25 Questions About Life in the USA

hey guys and welcome to lingual marina channel you've asked me a lot of questions on my Instagram about moving to the United States thank you by the way so much for asking them and this is the time to sit down and answer 25 of your questions about living in the USA so if you're interested if you have thoughts of maybe coming here as well please continue watching this video we're gonna cover different topics we're gonna governor safety we're gonna cover taxes we're gonna cover medical insurance we're gonna cover groceries like everything that is connected to a life here in the u.s. question number one and yes this is one of the most common questions these days is safety in the US and I know what's happening in the world these days is that if something happens somewhere in a distant country then it's gonna flood the news so for example what I see is that Europe for example is flooded by refugees and that you cannot walk safely in Germany but then I come to Germany I come to Munich and it's calm and nice and maybe there are two homeless people you know sleeping by how bahnhof which is like the main train station and then that's it because when people make the news they need to show the worst of what's happening and probably they're like five hundred square meters of Germany where these things are really happening but to just go to Germany it's not like that the same by the United States like something happens and I know shootings happen quite often which is not a good thing but when they happen they're all over the news and when you watch those as you're like oh maybe you know it's super unsafe in the u.s. because it's happening like I don't know once in three months or whatever you can have different additives to that my attitude is always rely on data and actually found a website which is called Atlas and Boots which ranks countries by their safety let's take a look at the map that they have here so the map shows different countries of the world who see that the u.s. is actually orange which is not the safest the safest is green and we see that Canada is the safest Australia is the safest Europe is pretty safe from thus Portugal in Ireland which are like super safe as well and we can also look at the countries ranking the most dangerous country in the world is Afghanistan and Syria then South Sudan and we'll look at like a number 10 which is my home country Russia again come yes to Russia I don't know I feel ok both in the US both and and in Russia and in Germany feel pretty much the same again it depends where you go right there regions in Russia I don't want to go to their regions in the US I don't want to go to but there are also you know places and all the countries where nothing is happening you're like living the most boring life and then if we scroll further down we see that the u.s. actually number 36 out of like 150 something countries and yes if you want to be like super safe place go to Canada it's 158 number 150 but again my thought here is when the airplane crashes you see it all over the news but your chances of getting in an airplane crash I'm really really low because if we look at how many flights are there per day and there are thousands of flights every day and they are all safe you know getting into a car accident has much higher probability and your risk of dying from a heart disease because you eat too much you know unhealthy fats or your risk of dying from like artery diseases because you eat so much sugar those risks are higher than getting on an airplane crash it just depends what is this media that surrounds you I actually stopped watching the news because media does not represent what's actually happening in the world it only represents brightest the scariest events so again it's up to you I wouldn't say that America is the safest place in the world we just saw the data but it depends on your goals while you're coming here the next question is are you shocked by the number of homeless people here in the famine Cisco Los Angeles whatever yes I'm not used to that well I wasn't used to that when I came from Russia and again here it's all about the attitude so I was at this exhibition santa monica los angeles where they had photos from hospitals where they used to keep mentally ill people i don't know how it's all over the world i seen those pictures from like post-soviet countries like similar and yes people i kept in cages they are tied they don't have any freedom they don't get decent food and the conditions are really really bad if i had a relative who had mental health problems i wouldn't him to stay in that facility because if he is capable of living of taking care of himself and the majority of homeless people here even if they're mentally ill they're you know navigating through their lives yes some of them are you know hooked to drugs and stuff but America is a democratic country so people are giving a lot of freedom it's not really up to me to decide what to do with those homeless people I would say I just avoid areas where there too many homeless in my neighborhood where I live I see them from time to time but it's like once a day maybe like in any big city so I would say I'm shocked I know the problem exists I don't know what's the right way to solve it because my goal of coming to the US was not to hide myself from all the homeless people in all the crime there in the world my goal of coming here was to build my own company I'm focused on my goal if your goal is to get away from homeless homelessness crisis to get away from unsafe places go to Switzerland go to Ireland go to Canada go to those other places if that's a real concern but another thing that comes to my mind if you're concerned like about safety or something that is like really psychological like you're really scared maybe talk to a psychiatrist first like maybe talk to a professional when you come to a new place if you have phobias they can evolve into something else right and then in the safest place in the world you would have another phobia and moving to a different place wouldn't really solve your problem so really think about it how where should I start my immigration process a couple of advice here first work on your English language if you're not an English native speaker English is gonna be a huge problem here because nobody here well almost no one here is gonna speak your language you would need to solve a little problems in English you would need a signed documents you would need to know start