15k to move to him ;-;

[snow_girl]

Make sure you look around for the cheapest prices. For health insurance for half a year I got it for $200 and buy clothes from non brand name places (Germany you won't need much, jacket, gloves and a hat is it really) I don't think you are going to have to spend as much as you think.

[Dziubka]

Ok, maybe I missed something here, but:
What do you want to do in Austria?
Have you checked out the requirements for working visa? Do you need a language certificate? if so, which one? Do you already speak some German?
What does your fiance do? Could he support you while you would be looking for a job?

International moves are expensive and complicated, but if you take it step by step you'll see that it's actually a lot easier than it looks in the beginning.

[kteire]

Flights definitely won't be expensive if you book in advance and fly during non-peak days. I dunno where you are in the US, but I just did a search for a bunch of different cities, and there are tons of flights for less than $800 to Germany. I bought health insurance for 1 year for $350 last week, so shop around for that. Being from Canada, I can tell you that winter clothes are NOT expensive at all! If you're worried about that, pick something up cheaply second-hand, or wait until the end of season sales knock all of the prices down.

I'm moving to the UK to be with my SO soon, and after the prices of my visa, flights and health insurance, I'll be spending $1250 to get over there... and then I'm going over with $7000 to tide me over until I get a job. That's still a big chunk of money, but if you're smart about your money, I don't really see why you'd need $15000

[lucybelle]

Yeah 15K sure seems like a lot to me. I mean $2500 for a round trip ticket USA-Germany is ridiculous. That's how much it costs to go USA-Tanzania or USA-India. And why do you have to go twice? How much do you plan on spending on winter clothes? What do you need, a good pair of boots, a good jacket, a hat and gloves? That can't be more than $500. If you're planning on moving to Germany I would start selling your stuff. Sell all the clothes you won't need, furniture, car, etc. Plus, TONS of people in Germany speak English. I imagine border people would be quite fluent.

So from your list:
Plain ticket-- no more than $1500
Tranlationist-- you need a translator? Get a dictionary $20
German Test-- German test for what?
Winter Clothing-- $500 TOPS
Health Insurance-- $300
Prove i have enough money in the bank-- aren't you going on a fiance visa? Why do you need this?
Passport-- $100
Learning German books-- $100

$2520. Where do you get $15,000 again??

I recently closed the distance internationally and holy shit it has not cost me anywhere near $15,000.

[Gemini]

Yeah 15K sure seems like a lot to me. I mean $2500 for a round trip ticket USA-Germany is ridiculous. That's how much it costs to go USA-Tanzania or USA-India. And why do you have to go twice? How much do you plan on spending on winter clothes? What do you need, a good pair of boots, a good jacket, a hat and gloves? That can't be more than $500. If you're planning on moving to Germany I would start selling your stuff. Sell all the clothes you won't need, furniture, car, etc. Plus, TONS of people in Germany speak English. I imagine border people would be quite fluent.

So from your list:
Plain ticket-- no more than $1500
Tranlationist-- you need a translator? Get a dictionary $20
German Test-- German test for what?
Winter Clothing-- $500 TOPS
Health Insurance-- $300
Prove i have enough money in the bank-- aren't you going on a fiance visa? Why do you need this?
Passport-- $100
Learning German books-- $100

$2520. Where do you get $15,000 again??

I recently closed the distance internationally and holy shit it has not cost me anywhere near $15,000.

I cant use a dictionary for a translator i have to have a professional they wont even let my fiance translate documents for me.

I need to take German AI test at the Goethe institute, i think thats 150 im not sure for the test, but they want me to know basic German and im also applying for a residential permit not a visa "Niederlassungsbewilligung - ausgenommen Erwerbstätigkeit".

What my fiance wrote about the whole showing i need money issue "A monthly income of 800€ to live on, you should show them the income of your job" and im thinking this is for the whole year 800$ a month x.x so yeah i dont know if im getting confused on this but what my fiance told me this is about how much we will need for everything. Austria has a thing where they dont really want much people in there country and also they want to see if i can support myself so the foreigners dont go homeless.

Ok, maybe I missed something here, but:
What do you want to do in Austria?
Have you checked out the requirements for working visa? Do you need a language certificate? if so, which one? Do you already speak some German?
What does your fiance do? Could he support you while you would be looking for a job?

