For those who don't know, I just got back from spending a year living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm not claiming to be an expert in anything I say here or that you should take it as concrete truth but I thought I would just share the process I went through to move out there and also my opinion on some of the main differences I found between the UK 🇬🇧 and the US 🇺🇸, more specifically London and San Francisco. Hopefully someone somewhere can find this even a little bit helpful!
I also decided to skip or only touch briefly on some aspects that I felt I couldn't really provide good enough information on and things that were kinda half sorted for me such as getting my visa, social secutiy number, building your credit score and finding accomodation (although I do breifly touch on living costs).
Getting your Visa
Getting the visa to come over here was fairly straight forward for me (or at least compared to what I thought it would be). I came here through the SVIP, which i've mentioned before in a previous post and they pretty much arranged my US work visa and handled a lot of the process. All I really had to do was fill out some paperwork when needed, do a couple online forms and then have an appointment with the US embassy in London. At the appointment, I spent more time waiting than actually being "interviewed". I put interviewed in quotes because it only consisted of a couple questions such as why I'm going the US and to do what. Nothing too deep.
Finding a place to live
Again, the SVIP really came through like Deliveroo with this and helped make life easier arriving here (not much help to you, I know). We had our first month accommodation sorted for us and I was lucky enough to be placed in the house I ended up staying in for the rest of my time here. The "SVIP House" is a house in Bernal Heights that the programme rents out to 6 of the intake each year. I never had to go house hunting. As you may already know the housing costs in the Bay Area are the most expensive in America. These prices might be different by the time you're reading this but as of March 2019, the median price to rent a one-bedroom apartment is more than $3.6k/month. Obviously you can find some housemates and split rent (I was mainly looking at HubHaus as living option before I knew of the SVIP house), live outside of San Francisco in Oakland or San Jose (still expensive at ~$2.6k) or even just live somewhere not as nice to save money. I would just come here expecting to pay more rent than what you're currently doing. Before I arrived I was hoping to pay a max around $1.5k/month but I actually ended up paying a bit more than that.
Get a Social Security Number
You'll need a social security number to give your employer and start earning your salary. Pretty similar to a National Insurance number in the UK except over here they ask you for your SSN much more often. I remember being asked for it when I was getting a gym membership and also when looking at phone contracts.Getting a SSN is fairly straightforward, you'll just need to set up an appointment and head over to whichever Social Security office you booked with the appropriate paperwork. Be prepared to wait there for a while. You should get your number in the post within a couple of weeks.
Get a Sim
For me, the main thing I'm looking for in a sim deal is data. Texts and minutes I can pretty much get away with just using whatsapp or social media. Before I arrived, I had a look online at the major carriers here: Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, Sprint and Google-fi and it was looking at around $60–80/month just so I don't have to rely on finding wi-fi which is pretty ridiculous. Thankfully, I got introduced to Mint Mobile when I arrived and it couldn't have been more simple, I just payed a one-off $300 and they sent me a sim I could put in my phone which gave 12GB of data, unlimited minutes & texts for 12 months. I've had no problems with it and I recommend checking them out too!
Open a Bank Account
I have nothing against Bank of America, Chase or any other bank but Wells Fargo was just the bank we decided to go with. Didn't really have any problems opening an account (although I did have problems trying to transfer get all my dollars when I moved back home). I didn't however get a contactless card which I thought was a bit weird, they seem to be a bit behind on that front here, still mostly using magnetic stripe. The app is also a bit dead but some good news is that Monzo is launching in the US so maybe you can check that out.
Getting Food & Groceries
So the bad news is there is no Nando's or Weatherspoons but there are plenty of great places to eat and drink. San Francisco is pretty well know for there Mexican food, in the Mission District there are so many taquerias, with one even having the best Burrito in the US. Of course there are also a ton of burger places (my favourite), being in California there's an n In-N-Out in Fisherman's Wharf but it's always packed with tourists. Be sure to check out the not so secret menu for it as well before you go.
I'm not a fan of grocery shops here compared to the UK. Where's the $3 meal deals at!?! They're expensive and feel just a bit dull when you walk in and you kind of get the vibe you're in an episode of Breaking Bad. Or maybe that's just me. There is one shining light though…
A tribute to Grocery Outlet
Oh Grocery Outlet look how far we've come,
It doesn't make sense to some,
I started my journey at Walmart,
But back then I wasn't so smart,
I came to you in search for food on the cheap,
With all my faith I took the leap,
We won't speak of the others, Trader Joes or Target,
For only you are the true Bargain Market,
Lean Beef for four ninety-nine,
Oh you made my days shine,
You may have made want to go poo,
But I will never forget you.
Need I say more?
Get a Clipper Card
The Oyster equivalent in San Francisco is a Clipper Card. You can use them to get the BART or MUNI. You can get a clipper card from one of the machines at a BART station or a shop like Walgreens. It costs around $3 but saves you 50¢ every journey so you'll make up the cost for one of them after 6 rides. At the time of writing this, the clipper card or a paper ticket are the way to pay for public transport so there isn't any Google/Apple Pay integration or contactless card payment.
BART
The BART is basically a BTEC London Underground. The trains look like a shuttle taken from a Back to the Future film (although the seats are really comfortable) and i've found it really annoying sometimes how hard it it is to actually tell where you are. They are currently in the process of rolling out some new trains however which are a definite improvement. There are only about 8 stops in San Francisco proper with 4 of them being pretty close to one another downtown so you can't really rely on it to get to places like Pier 39, Golden Gate Park or Golden Gate Bridge. The BART is what I use every day to get to work and costs me about $2 each way for a few stops.
Uber/Lyft
Now this is one of the few things that i've actually found pretty cheap here in comparison. We don't have Lyft in the UK but it's pretty much the same thing as Uber. You can get a single pool ride from one part of San Francisco to another for under $10 most of the time (might include a short work before/after your drive). The drive from SFO airport into the city, you're looking at under $20. It's so good in fact I know a lot of people who just don't use public transport and just rely on uber/lyft. One of them is nearly always offering some form of discount too.
Other things to note
Tipping
Okay, I hate the tipping culture here. I mean it's just a huge pain having to do some quick maths every time you go out. The typical amount you're supposed to tip is about 15% of the bill, I normally just work out what 10% of the total is, double it and then give something in between those two values. The bill will often tell you some standard tipping amounts, usually 15%, 20% and a cheeky 25%. When it comes to getting drinks, the norm is just to give $1 tip per drink.
Please take everything I've said with a pinch of salt. I've been truthful but a lot of this is personal and could be extremely different for you! Anyway hope it helps in one way or another!
Aaron
P.S. I must give a shoutout to Nicolas Gallagher whose blog post helped me out a lot before I moved out here and (very) strongly helped influence this post.
