Why did you choose the US?

[Mags 112]

We miss friends back there, our social life, long vacations and Europe generally.

We will probably move on in a few years though.

bravo! I miss Europe & cheap travel & all those amazing countries too.

Hubby wanted to try his hand at architecture in LA for awhile, so here we are. I have no problem with England & miss it terribly. My mom & brother are a 7 hour flight from London & a 5 hour flight from LA. No biggie to be either place.

We'd like to move back to England in a few years.

I'll definitely be taking hubby back for a visit at some point. There are so many beautiful places in the UK that I'd love him to see and that he'd love to see too. We also want to take a trip up to Loch Garry in the Scottish Highlands. I spent many a Summer up there and it was absolutely beautiful aswell. Europe is right on the doorstep too so we could visit other places whilst holidaying in the UK. It is an excellent base.

I don't think we'd ever live back in the UK though, I have no close relatives over there and nothing really to give me the urge to move back. But I'll tell ya something, we're gonna have some fantastic holidays over there.

Edited June 2, 2007 by mags

[kins 0]

Me and my husband lived in the US from 1999 to 2000, then he decided to retrain as a teacher, so we came back to the UK. Instead of paying to train over 18 months in the US he was paid £6000 to train in 10 months in the UK.

Since then he's worked as a teacher and I've had three babies. I'm happy we had them in the UK - I prefer the way the medical system in the UK approaches birth, and it's cheaper than giving birth in the US. Also we've been on a low family income for the last few years, and we've been given a lot of support through the various benefits offered in the UK.

But now we're ready for a lot of things the US offers. Open space, beautiful woods, beaches, cheaper housing, higher standard of living in many ways, a lot fewer crowds. I live in north-west England and it is SO beautiful here but it is getting increasingly crowded and expensive and I am struggling with that.

Also right now the exchange rate is so good, and we have made a killing on the rising UK property market, and it feels like the right time to sell up here, take our money to the US, and get much more for it.

I hope the US will be a happy place for my children to grow up. We have chosen carefully where we are going to live, looked for good schools, lots of activities for children.

I love the friendliness of US citizens and I am so looking forward to that again. I subscribed to an email list for the area I am moving to, and already three people have sent me their phone numbers and said to get in touch when I arrive.

I know there are many things I will miss about the UK (I have lived in the US twice before), and it really hurts to leave family behind. But I married an American and our family will always have to struggle with being separated by oceans...

Edited June 2, 2007 by kins

[britty 1]

I was reasonably happy in the UK. I lived alone in a standard 3 bed semi in Essex, 2 cats, nice car and a job in the West End of London. I was also spending on average 16 hours a day away from home at work, with a commute of around 3 hours per day. My UKC husband was not prepared to live in the UK at that time (still isn't), and as he earned substantially more than I did and had a house virtually paid for, it made sense to move here. I still have a great social life here and live in a very nice home in northern VA which I would never have had in the UK. I would certainly live in the UK again but at the moment there is no incentive to return. I do miss family and friends terribly but Im lucky to be able to return to the UK three times a year and have family and friends visit regularly. Also, leaving the UK meant selling my home and profiting from the proceeds to enable me to pay off all my credit cards and mortgage. That was a great feeling.

[Mark&Steph 0]

Since Mark can't remember his user name on here I'll answer for him. We decided it made the most sense for us to live here. I have a really secure job with a house that comes rent free. We'll be a bit more comfortable finance wise. I would have been more than happy though to move to the UK if he hadn't been completely comfortable relocating. Neither one of us really cares where we live. Home is wherever we'll be together.

[mawilson 2,133]

Just going to remind people that this thread is about WHY we wanted to move to the USA, NOT a "How much we hate the UK thread" and I think we'd all like to keep it this way.

mags,

For some people, "how much we hate the UK" is the reason WHY they wanted to move to the USA.

(Not me - I don't hate the UK - just saying.)

[Mags 112]

Just going to remind people that this thread is about WHY we wanted to move to the USA, NOT a "How much we hate the UK thread" and I think we'd all like to keep it this way.

mags,

For some people, "how much we hate the UK" is the reason WHY they wanted to move to the USA.

