Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Dämn phone! :frown:

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Thanks Pulaski :) I know I can ask my dad all the questions regarding these issues but as he never lived in UK he can't compare, although step mum is from Scotland so I can bombard her too í ½í¸ƒ. Think a holiday is in order.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

You might consider any nearby large city, not just Dallas, and remember, larger usually also means more expensive, both housing costs and commuting costs (distance). And don't automatically rule out Arkansas either as there are jobs there, including a moderately successful retailer in Bentonville, AR. :rolleyes: In fact unemployment in Arkansas is fairly average for the US as a whole, and only a little higher than in Texas.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Since you have medical issues I would suggest you research the health insurance arena very carefully.

Don't know what age you are but since you are talking about transferring pensions, assume you are "middle-aged".

Even with the new exchanges coming in next year - which are supposedly more cost effective then current individual policies - you should budget several hundred dollars a month to pay for premiums for you and your husband. Apart from monthly premiums, yes, there will be additional costs such as visits to doctors, deductibles, co-pays etc but it is all according to what your plan will and won't pay for. What plans you are able to get is also dependent on which state you live in - some States are saying they are not going to go the exchange route so who knows what will be available there.

Getting health insurance via a job is always a much better scenario.

Just read an earlier post from you and you have children 7 and two, so not likely to be "middle-aged" then. However, with children I would up that several hundred dollars a month to around 1,000 per month whether you pay individually or in a job based scheme.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

LOL, I mean I didn't go back to research them while reading this current post. I've read them now. :p

Rene

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Read the wiki?

There a good chunk going over health care and credit issues... Also a few current threads on those subjects so don't need repeating unless you have specific s. School is also fairly well covered, so should be a good starting point.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Colorado tends to be either hot or cold. It can go from winter to summer in a day and then back to winter again. That's spring! Same on the other end of summer. I've known it to be 90F at lunch time and snowing by 6. That's fall. When I first lived there, I used to lament the fact that there weren't 4 seasons.

There are some lovely places to live. Some are more expensive than others of course. This looks to be quite realistic:

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CO-home-value/r_10/

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

If you're a US citizen via your dad, you should have been doing them your whole adult life. You might need to look into this, and file some back tax returns to regularise your position with the IRS. Unless you earn a lot though, it's almost certainly just a filing requirement rather than a paying requirement; there are exemptions for foreign earnings, tax treaties etc, it's not that you pay tax twice.

Edit: sorry, just seen your other thread about passports and the like, where others have amply covered this off.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

My husband is asthmatic and since we've been in the US his asthma has pretty much disappeared. Combination of better treatment, dryer air and wooden floors.

Will you have to pay for each GP appointment? It depends what health insurance you get.

Many policies ask you to pay a co-pay towards each visit - for example I have to pay $15 each time I see the doctor and my insurance pays the rest of the cost.

Many other policies have a deductible you must meet before your insurance will pay the cost of your visit - for example my husband's policy has a $2500 deductible, so (apart from his one insurance-paid healthcheck per year) he pays for GP visits. He pays at the insurance company's negotiated rate, not the higher rate the GP actually tries to charge.

To offset this cost, his company puts $900 a year into a health savings account, which he can use to pay these costs. If he doesn't have any costs, he carries over the savings.

Because his policy has such a high deductible, the cost of his premiums is lower than on a policy like mine that has very low deductibles. He could choose a policy with lower deductibles but he'd rather take the risk.

To confuse things more, your employer might choose to subsidise the cost of your health insurance, or they might not. So for example if we were all insured on my husband's policy the cost for a family of five would be about $12,000 per year. My company gives us a much higher subsidy, so instead we get much better insurance for about $5,000 a year - the company is paying the other $12,000 a year that the insurance actually costs.

The short answer is that you really don't know how much health insurance and other expenses will cost you till you have a job here. But I would budget a good $20k a year for a family of four if you don't have a company-subsidized policy, and be aware this might well not cover everything in a bad year.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Where to start? Our WIKI will answer many of your questions and even some you haven't thought of just yet.

Guide to Health Insurance
Guide to US Schools

And many others:

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Category:USA

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Off topic for your relocation (hope the mods don't mind) but if you're interested... I used to have asthma, which started suddenly in my late teens after... um... an illness of some sort, throat or chest infection. It was mild, but necessitated twice a day use of the preventative brown inhaler at its lowest dose, and then the blue one perhaps 2-3 times a week, for cold air, running, drinking white wine, etc.

I did a bout of low carbing 2010 - not an extreme Atkins-a-like, just cut out the 'white fluffies' of sugar, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, and upped my intake of green veggies, salad, lean protein, eggs, healthy fats, nuts, etc. I lost a little weight, but unexpectedly after a few weeks, my asthma that I'd had for two decades just disappeared. And even though I now eat a reasonable amount of carbs again - I usually aim for one meal a day without fluffies - it's never re-appeared. I've been asthma-med free now for 3 years.

Googling suggests it might be wheat, and that although I'm not noticeably intolerant - I eat bread and pasta now with no digestive or respiratory effects - giving my system a break for 2-3 months allowed it reset to a baseline of being able to cope fine, ie, back to what it was before the illness knocked it off kilter. Might be worth looking into - there's quite a lot on the internet about asthma, wheat, carbs and improvements or 'cures' through fairly minor diet changes.

It was certainly good to arrive in the US, have a new patient physical with our doctor, and present myself as completely fit and on no medication whatsoever.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

Well, the good news is that they are actually willing to try treating asthma here, rather than just throwing inhalers at him and telling him to get lost for a few months.

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

My asthma has also mostly disappeared since moving to the US, it only flares up once every couple of winters if I get a really bad cold. Lucky it's not that often because even with insurance I've been prescribed inhalers that came with a $125 co-pay :o

Re: So much to research - where to begin???
 

The thing with Asthma, and I'm a sufferer, is that it is usually related to a trigger, so moving, even in the same country can have either a beneficial or harmful effect, there may well be as many start to get symptoms from moving as have symptoms clear up, so it's not always good.