companies apply for jobs go through interviews like this is the whole process and I'm gonna talk about that a little bit later in this video about things that you would have to do but English is like a must English language never lets you down oh and there are certain things you can do to help your English I would highly recommend my course it's called intermediate to advanced and I've recorded it together with an ESL accredited teacher from Los Angeles so when you go from intermediate to advanced is basically two levels you would have classes every single day during 30 days on that course it's gonna be me teaching it's gonna be vena teaching the pre-recorded classes you also have access to a live stream where you can ask questions and this is a comprehensive course that has everything from grammar vocabulary I talk a lot about pronunciation I talk a lot about you fears of speaking English I talk about how to sound more like a native speaker what phrases you can use how to be more confident like all of those aspects that you really really need when you learn English for immigration purposes for you know work purposes for whatever if the link is below please sign up this is one of our best-selling courses we launched it this year we've had over 3,000 students and the people are so happy with this course the link will be below looking forward to seeing you on that course we also have a special promotion for this course going on right now the prices are as low as 59 dollars per course but we're gonna race them soon so don't miss the chance to reserve your spot with a discount and the next advice for moving in the u.s. let's say you fixed your English let's say you took our intermediate to advanced course and you're like okay so what's the next step the next step is actually figuring out your goal and I know a lot of people are just unhappy in the place where they are and they think that the job is that bad they think that their manager is a bad guy if they don't like people that they're surrounded with and they think that if they move to the US everything is gonna change and yes when you come here you're like amazed by the Sun I was amazed by the sunshine by smiling people by all the opportunities but a year is gonna pass and you're gonna get used to what surrounds you and your problems are gonna come back and that's the worst when you're coming here just because you're running from something again like the same thing as with safety a year will pass and you will be like Oh America is a shitty place I can't find a job here you know everyone is super competitive tired everything is so expensive level but when you're coming here with an exact goal like I came here I want to grow my business internationally and it was Silicon Valley is the best place or I want to grow my YouTube channel and I've already started it in my country you know moving to the s is its new content that I would share you know just have a specific goal and work on it and then you know all the problems that you encountered during your immigration process would have fade away our girl Charisse expensive groceries are pretty expensive and I'm gonna talk a lot about prices in this video but what you shouldn't really do is you shouldn't compare prices in your own country to American prices because the level of income here is completely different and I live in one of the most expensive cities in the u.s. so if you just listen to me and then you come to South Carolina you're gonna find the phrases are a lot lower there so for example how my groceries the routine looks like twice a week I have delivery from instacart and I'm gonna leave a link below so you can also use it if you're in the u.s. really convenient so they deliver groceries groceries have arrived yogurt yogurt cottage cheese sour cream add that oh condensed milk my favorite the sauerkraut sixty dollars is each delivery then once a week I would go to a farmers market to get fresh fruit and vegetables because it's really a different quality I can totally say if a tomato is from a farmer's market or from it even like the best organic shop so there I would normally spend like seventy dollars and I also have a girl who comes in once a week to cook meals for us and we pay her around like seventy dollars for cooking and we'll so go out every single day because yes we have that cooked food we have groceries at home but because we're so busy during the day whenever I feel that something is expensive I just tell myself I need to make more money so and yes we go out every day for two people it's gonna be around fifty dollars per meal so yes it's expensive but I came to the u.s. to you know grow financially and grow as an entrepreneur so for me this is not something that's stopping me no no the next question is is it expensive to rent an apartment in the United States again the same thing as with groceries if you want to rent something that I rent like this place it's around six thousand dollars a month which is again a lot you can rent a room 15 minutes drive from here for like $800 completely different lifestyle but yes you can save a lot of money you can go to New Mexico like it's a whole small town there and rent a couch at somebody's home for $160 so it depends on where you're going really but you can take a look at different websites there is hot beds calm there is Zillow calm and if you're in the States you can just walk around and look at the leasing offices science and just go in and ask how much the rent is cultural aspects in America like do I go to theaters are there a lot of theaters though like performances I come from a country where culture is a big thing like people go to theaters a lot you'll go to museums a lot but I am NOT that kind of person whenever I tell I've never so we have an Oprah house here in San Francisco we have San Francisco Ballet we have a lot of museums and I've been here since 2016 and I haven't done anything like I haven't done a ballet show or like Oprah show I've been to a couple of museums when my mom came here cuz she likes that what I loved I actually like when I come to a perform not even the performances to talk by entrepreneurs then again because I'm this entrepreneurial kind of personality I prefer it more when I come somewhere to hear a successful businessman talk about his experience and have ability to ask questions like conferences so if you want that cultural life of course it's here I wouldn't say us is the place to go for like ballet and Oprah and stuff but yes there are