louisiana, Delaware and California. We ruled out California because of the extra travel time and time difference for our families and ourselves visiting, so I fully understand your reasoning on this.

Understand that you are centering on Michigan because of the automotive industry. Don't limit yourself to just there. For example, here in Mississippi there is a large Toyota manufacturing plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi. They are currently expanding so yes, the industry is doing well here. As for university employment, look into universities in Oxford, MS and Hattiesburg, MS. I'm not English but an American who married a Canadian 27 years ago. He emigrated to the US and we lived just outside of NYC but have retired to MS. If you are intent on continuing work in the automotive industry, don't limit yourself to only Michigan.

So much depends on what you and your wife are looking for in life. Big house, lots of land, good yearly weather, big city living nearby? Some people are content with living in rural areas, others in large metropolitan areas. Some want to own a home while others prefer apartment living. My advice is to decide how you want to live your lives during your first years in the US. Once that is decided you can then focus on where you want to live and go from there. You have plenty of time as you are waiting for your wife to become a British citizen and then you need to obtain a US spousal visa. (BTW concentrate on the US Marriage Based Visa section for information on going through the process.)

One word of advice, politics will change in the US like ladies changing undies. The current president will not be the White House when you get ready to move to the US. So don't base decisions on his still being influential.

Thank you this is all very good advice. We've actually spent some time looking at various states, and you're very right Michigan isn't the only option, we've have explored a few, but there's just a multitude of things that keep pointing back to it - weather (seasons), environment etc. I should add my wife as an American (New Yorker) also has strong feelings about where she will and won't live so that's also a factor....

We're going to keep looking, but I've become a bit of a niche (I specialise in EV tech, in particular battery systems) so that is somewhat limiting.

I wouldn't rule out California due to distance - how often are you or relatives really going to be making the flight? More than twice per year? The time difference isn't that big of a deal either, I chat with my parents in my morning while it is still late afternoon for them.

Do listen to your wife's relatives/friends, as they will have first hand info on how much their electricity bill, healthcare etc costs. Don't use online tools as they are notoriously inaccurate, things like Numbeo are next to useless IME.

I totally get that. We were given the whole of the US to choose from, and top of my list was an easy way back to the UK as we both had elderly parents and kids that we thought may have ended up back in the UK for uni. As it happens, we were right to make that a priority, as my parents deteriorated and so I was back and forth every other month, and both kids are now back in the UK at university, so they travel home for each holiday and even occasionally long weekends too. Being a short flight from the UK means it's super easy, I can walk out my front door in the US and be sitting on my sofa in the UK within 8 hours. Do also look at how often flights are, we have a choice of maybe 10 flights at day which keeps costs down and means people are happy to pay that to come and see us. Also think about what they'd want to see if they come to you, I know they'll be visiting you but you'll need stuff to keep them occupied around you, particularly if you're working. For us that's easy as we have NYC within a 4 hour drive, ditto Canada, Cape Cod, the mountains, lakes, Boston, etc, etc. So people have been back to visit us time and time again as there is so much to do here.

And I get the seasons thing too, my idea of hell would be living somewhere where it's hot all year round. I love the seasons here, and we're very outdoorsy, so being able to ski in the winter, sail in the summer, hike all year round, etc, works so well for us.

I'd visit Michigan before you commit. We had it on our shortlist but it wasn't for us in the end.

Good luck.

Oooof. Hopefully by the time you move we'll have a more EV friendly president. Might be worth me putting you in touch with my husband, he has a lot of EV experience (works for one of the biggest engineering consultancies). Ping me a message if you want me to.

I actually do think this one is helpful-ish
https://smartasset.com/data-studies/...mfortably-2025

Detroit doesn't make the list. But:
Minneapolis $273k
Columbus $236k
Note that this is framed as "Most households aim to maintain a cushion between the necessary spending for day-to-day necessities – like housing, food, utilities and childcare – while also enjoying life in the moment and saving for the future. This means keeping room in the budget for the occasional vacation or splurge, as well as savings for long-term goals like retirement or a child’s college education."

If you told most Brits they could earn £200k ($270k), they would be living a much more luxurious life than described above, especially outside of London.
Day to days are 2-3x depending on location, some are much higher e.g. property tax (again depending on location) and some existential - healthcare and college.

Oh yes, I should have mentioned that one - that is the only one that we found remotely accurate! It's spot on for Boston and I've shared it a few times on the forum. That's for a family of 4 though, so OP could look at the single person amount and times it by 3 maybe.

Then you should take a look at Georgia which is doing a lot of pioneering work and manufacturing of EVs and EV systems.

https://georgia.org/EV#/analyze?show...e&region=US-GA

Yeah that's helpful, I'm using direct info where I can find it (EG looking on zillow at property, going on daycare websites for real pricing etc) i re visited my budget spreadsheet today after everyone said I was probably under estimating. I came up with around 9k USD per month with generous budgets for everything and we're still 3k GBP a month better off in the US. As it happens there was a BBC article today about inflation in the UK and it reiterated how poorly we're doing, highest in G7 etc. As an example, with 30 hours of funding for nursery, going 5 days a week would cost £1200 a month. Meanwhile the highest rated nursery in Ann Arbor (an up market down in Michigan) was coming in at around 1700usd, so actually cheaper than the UK. Likewise I paid £9.50 for 750g of diced beef at the weekend and by all accounts this is only going one way....


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Also regarding other states for work, a lot of the suggestions I've seen refer to manufacturing sites. I think the best analogy I have for it is that it would be like asking an author if they can run a printing press instead.

I really appreciate the advice and I'm not trying to be flippant, it wouldn't seem that way from the outside, but development and manufacturing are as different as being a Chemical Engineer, I literally wouldn't know where to start!

Great!
How have you modeled your net income i.e. tax rates in this analysis (Federal and State) ?
On the spending side, how much did you budget for healthcare both premiums and copays etc.? How much are you going to save for college?

Hi All, thanks for all the advice.

I think I'm going to leave it on here for now, as I've said previously I have an entire network of Americans who can advise on finances. It's getting quite contrary one person says quality of life is great, then everyone else can't help but tell me how much expensive everything and it seems set to discourage me. I'm guessing next you're going to tell me MIT don't know what they're doing and more than doubling their recommended living wage will still have us living like paupers? https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/26

I'd still welcome advice related to the process of applying for a visa/greencard and tips for getting set up.