dlake02

Moved from Crawley, West Sussex on £80k pa to Santa Clara, CA on $140k. Managed to get a couple of good payrises, so now on $161k, and it is only in the last 6-8 months that I've started to "feel" that we are able to put head-above-water.

What knackered it all were two, yes TWO, stumping great 10% rises in rent in 12 months. The property market round here is bonkers - we're in a 1600 sq ft town house at $3600/month. No way we could afford to buy - most buyers round here are using cash, mostly from "family" sources. Houses sell for between 10 and 15% higher than the asking price.

As for schools, yes, you may find that your local public schools are good, but they will do the bear minimum. Good teaching here is VERY good - no complaints there at all - but very little if anything outside the curriculum. After school care is patchy at best - and in our case totally useless as it involves picking up from one school and taking to another. Result is that my wife can only work very limited part-time hours. Again, goes by school district, but California is technically bankrupt, so there is a constant nag at finances. Last year, we had five furlough days at very short notice = no school, no library, no child-care, therefore five days enforced time off for one of us.

We did look at private education (although I hate the idea) - $27k/year, plus the houses in the walking area to that school were over double what we pay.

So, from feeling like king-of-the-heap in Crawley (bit like Basingstoke in many ways), frankly, I feel a bit of pauper round here.

Like you, I insisted that we had L1/L2 so that my wife could work.

Stuff here is EXPENSIVE, and Americans appear to have a lot more disposable income than I'm used to seeing.

jackattack

It does look like Irvine has some quite good schools. Did you use this map, it gives a fairly good overview of schools in a region (can't figure out how to reset it to Irvine, so it will open on Bay Area).
http://schoolperformancemaps.com/ca/...30139%2C10%2C1

Be careful about housing though, state school attendance is based on exactly where you live, and the neighbourhood to the north has some less desirable schools. If you were to move, then make sure that you check, very carefully, the local school district!

And the general consensus seems to be that you might be better off in Basingstoke on £80-90k than $125k in Irvine. If you take out the UK private school, then that will make a nice difference. But make sure that you're moving for the right career and future opportunity reasons, not just because you'd like some more disposable cash in the short term.

hungryhorace

That sounds insane. Our plan is to move to CA at some point, yet like you say, unless both our salaries take a significant rise, the costs could be prohibitive to live in the lifestyle we're accustomed.

$3600 for 1600sq ft is outrageous. I thought housing was meant to be cheaper? I've certainly noticed I get more for my money here house wise in MA, seems like CA is very different?

SamiZ

[QUOTE=Sally Redux;10884136]We are in what is considered a 'good school district' - but the point of comparison is LA Unified. California state schools are extremely strapped for cash.QUOTE]

We have looked at schools in Irvine Unified. You are right though, there can be great variances with the neighbouring districts...Tustin Unified is a completely different proposition.

dlake02

Oh yes - be VERY careful about this and RESEARCH....

INSIST on a meeting with the principal. They will resist like hell; they are more administrators under control of the school district than UK heads with their own budget, but they are a source of local information.

Our school has drawn the boundaries in twice since we moved. Had we moved into an apartment as we intended, after 5th grade, we'd have been forced to move out of the school that is 6 minutes walk away to one that is 15 minutes drive away. Potty.

Sally Redux

Even good schools are likely to be begging for money for basics.

dlake02

It is insane, and it's not at the top end. Our 3bed 2 1/2 bath three-storey town house with no garden AT ALL is worth $915k. The identical one next door went for $1.1m last week. Cash.

SamiZ

It's not just based on finances (although I have to get that right) but also a personal decision to move to be with our respective families as well.

Bob

Things to consider:

Holiday allowance
Green card
Cost of EAD
Medical insurance - make or break
Ability to get work for OH - where I am, unless it's your own business, a masters in child education appears minimum, no idea for CA
Liability insurance to cover her business
Other licence requirements from state/county/town

Wiki is a good start for relocation considerations.

dlake02

Or not so basics.

Had a letter from our school association last week. "You are requested to donate $500 per pupil and the following items for school," followed by about $250 worth of paper, pens, backpacks, tissues, Clorox wipes, etc.

Then accosted by school association volunteers day 1 with their "Power Pledge" sign-ups, asking all parents to volunteer at least 1 hour a week to help with teaching.

I reckon that Virgin Atlantic or BA should try something similar:

"We can't afford to hire all the trained, professional pilots we need, so we're asking do-gooding and meddling members of the public to volunteer to fly today's plane !"

Havnfun

Housing is not that expensive in the Irvine area. We are in Mission Viejo which is about 10 minutes south of Irvine we rent a 2700 sq ft detached home with a private pool in a gated community for $3400/month.

The home you rent for $3600 would be between $2700-$2900 here.

Sally Redux

The do-gooding parents don't seem to realize that the more they raise like this, the worse it will get as the state will just reduce funding even more. We are already paying $10,000 pa in property taxes, we are not going to hand over more thousands to them for their donor drives and silent auctions.

The priorities here (US) are all wrong.

Bob

And it's the hidden costs like school supplies, supports activities, after school programmes, childcare, all very expensive.

Sally Redux

Indeed.

dlake02

Yep. Plus it actually DE-VALUES the very education that they purport to be be upholding ! Why bother actually educating someone to be a lawyer, teacher, engineer, when you can rely on rank amateurs "having a go." This was all part of Camerons "Big Society" b****cks, and we all knew what a load of S H one T that was !

Then there is the barmy "home-schooling" brigade who seem to universally turn out nutters-for-children that have zero social skills. One bloke at work who home-schools his kids (actually, he doesn't - his wife does) told me that "my kids don't need no other kids - just good grades."