Bank accounts

jon86 said:
Ah nice. Did you also get an IR1? My older brother has the same thing and just got his green card so he can live there permanently. He married an American girl. :)

I hope to go over on an L1 in a few years.
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no idea what L1 or IR1 is :D:D

We won the diversity visa, through the lottery :p

which is pretty much Green card
 
IR1 is a fiance visa (which you can get if you are going to marry an American citizen -- it says IR1 on the picture that you showed :)) and L1 is an intracompany transfer visa (I work for an American company). Congratulations for winning the diversity visa! Where are you going to be living in the 'States?
 
jon86 said:
IR1 is a fiance visa (which you can get if you are going to marry an American citizen -- it says IR1 on the picture that you showed :)) and L1 is an intracompany transfer visa (I work for an American company). Congratulations for winning the diversity visa! Where are you going to be living in the 'States?
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we dont even know for sure yet :D we have to go now to activate the GC or otherwise it will expire...

Going to drive round a bit, we going for like 40 days... so going to spend first week in Florida relaxing on a beach :p then making way towards Chicago I think. We traveled around East Coast last year and weirdly liked Chicago most out of the places we`ve been... (washington,NYC,Boston)

Some people say we are crazy to like one of most dangerous cities in USA... But there is just something about it...

Hated NYC though.
 
[TW]Fox;24570923 said:
I thought us Brits were ineligible for the diversity Visa? Are you lucky enough to have been born elsewhere :p
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Aye, Russia but I think that wasnt eligible in DV2013 so somehow we became eligible through our grand-parents... I dont remember the details, it was like 2 years ago.
 
[TW]Fox;24570935 said:
Jealous :p
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To be honest, it just gave lots of head-ache so far :D The process took like 2 years since we applied and got visas in our passports...

The GC just gives us the right to work legally indefinitely, a right that most of us have in EU...

We pretty much have to start again, its still hard to find jobs in USA and they are crazy with their "licences" it seems you have to have licence to wash a toilet :(... And they dont like degrees from other countries either...

So its a very difficult trip ahead of us with lots of head-ache... and not big chances of success, but it would be stupid not to take since we`ve been given a chance.

Worst of all that there is a chance we will hate USA once we start living there.... So thats many thousands pounds later and few years of life down the drain...
 
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Parts of the west coast are pretty nice. I just recently came back from a five week trip in the 'States. Spent 4 weeks in San Diego, half a week in San Jose and half a week in Fort Collins, about 70 miles north of Denver. I think San Diego (sun, beaches) is nicer than the Denver area (hills, mountains, crazy weather) but they're both pretty cool.

San Diego (Pacific Beach)
Picture (it's a little big, sorry)

Denver area (Rocky Mountain National Park)
Picture (it's a little big, sorry)
 
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jon86 said:
Parts of the west coast are pretty nice. I just recently came back from a five week trip in the 'States. Spent 4 weeks in San Diego, half a week in San Jose and half a week in Fort Collins, just outside of Denver. I think San Diego (sun, beaches) is nicer than Denver (hills, mountains, crazy weather) but they're both pretty cool.

San Diego (Pacific Beach)
Picture (it's a little big, sorry)

Denver (Rocky Mountain National Park)
Picture (it's a little big, sorry)
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We are looking to settle around east coast since we have old family members in Europe and its much cheaper and easier to get there, since we will be flying regularly.

Since we come from more eastern background we prefer to have much different climate than west coast offers... We need a snowy winter :p and 56c in summer which has been recorded in Death-Valley would be death of us all.

Also the Eastern Europe community is much stronger in the East, and generally east coast feels closer to heart than west coast does. :p
 
A financial advisor from Mercer recommended to me that if I do move to USA, I really must keep a UK bank account open in case I ever want to come back or so I can have my UK private stakeholder pension paid into it without any issues. Also, it's helpful if you ever need to transfer money between countries. English (online) banking makes US (online) banking look like it's still stuck in the 00's.
 
Back on the Halifax clarity subject,

Basically went into halifax brach today and raised the question... They said that you can do it this way or, we can give you account details to your Halifax Clarity and you can transfer money to it...

So I tried it, using barclays online banking... I only tried to move 1 pound and it did seem to work... However, it increased the Available Credit by 1 pound instead of decreasing "balance" which needs to be paid by 1 pound.

Why cant they make banking simple :(
 
[TW]Fox;24568997 said:
Don't forget with Halifax if you make an extra payment, let them know before your direct debit date or they'll take the original amount minus any consideration for payments you've made since the billing date :p
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or just pay it manually each month via a faster payments with a refference you will never need to edit.

I find it more convenient that direct debit but I guess it depends on whether you have a good memory or not
 
Lazder said:
Back on the Halifax clarity subject,

Basically went into halifax brach today and raised the question... They said that you can do it this way or, we can give you account details to your Halifax Clarity and you can transfer money to it...

So I tried it, using barclays online banking... I only tried to move 1 pound and it did seem to work... However, it increased the Available Credit by 1 pound instead of decreasing "balance" which needs to be paid by 1 pound.
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It takes a few days to clear thats all.
 
Just to update on the topic;

Have been using halifax clarity in USA for about a month now, really happy with it... Purchases carry no fees at all ( I mean at all) the rates they use are sometimes even better than the google shows.

I cashed 1400 dollars from Bank Of America ATM, paid something like 2 dollars for using their ATM and paid halifax clarity 0.30p for interest but I did send money to the credit card earlier via online banking.
 
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