International moves are expensive and complicated, but if you take it step by step you'll see that it's actually a lot easier than it looks in the beginning.

Im going to live in Austria with my fiance.
Yes i checked my fiance looked through about 150 pages of requirements for visa and we found out the residential permit is best.
Yes i do need a language certificate that says i can speak German, an AI certificate.
No i dont speak German at all i hardly know any words which is hard on me now, im trying to study 2 hours a day with no teacher and i dont know where to start.
My fiance is a programmer he is in a uni for programming graduating in a year
Yes he could support me, he has a 15 euro an hour job atm and also he was offered a job by his professor for really nice pay that will help support the both of us.

Make sure you look around for the cheapest prices. For health insurance for half a year I got it for $200 and buy clothes from non brand name places (Germany you won't need much, jacket, gloves and a hat is it really) I don't think you are going to have to spend as much as you think.

Thanks :3! i will i want to get the tickets in advance but my parents want to tag along with me (visit and see where im going to live) which....i feel they will up the price saying they dont have the money ect ><... so ill see how that goes...
Ah i see! Nice that sounds really nice ill have to talk to my fiance about that he was saying it will be around 1k for insurance in Austria so i dont know really and he said i should really spend a lot of money on a nice jacket because im a Desert girl going into a snow country XD;...I really hope not the amount of money is really scaring me...

Flights definitely won't be expensive if you book in advance and fly during non-peak days. I dunno where you are in the US, but I just did a search for a bunch of different cities, and there are tons of flights for less than $800 to Germany. I bought health insurance for 1 year for $350 last week, so shop around for that. Being from Canada, I can tell you that winter clothes are NOT expensive at all! If you're worried about that, pick something up cheaply second-hand, or wait until the end of season sales knock all of the prices down.

I'm moving to the UK to be with my SO soon, and after the prices of my visa, flights and health insurance, I'll be spending $1250 to get over there... and then I'm going over with $7000 to tide me over until I get a job. That's still a big chunk of money, but if you're smart about your money, I don't really see why you'd need $15000

I live over in Palm Springs in the US, and i heard of some sites who give cheaper tickets but i cant remember the names of them anymore. I talked to a few people on the ticket thing saying to get it in advanced. Thats a good idea :3 thank you i think i might try to buy a huge winter jacket when they get on sale, i really dont think i could handle anything cheaply because im from the Desert so im not use to the cold x.x.

Wow just a bit over 1k x.x sounds so nice, my fiance has about over 3k saved up atm for us so thats really helpful, he is also getting odd jobs for money as well while he is in uni. Thanks a lot for your post i really hope i wont need that much x.x

[Sierra]

((I'm sorry but plane flights being $2,500? I fly to Germany ALL THE TIME connecting to Italy via Luftansa and the tickets ROUND TRIP around about $800. You need to be diligent about looking, a flight to Europe should NOT cost that much. ((and I'm talking about me flying from San Francisco to Germany and on to either Rome or Verona))))

[kteire]

I use kayak.com to book most of my flights I tend to find the cheapest deals there!
Good luck with saving up! 3k is a big amount to have out of the way

[Haley53]

Ok, maybe I missed something here, but:
What do you want to do in Austria?
Have you checked out the requirements for working visa? Do you need a language certificate? if so, which one? Do you already speak some German?
What does your fiance do? Could he support you while you would be looking for a job?

International moves are expensive and complicated, but if you take it step by step you'll see that it's actually a lot easier than it looks in the beginning.

This.

I agree that the best thing to do is remember to look at this in pieces, step-by-step, as opposed to looking at it all in one hunk and mess of things you're obligated to get done. For example, my current partner and I only recently set a rough timeline of when we hope to have him here on a Work Visa, and when we hope to have him admitted here permanently. We're aiming for 2014 or so for him to come work abroad for a year. That said, I do know that I want to work out a savings account and set aside percentages of my income or whatever I manage to make in that. For me, this is easier than looking at and lining up all the expenses before I even need them. Having a solid and practical action plan, with rough dates/estimations of time (down to year or month), can also help keep things logical, organised, and it can help separate them so, again, you're not looking at them in one big chunk of material.

I think everyone else has covered what I would have, really. Best of luck!