these things and if you want them you can get them beauty industry you know it's concerned for certain girls for example is it expensive it is pretty expensive but again it's not a good idea to compare stuff one country to another two weeks ago I had many cure and pedicure done in LA and I paid $100 for both including tips and it was a really nice place they gave me a massage it was the Roma therapy really nice in San Francisco used to have a girl who would come to my place and do manicure and pedicure at a home for $60 which is also not a lot but she moved to LA and I stopped doing that where did you get the money to move to the US so again I moved here because we got an offer from an accelerator to invest $100,000 into a company and we had some small savings we had like I don't I don't even remember but like maybe $2,000 $3,000 to come here and then our CTO was a third co-founder he had some savings so we survived and it's really survived because Silicon Valley is really expensive so we survived and then we got investment and because we're going through the program we were able to spend some of that investment on renting a small apartment one-bedroom in Mon Vieux get some groceries and stuff again you need to come here with a goal pure coming to study then you would need to either save money or get financial aid if you're coming here to work I would say secure a place before you come here or at least secure interviews so you come here and do your interviews and get an offer if you're coming here to you know start a business we already had experience in business we started in 2011 we started in Russia and when we got some traction we came here in 2015 and we had an offer so it's not like we were just coming you know to spend the last money and to inspire have insurance okay my health insurance costs $600 a month and we paid the same for Dimitri and it doesn't mean that it covers everything because every time I go to see a doctor I pay around fifty five dollars depending on the doctor from 35 to $55 copay and sometimes things happen that my insurance doesn't cover something so I was referred to this procedure in a different hospital I came to that hospital they did a procedure then I ended up paying $700 out-of-pocket just because that hospital was out of network so they're an in-network providers and out of network and you really have to check every single time you go somewhere if the provider is in network and if he's not then you're gonna have some problems paying your bills and the next question it would be like what was the toughest thing about moving to the yes I would say navigating health insurance because I don't know how people do that because I have an assistant who helps me with that like calling my insurance making sure the doctor is in network like asking all the financial questions but it is crazy like seriously there are so many things you need to know ideally you would need to work for a company that has the best insurance in the world like I have Google Facebook whatever like all the tech companies have the best insurance so you don't have to worry if you are like me like entrepreneur you would have to figure out insurance yourself and yes it takes a while and yes it takes a lot of research so yeah health and well but on the other side again yes it's expensive expensive yes it's complicated but I'm so glad I have an opportunity to go to like the best doctor is the best Hospital in the world in this area and it's ten minute drive from from my house so the level if you if you know where you need to go if you know how to find a good specialist you can really find good people here the next question is about bureaucracy like paying for gas paying for utilities and stuff I would say everything is really easy and really automated you know I have this PG&E service every month I just click one button and they deduct payments from my card and we pay around I think $30 a month for like light and gas the rest is taken care off by my building so a trash sewer is included in rent I think it's like $120 so they just deduct everything together and what I like about these Morton buildings is that when something breaks I can just call the reception and they would come in and fix it like change the light bulb you know something you know the vent is dirty or something else happened they just come and fix which is amazing and it saves a lot of time the next questions the next question is whether you can use a PayPass here is yes you can use Apple pay not everywhere but I would say in San Francisco like 80% of places would accept f'l value which is a huge progress because when it came here back in 2015 it was impossible to pay with like pay pass when you just tap your card and the payment goes through you would need to insert your card type in your PIN number and the majority of American banks still don't issue cards with Fay pass which for me is like first loop spend so much time in Europe this is like the last century but I hope that America is getting there at least you can use your phone to pay which is already in progress food in the u.s. whether it's made of plastic okay so again I think I live in a place where you can find anything like gluten-free bread with vegan butter and organic whatever you're looking for organic macadamia nut milk people are crazy about food in California and yes when I came here like first impression oh there's only McDonald's I don't know where to go but I think it's the same for any country when I come to Europe and I don't know where to go I end up going to places which are not really good I would recommend using Yelp which is an app that helps you find a good place to eat based on reviews because I spent several years here I already know what's the best place to go to get meat I know the best farmers markets I know the best places to get my groceries so I think it's the matter of where you shop yes you can go to Walmart or Target and you won't get the best produce but if your goal is to eat healthy it's absolutely possible here in the US a lot of places where you can get different stuff deliveries etc I actually miss American food now when I travel because avocados in California are the best oranges in California are the best I love tomato species like all of that stuff and I feel like I really want to eat I hate talking about food in the videos because like all my all my thoughts I evolving around that peach that I have in the fridge right now do you ever feel like coming back home right now no I love