Moving to Chicago in 2 days!

Excited is an understatement for how my wife and I are feeling. As a worrier I like to have plans in mind so wanted to see what you think!

Situation:
me (28 y/o male) and my wife (24 y/o) are moving on L1 and L2 VISAs respectively.



Incomes 50k-60k plus commission and tbd for my wife but lets assume 20k minimum!



Around $30k in savings to bring with us. Might invest it for a few years, maybe a vanguard account? Not sure whether to keep this in UK on 1.3% interest p/a or move with us to USA.



1 year milestone - If business is going well and we like it we apply for green cards. Otherwise move back to UK

Been guaranteed pay rise at this point!

3-5 year milestone - receive greencards and then apply for mortgage to buy an apartment. Maybe this is possible sooner? I would love to get a place after year 1!

Have seen some lovely apartments for around $280k!


5-10 year milestone - Have a lovely apartment with my wife and hopefully a small version of us (kid).

10 year plus - Buy a jetpack, invent cure for baldness and climb mount Everest

Back up plan - all this goes to shit and we wing it or go back to UK! lol

Do you have it in writing from your employer that they will sponsor GC applications after 1 year?

They seem more like goals than "a plan".

BTW An "apartment" is a legal construction, not a physical one. An apartment is rented, something you "buy the interior use of" is a condominium (condo). Both apartments and condos are typically "low or high rise flats" in physical appearance, but not necessarily so. Near where I live is a development of small "semi-detached" (duplex) homes and short terraces that are apartments. We looked at a development of very nice development of duplexes set in parkland, just north of New York City; they are condos.

AH ok so maybe I am thinking of a condo then?! Most I see are high rise but it seems the home owners costs maybe be higher

No I don't, just verbal for now. We are a small company and they have done it for someone in our sister company.

If I were you I would maintain a larger, easily accessible emergency fund here than you do/did in the UK, certainly to begin with. It may cost more than you expect to get set up, and then the ongoing costs may be higher than you've experienced before. I'm not even going to go into the nightmare that medical or dental costs can be......you're young, no kids, hopefully not going to be an issue for a while, but you never know. So, let's take homes instead...I find the homes and their systems a lot more " fragile" and take more attention and maintenance than anything I've had previously. Maybe you can do some of the maintenance yourself, but if, say an a/c unit goes, or the roof gets a bit of bad weather damage, it's not small change. Not your problem while you're renting, but something to be aware of once you buy.

The thing to bear in mind is that once you are living overseas, other general costs may come into play just because you are no longer "local"... Eg, you may need to get "home" quickly for whatever reason, something quite a few on here have experienced over the years.....a stressful time, but if the cash is in the bank ready, so you don't have to worry about how to pay for the flights, it removes one small part of the stress from the equation

All good points. I may just find a "decent" savings account to put it in and then at least it is easily accessible.

get the green card sponsorship in writing - why wait a year if you don't have to? A green card gives you a lot more options for work = more security.
as per another recent post, clarify who pays cost of going home if job doesn't work out.
otherwise, agree with other advice

They are paying for our return. We will return every 4 months for a week. 27th september is return flight.

My only worry with asking them to go through green card now is that if in a years time we don't like it or business is not working out there then this is wasting money. I don't think a year is a massive loss as at least we will know 100% whether we are staying or going and then can apply.

I assuming the green card application is expensive of course!

No, you're not asking them to go through the permanent residency application right now, just getting it in writing that after a year, they will be willing to sponsor you for that. Just in case you guys do love it here, and want to make it a permanent move, then you have that objective in writing, rather that hear say so that they can't back out of it. It has been known....... good luck with the move btw, hope it all works out for you

OK great. That makes sense.

Thanks!

I hope your commission will be substantial as your basic is pretty low.

What line of work?

Had a big thread going about my income previously.

It was agreed (by most) that as my company is very small it seemed fine for now. There would be a lot of potential for rises in the future and if I can live on this salary in Oxford, I should be fine in Chicago. They paid a lot to get the L1 so for us the opportunity is worth a lot!

I have worked as a developer (web and elearning) for 2 years for the same company and I will be working with some sales as well now. It's all in the elearning field.

2 years credit history would be ideal before buying a place....but without a greencard, I'd advice against doing so.

All a bit pie in the sky but why not I suppose.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

I always counter with:
Fail to plan, your plans can't get screwed up.