Sooo...I'm moving from Norway to the U.S.!

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ImagesAndWords

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Nov 7, 2006
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What - my 2000th post is not a boob post? Sorry guys but I'm gonna make up for that later, I promise ;) It's been an unbelievably hectic past 6 months for me and my family, but now we finally have a definite date set and most of the major todo's marked off our list.

On August 18th (just missing ASE, D'oh!), we leave Norway and fly over to our new home in Washington state. And although I will miss my country, friends, and family - I can look forward to some other things that will make life and business a bit easier. For one, I will finally be in the same timezone as most of you guys here, as well as my AMs. No more waiting for late in the evening or the crack of dawn to catch ppl on AIM. :) And no more trying to preview offer LP's through half-ass shitty proxies that still redirect to Smiley offers half the time, lol...

The same goes for campaign management. Let me tell you, it gets tedious to test/track/manage campaigns at the weirdest hours of the day and night when you're targeting large volumes of traffic 6 to 9 timezones behind your own! Not to mention, I will now start attending the major conferences like Aff. Summits, AdTechs, etc. No more missing out on all the fun. ;)


Anyway, as I'm announcing my big move, I also have a few questions for you guys. I've lived in the U.S. before (for about 6 years, 8 years ago). But my concerns are different now with having a business and all. So here are my questions to you;

1) Being a foreign immigrant, I will be getting my work and residence visa through being married to a U.S. citizen. Will this at all affect or limit what type(s) of business registration I can apply for, or how soon? (Sole Prop. / LLC / other?). I guess if worse comes to worse I will still have to use my Norwegian registered business until I have a properly registered U.S. business.

2) I'm trying to get a realistic idea of living expenses.. What should I expect to pay for good health/dental insurance for a family of four? And...what is the most beneficiary way of doing this, or tying this, to a business entity? E.g. if my wife is an "employee" of my business.

3) Last but not least - how many of you Wickedfire members are located in WA? :) I believe there was a Meetup202 in Seattle a while ago, but I'd love to meet up with some of you from time to time. Btw, I will be moving to a quiet small town near Port Townsend, WA.


4) Bonus question; Do they still sell Vanilla Pepsi or Mello Yello in the states? Those are the two drinks I have been missing the most since I left the country 8 years ago, lol. :)
 


Good health & dental? You're in a range of $1200 to $2400 per month depending on your deductibles, copays, etc. I have one less kid and priced it a few months ago.

Good luck with your move!
 
Rajuthan said:
4) Mix captain morgan and coke and you will get vanilla coke
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Mix enough of it and you won't care that it really doesn't taste like vanilla pepsi.

I'm on the other side of the country - but I'd assume that health care doesn't change to much depending on your state. A couple years ago we switched from full coverage to catastrophic care only - it only kicks in when you've spent an ass load of your own money already :)

I found that it was stupid silly for me to pay for health care for my family of 6 since none of us had to be on medication regularly. It was going to cost more than 20k per year for full coverage (cancer surviver in the family).... and I'd still have deductibles and co-pays. With a visit or two to the hospital we would be talking 25k a year.



Last year is a good example. I paid approx 4.8k in visits to dentists, doctors, eye care, etc... I paid less than 1k in medicines, and 2400 for a short hospital stay for my little girl who got sick.

A little over 8k all said and done. Full health insurance would have cost me a lot more than that.

This year my wife has been hospitalized a few times. I'm still not up to that 20k, but I am over what it would have cost me if I had full coverage (well maybe not yet, but I will be by the end of the year). I'm always surprised at almost how affordable a hospital stay is compared to insurance. Luckily it's never been anything serious...... but if it was the insurance we have would kick in.

I'm not saying that it's a good option for your family - but if you aren't healthy it's damn hard to get insurance (at least until that pre-existing condition crap kicks in) anyway.
 
You have an immigration lawyer, right? They should let you know when you can reg a new business.

In general, while you wait for your residency or adjustment of status to permanent resident, you can get a work authorization. You're not working for someone else so it's splitting hairs, but it should be enough to get started. I'm assuming you have something sorted out immigration wise.

LLC shouldn't be a problem. You will probably need a SSN to make filing one in WA easier on yourself, which you may or may not have already.

You'd only have some problems owning a S-corp if you don't have perm resident status yet. They can't have non residents as shareholders. C-corp can though. But that would really be overkill if it's just you.

Avoid sole prop like the plague.

