Doug50

All,

I am negotiaiting a salary for move to New Jersey and need some advice from anyone who has lived in London (outer areas) and New Jersey.

What would a $160k New Jersey salary roughly equate to in the UK. I would be filing my taxes as married filing jointly and my wife does not earn an income.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Doug

rpjs

Is that the New York end of NJ? That should be a pretty good salary for a couple - comes in a bit more than me and my wife's combined income (no kids) with us living in Westchester county NY with me working in Manhattan and my wife locally.

We've just bought a house and we should be able to make the payments OK, subject to successfully getting the property tax grieved down from it's current way-higher-than-what-we-paid valuation. (AIUI property tax in NJ isn't quite as high as in suburban NYS.)

Our combined income at current exchange rates is about 15% higher than what we were making in the UK, although it's not an exact equivalent as I'm making rather more here than in the UK, and my wife rather less. I'd say we're about as well off here, maybe a bit more than in the UK, and we can certainly afford a bigger house here.

Doug50

thanks for your quick reply.
Yes its NY end, Weehawken to be specific, although we were going to move further out, somewhere within 30 mins commute.
I have 2 young kids as well.

Been trying to do some research on cost of living, etc.. but just seems so confusing. Especially as schooling for the youngsters seems so expensive, whilst it is free in the UK.

rpjs

Public (i.e. state) schools are free in the US too. You might need to do a bit of research to see which school districts are better than others, and expect to pay more for rentals in the good areas, and you don't (usually) get any choice in which school in the area your kids go to, but other than that it's pretty much like the UK.

Bob

glassdoor.com salary.com city-data.com

Check those for rough idea.

How old are the kids? If they're pre-school, it's pretty expensive, but even in school, there are plenty of additional costs that go with it, so it isn't really free, if the kids want to do anything. Though that all depends on local area, but personally, it does seem a bit more excessive than it ever was in the UK.

Total cost to you, of the medical insurance and the use of it is another consideration, that's pretty different to the UK.

Doug50

kids are 4 and 1. am keen to send the older one to pre-k. so am going to have to pay out of my pocket for that.

I earn about £85k + bonus in the UK, I'm the only earner in the family and have a 3 bed house in outskirts of London.

In NJ, I have been offered $160k + bonus, have to pay roughly $700 per month for medical for the family. I would like to rent a 3 bed house within 30 minutes drive.

Is $160k enough for a comfortable life? i.e. cable tv, 2 cars, one holiday per year and hopefully some saving at the end of it

HartleyHare

We are in a similar situation to you but with only 1 child (12). We are also hoping to move to NJ shortly. We currently live in NW London. There is a great spreadsheet on one of the threads here (the one called Hola or Hasta San Francisco) which I used to work out a likely budget for the US.


However, most of OH salary increase has been eaten up by the higher rent v our mortgage cost, having to lease a car and the likely tax bill and running costs for renting our UK home out. If you are planning on renting your home out you may well also have a tax liability too.

Trying to calculate take home pay has been tricky as it depends on our filing status. As we are going part way through the year we will be 'dual status' (although I won't be working) which means there are certain deductions that we can't take. With this is mind, we aim to consult a UK/US tax advisor just to get a clearer idea of our tax position. I really don't want any nasty surprises

Bob

Without knowing what you get up to in your spare time, kind of cars you want, etc. Hard to say if it'll compare, but that's a hell of a lot of money compared to a lot of people who manage on a lot less.

Plenty of threads in various locations to get a rough idea. There's a good thread on food costs that should be on the first page. Also a thread on IA, for car buying/lease costs.

Cable/Internet/Phone - $100-150 a month
Mobile $50-150m
Car insurance $1K per 6 month
Pre-school $1-2K a month
Heating $20-600m depending on season, electric/gas/oil
Electric $100-400m depending on season
Renters insurance $200 a year

They're just rough ball park figures that are pretty universal. Big one is going to be rent, no idea what that is like in the area but would need to check if that includes rubbish collection, snow/grass clearing.

Cost of parking, if you're driving, that could be anything from free to $500m

If you're thinking of public transport, you can check out cost of travel passes by googling the line you'd use.

slummymummy

My sister in law and her husband earn $200k between them, they live in CT, and are apparently struggling... But they have crazy cc debts and do and buy too much stuff. So I'd say you should be fine on that! Did your 4yo just turn 4? My 4yo turns 5 soon, she's in preK now and will start Kindergarten (free) in august. For preK most states pay for some of it (similar to what the UK does for 3-year-olds).

When we did a budget for NY area it came in at about 130k after tax. Preschool was 30k. But I'm not sure how accurate it really is!

jeffreyhy

You'll be working in Weehawken?

I don't think you'll be able to go very far out and stay within a 30 minute commute, due to competition with commuters into NYC.

Regards, JEff
(Used to love eating at Shanghai Reds, before it became a Chart House restaurant.)

HartleyHare

Sorry, made a mistake. The budget spreadsheet is in the thread "San Francisco Bay Budget Help". I'm new to this and don't know how to attach threads!

slummymummy

This is our guesstimate budget that we did when we were considering moving to New York area (but we haven't). It's for 2 adults and 2 preschool kids.

New York

Car insurance 1,300
car tax 230
gas/petrol 5,000
Health insurance 12,000
Mortgage/Rent 45,000
property tax ?
Elec 4,200
Water 360
Phone/broadband/cable 1,900
Cell 600
home/renter insurance 400
Preschool 30,000
Groceries 250pw 13,000
eating out 150pw 5,500
travel 5,000
clothes 3,000
extras 2,000

$ 129,490

Doug50

Thanks for all the great posts.

Is there any good towns in New Jersey that are commutable to weehawken via train? My understanding is that there is no direct train and you would have go change at Hoboken. Is that right?

I'm going to need to get some good tax advice. As we have rental income in the uk, however it is my wife's only income and so most of it comes within her personal allowance.

Also, can anyone recommend a nice place to live, where i may be able to rent a 3 bed house for around $2500

Thanks,
Doug

notonuksoil

Doug50

We have been in Westchester 8 of the past 10 years. Came over in 2003 for 2 years on a secondment L1 visa went back to the UK in 2005. Came back here 2008 again on L1 now have Green Cards.

We still have a house in the UK which we rent out.

Find a good accountant that knows how to work with expats, we claim depreciation on our UK house and claim for landscaping, decorating and various other things. Our 2003 US tax return rebate paid us back more than we had actually paid in US taxes as we had 7 months UK and 5 months US earnings. The same happened when we filed our taxes in 2008 as we had partial year in the US.

You can also claim tax deductions on things like family membership to the Bronx zoo, which is great if you have kids "Senior Family Premium Membership is $131 ($59 is tax deductible)"

We rent a 3 bed house, have two kids both in school and live in what is considered a fairly affluent area. Only one car, we don't need two as OH walks to the train and commutes into NYC.

I'd say $160K is more than enough to live comfortably in NJ in the area you are looking.

Bob

What visa are you coming on?

Either way, you want to try and negotiate that the company cover that for the first/last year you're here as part of your relocation package.