to go there for a couple weeks I love to see my parents help just see my grandparents some you know other people that I communicate with and when I'm in Russia like I really like it I like Europe as well I like traveling but I also feel that when I'm there I don't know what I should do like yes I could film some videos but somehow I feel more inspired in the u.s. I don't know how to explain it and I feel that here in the u.s. I'm surrounded by people who are much more successful than I am and I feel there is a you know space to grow when I'm in Europe I'm surrounded by people who are already happy with their lives there like the work-life balance they start working at 9:00 they finish at 5:00 you know their goal is to live this you know safe happy life which is not my type of personality at least right now and I feel more inspired in the US so definitely not coming back in the near future but you know no you know never say never but what I feel right now is I want to be in this challenging environment and environment that makes me want to grow how much salary is left after paying taxes so taxes salaries taxes in the u.s. are approximately 40% of your salary again depending on how much you're making but if you're making like ten thousand dollars a month did that four thousand out of it and you're roughly left with like six five or six K again depending on where you are what your tax bracket is but you can also be an independent contractor so when you're an independent contractor you only pay there's a self-employed tax and there is like profit tax so what happens to me and my YouTube income I have an S Corp so I have this money coming in from my courses from like product placements that I do but then I can also deduct my expenses like for example I just got a new camera if that you're looking through to its lens I can buy some clothes for my videos like makeup I can hire a cameraman hire an editor this is all deductible from my business revenues if I don't make too much money there are so many things I can deduct and I end up like paying zero tax or again it depends but my advice here is to hire a good CPA who's gonna help you navigate through the tax system well it's not that complicated but there are so many things that would help you save on taxes like some things you can't deduct but if you're working for a big company expect to pay around 40% in taxes ah the next question is advice to marina from 2015 when marina was just moving to the US v my advice this is a really good question what I was saying when it we just moved here I think was spent too much time going to events that didn't really make sense just because we didn't know how to navigate the society we didn't really know what worked and we had this clear goal of growing a company but we also ended up going to a lot of meetups for entrepreneurs and wind it up in those meetups and realized that people who go there they don't really know what they're doing with their lives and they're still like figuring out a new business idea and we spend too much time going there we would go to other places like other cities to attend those events I'd rather we had focused on investor meetings or focused on a product instead of just going to those meetups if we try to make it a more general advice I would say only focus on activities that bring you closer to your goal if you see a lot of opportunities coming and yes there would be a lot of opportunities just you know stay focused and prioritize whatever is important for you how do credit cards work here great question and you know credit history is a huge thing in the u.s. so basically when you come here you can only start building your credit history once you have your social security number and you can get it after you get a legal status here in the US like a work visa or certain visa you can't really get a social security number if you're just a tourist and the social security number is linked to whatever status you have now so what you can do as a tourist you can just start a debit card just to start building a relationship with your new bank when I just got my social security number I went to the Bank of America and I started a secured credit card which means that I put $300 on the card and they gave me $300 credit line which doesn't make sense at all but in this way I was able to start building my credit history the second life hack is that if you have somebody in the u.s. already with good credit history you can ask them to put you as a cosigner on their account so you have access to their funds their credit history transfers to you that worked for me so I did that and also once start some credit lines once they hit two years of age that would really help your credit history because for example I was told by my bank that in September I would be able to apply for a mortgage because I would have several credit lines that are older than two years and I have a good credit history because I was never late with my payments and stuff and you know financing is cheaper here like getting a house you would pay like 5% interest again depends on the terms that you're getting we financed a car so yeah I think it's a great tool to use if you want to buy things that you cannot like fully afford right now or even if you can maybe you can invest money in something better like I would rather invest my money in a new course or like new equipment and then just buy a car and you know and sit with zero cash in my bank account what are the things that I don't like about American people like American traits I say there is there are a couple of things that I wasn't really used to and I'm used to them first is they are really good salespeople and sometimes they just you know tell you that they have this amazing business and they're so successful and they're so great but then you dig deeper they're kind of average and they're just you know they're not lying it's just the way they present their success it seems so big when it's not and the second thing I've met them again it's not about everyone here in the US it's just what I see what I noticed from time to time the second thing is that people promise something and then they never do that like for example I met a couple Marek's would be like oh let's hang out together let's go to see the movie on the weekend yeah like yeah let's do it and for example my culture when I say let's go to a movie on the weekend we really go there we really do that if I say yes in America you say yes and then nothing happens they