YMMV - any reasonably competent accountant or lawyer could set up this up for you. The only snags would be having to wait for a SSN if it's needed to be the president of a WA LLC, or if you don't have a work permit.

Spousal paperwork goes through very fast, usually within 6 months, so don't worry.
 
Thanks for the tips so far. :)

@DewChugr; I'll check that site out, even though it doesn't seem to load at the moment.

@stmadeveloper; Yeah perhaps I can look into the level of coverage needed too. We're all a (so far) pretty healthy family without needs for monthly meds or anything. The only thing might be that my oldest son will need some extra followups because he has a behavioral diagnosis as well as light celebral palsy, due to being born prematurely at only 24 weeks.

@bizkiller; it's Washington state. Where in the state are you at?

@070707; Yeah when we moved to Norway 8 years ago I thought too we'd stay much longer than we did. If your friend has an American spouse though, you never know when that homesickness kicks in. ;)

@dantex; I don't have a lawyer yet, but I imagine I'll get one once there. Hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle filing for a business.
 
jesus, I love Norway.. been there and Europe in general seems to be more family oriented and civilized hehehehe

Besides the wife, what other reasons made you decide to move to the ol us of a?
 
fvaldes said:
jesus, I love Norway.. been there and Europe in general seems to be more family oriented and civilized hehehehe
Besides the wife, what other reasons made you decide to move to the ol us of a?
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Lol, well it's mainly the wife. She has grown extremely homesick over the past 2-3 years. On top of that, about two years ago an older family member over there passed away and left his house empty but fully furnished and ready for us to move in to if we wanted to. Needless to say, my wife didn't take much to convince. Two years later - here we are with our tickets in hand and the house in Norway up for sale in a few weeks.

To be honest, I rather stay here in Norway myself for at least a few more years. Having lived in both countries I see the pros and cons of each.

Pros here: Norway is way more liberal, open-minded, and safe. Crimes like random murder and rape is almost unheard of here. Europe in general I feel is also ahead of the U.S. with many technological advances. Things like telecommunications and infrastructure technology to mention a few things seem to be a few years ahead.

Cons here: Being an entrepreneur or making too much money can be frowned upon here a lot. The socialist nature of the country attempts to bring everybody up or down to the same level.

This can be for better or worse depending on what your background is....

Norway is a much better place to live if you're poor, vs. the US. You can literally drop out of high-school, and either get a $18/hour minimum wage job right away, or tell your doctor your back hurts and live fiiine on social security for years. Doctor's won't hesitate to write out a long-term waiver saying you can't work and qualify for 100% disability. This shit gets abused a lot, as you can well imagine.

However, if you're in the upper percentile of earners - you are severely penalized with all sorts of taxes and regulations. Not to mention getting your private life exposed in jealeous tabloid-articles written to label anyone wealthy as "snoody" or "yuppie". You are not supposed to make too much more money than the rest...(only if you win the lottery, then it's "fair", lol)

subigo said:
You're doing the exact opposite of what I'd like to do. Grass is always greener I guess.
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Hehe, I hear ya. Yeah I do feel torn about going back but there are things I look forward to as well. I get depressed reading about the econominc downturns in the U.S. the recent years, one president after another screwing things up their own personal way, etc. But all in all I try to have an optimistic outlook.
As an independent entrepreneur and business owner, you always need to look at everything as an opportunity and not run around like chicken little. And I know it's all gonna be fine. Besides, travel is cheap enough these days to where I can go back home often enough and see what/who I miss the most. :)
 
I went to Norway (Oslo and drammen) a couple of years ago. I loved the place, it was just so beautiful and peaceful. I can't explain it but Norway has a very safe, homely vibe to it. Maybe it's because I live in London where all sorts of shit happens, but Norway is officially the safest country in the world, and once you go there it's not hard to see why.

There's a huge downside though, the country is ridiculously expensive, and taxation is insane. But that's the price you pay to live in an idyllic society ;)
 
@Proxyhub;
We'll have to set up a Seattle group on Meetup202. :)

Demon said:
I went to Norway (Oslo and drammen) a couple of years ago. I loved the place, it was just so beautiful and peaceful. I can't explain it but Norway has a very safe, homely vibe to it. Maybe it's because I live in London where all sorts of shit happens, but Norway is officially the safest country in the world, and once you go there it's not hard to see why.

There's a huge downside though, the country is ridiculously expensive, and taxation is insane. But that's the price you pay to live in an idyllic society ;)
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Yeah it sure is nice, especially in the summer. Prices + taxes are insane though, indeed. :D
 
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