(Not me - I don't hate the UK - just saying.)

Just wearing my hat, Mark.

[Ban Hammer 13,508]

Just going to remind people that this thread is about WHY we wanted to move to the USA, NOT a "How much we hate the UK thread" and I think we'd all like to keep it this way.

mags,

For some people, "how much we hate the UK" is the reason WHY they wanted to move to the USA.

(Not me - I don't hate the UK - just saying.)

Just wearing my hat, Mark.

[Candace 2]

This is a really interesting thread. I guess there are a lot of reasons for our choosing the US to start our life together; I am the more outgoing and sociable one of the two of us and although that means I cry buckets over missing my family and friends, I am probably also more adaptable than Chris. My work skills are more easily transferrable than his, and there is the huge issue of my having jumped off the UK property ladder a few years ago and the ladder having risen several feet in the meantime.

We do want to spend a year or two living together in the UK (although we have lived in Germany for two years, I would still like for us to experience living in the UK together) at some point, but whether that point will come once we have property/jobs/etc in the US, I am not sure.

[TimsDaisy 0]

The bacon?

Kidding!

It sounds like a lot of us have similar reasons - though I don't think I'd consider the standard of living too much higher here than Over There. Different, sure. And things there are expensive, yes, but not to the UKC. Once we transition to US ways and budgets, switching back will be difficult too - that's one thing I worry about.

We chose to come here because when we met I was just finishing law school and had put considerable time and money toward my career. Jettisoning all of it seemed foolish and like a recipe for later frustration. (The only UK jobs I would've really been able to look at would've been with branches of large American firms, and I didn't want to work for American firms IN America - why move to a new country and spend 18 hours a day at a job in a foreign land!)

He's transitioning between jobs, and he's in the sciences - much less geography-dependent than my field. And, as someone else mentioned, my family is far less likely to travel (or be able to) as his. I think a lot of this is cultural. Brits travel. Americans, sadly, don't. We do sometimes, but it just isn't a part of life the way it seems to be for my fiance's family and friends.

So we'll start here and see what we can build. Someday we'll move there to live for awhile too. For our relationship, things wouldn't have worked out if we weren't both willing to make the leap.

So USA it is.

[Tim and Bethanie 1]

For us it is the same as many others have already posted. Easier for him to find employment here, cost of housing etc. Having two sets of children, one in each location made it a bit more difficult and both places had to be considered. At the end of the day we felt it best the children all have their mother, so me being mom the U.S it is.

[JamalNTam 1]

We are in the US because Jamal is still in the airforce and he had to return! But when he gets out he wouldnt think about living in the UK. He lived there for 2 years and just didnt like the weather!!!!

[*julez* 124]

The choice was really made for us as I have 3 young(ish) kids - 12, 9 & 7. Just not practical with the higher cost of living, even with the NHS. Plus, I have a pretty decent job here and housing is dirt cheap in Buffalo. Then there's the fact that my Mom'd kill me if I took her grandchildren that far away! We keep talking about moving 20 minutes away and she's going ballisitic!

If it were just the 2 of us, I'd have had no problem moving to the UK and would welcome the change.

C'est la vie.

[broma25 2]

Why did we choose the US.....i ask myself that same question daily!

[CardiffIan 0]

My fiance went to uni in Wales - that's how I met her, and while she got a very good job related to her degree within a few months of returning to the US, many of her friends from the course are struggling to find work in Wales.

I'm also aiming to move more into magazine journalism, and in Cardiff that just isn't an option, so moving to Chicago will be loads better for my career prospects too.

However, we don't intend to stay in the US permanently, or move back to Wales, as we'd quite like to live in Australia for a while, if we can afford to move over there.

[Dan&Tiffany 0]

The easy answer is I figured I couldn't take Daddies little girl away from him, you know guns are legal in Texas right?

Actually the real answer is that Tiff is in the health care sector as a speech path type person and she can continue her education in the US better than in the UK as well as the fact she will earn 3x as much in the states even with the crazy exchange rate we have at the mo.

My job is easily transferable across anywhere, in fact given it's sales I will probably do better in the US just because I have a British accent and most US guys think that automatically makes you trustworthy, mugs.