@Gemini - Do you and your parents have to book together? You could always consider booking in advance, and they could book later, when they have the money for the trip. They could likely easily book for same day arrival, and though it might not be for the same time or on the same flight, you could bum around the airport or somewhere outside of it for the length of time it will take them to meet you there. Not sure if they'd go for that suggestion, but I figured I'd toss it out there.

[lucybelle]

When do you plan to get this certificate proving you speak German? Because if you don't speak any right now, it'll take you a good year to learn it. Longer if you're not speaking it with other German speakers every day. It took a year of me living in a Spanish speaking country to learn Spanish and I'm still learning.

I guess I'm not really understanding your plan...

[Dziubka]

A1 is really basic level, though.
You can totally get A1 by just learning from books/tapes/your SO, even if your only so-so talented for languages.
My boyfriend has recently passed B1 (Zertifikat Deutsch) and he paid a little under 100€ for it. I can't imagine that some A1 certificate is more expensive than that :-/

So you won't be able to work, right?

[London-FortCollins]

If your parents want to come with you but say they dont have the money to pay for their flights, why would they expect you to pay for them?

I use skyscanner.net to keep an eye on the cheapest flights. My FI in peak time pays around $1000 for a return trip to London from Denver. Even at $1000 you can then get a budget airline London - Germany for about $100.

Tips like flying on Tuesday or Wednesdays which are cheaper, being flexible with flight times/where you layover etc will all bring the prices down.

As for moving stuff etc thats where you have to be clever. Different people have different tips. Personally for me and FI we're moving stuff over in stages, with me taking an extra suitcase home after each visit filled with his stuff to minimize how much he has to bring. If your doing multiple visits you could do that. I put one suitcase inside the other on the outward bound journey and then I only have to pay for an extra bag on the return flight.

[Onyx]

Greetings everyone.

I'm the so often talked about fiance of Gemini.

After hearing from Gemini that she always found help here I decided I would drop in myself, doesn't hurt to do so afterall.

After reading the topic so far I will answer the questions we had so far...

Both of us have never moved to a different country, thus we work with the bit of information the government actually gives us... which is mostly very spare... and thin...

About the 1500$ for the flight... it usually is cheaper from the US to Europe than it is from Europe to US, which is a sad but very true fact... when mentioning 1500$ she went with the price I had to pay to actually come over to her place... I don't really know yet whether we can get it cheaper than that but I already did my best and prepared a long time before I actually came over to make sure I got the cheapest deal...

Keep in mind that price is bothways!

From what I read so far, for formalities to work it seems it's easier to get things rolling when you have a bothway ticket, just in case something goes wrong it seems.
If someone of you has experience with moving to Austria from the US already, please fill us in on this.

About the german test, A1 german is a requirement to even consider settling in Austria.
With B1 being a requisite to actually settle in permanently. But this is something we will worry about once the initial steps are taken care of and she lives with me.

Also... we figured out that you need to have a certain multiple of the minimum living wage of Austria as a financial backup...
However no matter where I searched it didn't tell anywhere how many multiple it actually requires...

Again, if someone of you knows more than we do please fill us in.

[kteire]

You can definitely get flights cheaper than that It's funny, but I've always found flying from Europe to the US a lot cheaper (my SO and I do that a lot as I live right near northern NY), but I guess maybe it just depends on the airport you're flying out of! But yeah, I still found flights for less than a grand return searching from Palm Springs to Austria, so long as the dates of her flying over can be flexible. I'm a bit confused, does she need a return ticket for immigration purposes or to actually return to the US? If it's just for formalities, try to play around with dates on a return flight and see what the cheapest dates would be.

As far as the requirements for the visa go, I don't have any experience with Austria personally. What your SO can do is contact the Austrian Embassy for help with it. I've generally found embassy staff to be very useful! I just looked it up, here's the contact info for the one in Washington:
Austrian Embassy in Washington, United States
Embassy of Austria in United States
3524 International Court N.W.
Washington D.C. 20008-3027
United States
Tel: (+1) (202) 895 67 00
Fax: (+1) (202) 895 67 50

[Onyx]

@kteire: How the hell did you get it cheaper than 1k$ bothway?
I tried EVERYTHING to get from VIE to PSP and back, I checked a whole year flexible time and the cheapest I could find was 980€... that's a lot more than 1k$.

[kteire]

Use kayak.com - when searching, select "My dates are flexible" and then Flex month - It shows a bunch of flight prices on a calendar, loads under $1000!