never call you back it's just you know it's like a social act of just inviting somebody somewhere but never going that I don't know so and this this is something you just have to get used to are you still in touch with your friends back home in the u.s. well the thing is when I moved to the US I didn't really have friends I'm not that kind of person that would have a lot of friends I have some people that I communicate with and yes they're in Russia I met up with one of my friends in Italy this summer and of my friends are travelling all the time so I am in touch with them so I would say if you are interested in keeping the relationship if you are similar if those people are travelling yes absolutely you can maintain your relationship if it was just like kind of this friendship where you just go out with someone just because you have nothing to do and I have those kind of well I didn't really have them back in saint-petersburg because I didn't really have time to go out but those kinds of friendships I wouldn't even call them friendships but they don't survive I think to my to my opinion right I think because it wasn't really based on common interest it was just based on you know you having nothing to do on a Saturday night unexpected expenses unexpected expenses include medical bills they include insurances like car insurance if you would need to get it deposits like if you're renting an apartment that would be like $1000 whatever it depends on the apartment thousand dollar deposit or two thousand dollar deposit so deposits and you know fines in the first months of our lives here we got several huge fines first was for wrong parking was $80 and second one was oh my god that we were towed away our car was towed away and we paid $600 to get it back recommend the bank for newcomers on a tourist visa I would recommend the Bank of America because they have the secured credit card the second make I would recommend is chase my favorite bank they have amazing credit cards that where you can accumulate miles and then fly business class for like $80 because you have so many miles so I use Chase for my businesses and for my personal credit cards these days mobile phones again if we compare it to any other country I think communication is expensive here well I have this crazy plan that is international as well so whenever I travel outside the United States my phone is working which is very crucial for me because a couple years ago I went to Europe and my phone stopped working and I lost access to banks and because I managed finance all the companies that was the best idea so now my phone works whatever I travel and I pay around 80 to 90 dollars a month and it's unlimited but whenever I'm abroad I paid 10 extra dollars a day to have this unlimited access to data and Cowles etc you can save mine so my provider is AT&T but you can also save a lot of money by doing cheaper plans like when we just came here I got t-mobile it was I think it was $5 a month something like that very cheap and then included maybe like 20 minutes 20 texts and then every week I paid maybe like 399 I don't remember for like the basic data usage plan so I could have access to internet so I would say minimum would be like $25 a month how do you find friends when you move to the US this is a very easy question to answer because if you're moving here for a goal again you don't need a lot of friends you would need a couple and if you're moving here to build a company than you know meet other entrepreneurs if you're coming here to look for a job go to meetups where they teach you how to build your resume or maybe attend of course the class where they teach you your professional skills like what you're interested in build relationships where your interest lies and I think these are the best relationships did you visit the US when you move there why San Francisco Silicon Valley yes I actually visited the United States in 2013 and this is when I fell in love with the country and decided to move here because I was just excited about all the entrepreneurial spirit that was surrounding me and the sunshine and happy people and why Silicon Valley just because we got investment and I got accepted to the University of Florida and if we didn't get investment I would have gone to wasn't ma'am it was Gainesville in Florida but because we've got investment it was in Silicon Valley the program took place here and then we just just decided to stay cuz it's the best place to run a business okay and the last but not the least cars cars and insurances you cannot survive in the US without a car if you live in a smaller place like New York is fine without a car San Francisco 5050 we used to live here without a car but when we have it now it's a lot easier in Los Angeles is impossible without a car Chicago is okay without a car so depends on where you're going you can get a cheap car for like two thousand dollars the first car I was twenty five hundred dollars insurance depends on where you're coming from your experience I think our first insurance was $60 a month now we pay $170 a month for a Porsche Cayenne and this insurance covers everything it has a $250 deductible but for example our car was in a parking lot and somebody scratched it so they had to color the bumper and they had to replace one of the lights and the bill was nineteen hundred dollars and we only paid 250 and insurance covered everything and also provided us with a vehicle for the time when it was repaired so I think it's a great deal because again if we go back to Russia where I'm from it would be a lot more expensive that was it for me guys thank you guys so much for asking those questions don't forget to follow me on Instagram lingua marina and don't forget to sign up for our intensive course intermediate-to-advanced in 30 days the link is below I'm looking forward to seeing you there and I'm looking for to teaching you more English very soon bye bye

Channel: linguamarina

Views: 102,758

Rating: 4.9224377 out of 5

Keywords: english, english language, learn english, linguamarina, marina mogilko, linguatrip, english bro, life in the usa, study in the usa, American life, life in America, moving abroad, moving in the usa, usa salaries, us food, safety usa, Donald trump, trump, homeless in sf, San Francisco, SF life, immigration to the usa, American culture, health insurance usa, taxes in the us, americans, buying a car in the us

Id: wVBqiZgDTcM

Length: 32min 52sec (1972 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 06 2019