Category: Life

LA, SF, and NYC are probably the most expensive cities in the US. When you are considering to move to these cities you should be aware about the cost of living. Below is my current list

• lease (2 bedroom apartment including utilities) – $2,000
• food (I don’t cook often) – $1,000
• gas – $150
• car insurance – $50
• cell phone plan – $40
• other expenese (gym + some shopping) – $300

Total approximately: $3,540

I bought the used car with cash so I don’t have to pay monthly lease or rent but if I would pay for car financing my expenses would increase to $4,000 per month. We are still talking about I don’t spend for any uselessness. On the other hand, if you would really need to keep expenses below I believe you could share an apartment and pay probably around $1,000 and also maybe cut your food expenses to $500 so let’s say minimum expenses here could be like $2,000 per month. It is not life you would like to live here though.

My little advice for all non-native speakers is pretty simple!

Learn English First! – Before you start the first business in the US.

Of Course, you don’t have to be perfect and fluent but you should be able to communicate and more importantly understand. It will also help you be more confident in business. Look at me I am not perfect, my grammar is probably bad and sometimes it’s still hard to express myself but honestly, I feel already comfortable to run business.

Do you need motivation? Here it goes 🙂

It is almost 4 years since I visited the US for the first time. I was 24 years old and honestly thought that I had pretty good basics of English. I remember how I was preparing in Europe every day for almost 2 months before I went to NYC.

After arrival at JFK, it was a big shock for me. I went to some grocery store and I didn’t understand anything that was cashier telling me.

The second day I was on my way to the nearest T-Mobile store in order to buy my first US number. I spent there a really long time and with big problems, I got my first SIM with US number!

After 1 week when I was really frustrated about my ability to understand, one of my friends recommends me to visit an English school in Manhattan. For the next 2 months, I had been attending this school from Monday to Thursday for 4 hours every day. Later when I was leaving NYC I was able to understand and more importantly talk to someone else!

I studied in this school: https://www.learnenglish.com/

I would highly recommend to anyone who still struggles with English don’t be shy and join some English classes and try to talk to Americans every day. Just use every opportunity to be in touch with English. People don’t care if you are not perfect, they will help you when they see your effort to speak!

In my time in Canada, I was a student in this school

After one year in Toronto, I was able to incorporate my own company, find a bank and open bank account, call to IRS and obtain EIN. Why am I writing this? It’s annoying but everything takes some time but in my example, you can see improvement. First time in the US I almost did not understand. Today I write the blog in English!

What else helped me? Reading books in English! What I would recommend: Start with some easy book or the best way is to read about some topic you really like it! For instance, I like Arnold so I chose his bio. However, you can read whatever you like!