When Nicole returned to Bury St Edmunds after six weeks visiting family back home in Utah, she noticed the difference almost immediately, and not just in the cost of living.
“I think it is a much better lifestyle here in almost every way, honestly,” says the 32-year-old, who moved to Suffolk around 18 months ago for her husband Richard’s job in aviation. The family had previously lived in the Netherlands, and last lived in the US in May 2024.
Growing numbers of Americans are making the move across the Atlantic. In the year to March 2025, a record 6,618 Americans applied for British citizenship – almost a third of these came between January and March last year, during the beginning of Donald Trump’s second stint as American president.
While a lower cost of living may not have been a factor in their decisions to move, many of the new arrivals have been pleasantly surprised by how far their money goes, even taking to social media to share their shock.
‘We spend half as much on a weekly food shop’
For Nicole and Richard, 35, and their 12-year-old daughter, the most noticeable savings come in their food shop. The family spends between £70 and £80 a week on groceries, compared to almost $200 (about £150) back in Utah.
“Specifically, bread, fruit and vegetables I find to be very cheap,” she says.
“One thing I have really noticed is feminine hygiene products are 50 per cent less expensive here,” she adds.
Phone bills are lower too. The couple pays around £20 each, or roughly £40 a month, compared with about $120 (£90) in the US.
Nicole finds a lot of her bills are cheaper in the UKLili Paxton, 27, from Portland, Oregon, who moved to London two years ago to study for a master’s degree and now works as a manager in renewable energy, has noticed the same thing, even in the capital.
“I have family that live in New York City and the grocery prices there are just crazy,” she says. In the US, she estimates a single person eating reasonably healthily could easily spend $150 (£112) a week. In London, she can “easily” keep her weekly grocery budget to £50 or less.
“Whenever I go back to the US, I’ll pick up a few items and all of a sudden the total is $85 (£63) and I have no idea how it happened,” she says. “Here I have to make a concerted effort to spend more than £50.”
It is also easier to budget for eating out at restaurants in the UK. In most US states, sales tax and an expected tip of around 20 per cent are added to the menu price.
“London is still expensive – I don’t go out to eat every night. But what I appreciate here is that when I see the price, I know that’s the price in the end, and if I get really good service somewhere, maybe I’ll add 10 or 15 per cent. In the US, I see the price and I know it’s very much the base price. If anything, I factor in another 30 per cent,” Lili adds.
‘Healthcare in the US is expensive – and a bit dehumanising‘
For Lili, the biggest saving is healthcare. International migrants pay an upfront immigration health surcharge to use the NHS, which she says cost her around £1,000 for her student visa and about £2,000 for her two-year graduate visa. While a significant sum, Lili says that it is “nothing compared to what I paid for healthcare in the US”.
Lili’s mother, 63 and self-employed, has a pre-existing health condition, meaning she pays around $1,300 (£960) a month for health insurance while she waits to become eligible for Medicare, the US government scheme for over-65s.
When Lili’s father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the family had to pay $10,000 (£7,477) out of pocket before their employer-sponsored insurance would cover anything.
“It’s expensive,” she sighs. “And it’s a bit dehumanising.”
By contrast, when she developed a blood clot last year, Lili walked into A&E and was out within six hours. “I received excellent care, and I didn’t get a bill. That was amazing and shocking as an American.”
Stagnant salaries and housing costs are the fly in the ointment
Despite noticing significant savings, neither Lili nor Nicole feels substantially richer for having moved to the UK. The median wage in America is roughly $65,000 (£48,574), compared to £39,863 in the UK.
Lili believes she could earn twice as much doing the same job back in the US, though she notes her costs would also be much higher.
“I’ve honestly been really shocked at how little people make here and manage to get by,” she says.
Lili spends a significant portion of her salary on rent, with London rents comparable with those in many large American cities.
The average monthly rent for a property in New York is $3,606, or £2,700, according to online property portal Zillow – in London, it’s roughly the same, according to Rightmove, though it’s worth noting that one-bedroom flats tend to run significantly cheaper in the British capital compared to the Big Apple.
Higher wages in the US give Americans an edge in terms of disposable income when it comes to housing, but not a significant one.
The average American in the private rental sector spends roughly a third of their incomes on rent, according to federal statistics; tenants in England can expect to shell out between 36 per cent and 41 per cent of their incomes, according to ONS figures.
Nicole’s family pays £1,900 a month (about $2,500) for a five-bedroom house in Bury St Edmunds; she says a similar house in Utah would probably cost a little more, but would be far larger, “so it might be comparable”.
Petrol is an exception to Britain’s relative affordability, Nicole notes. “Americans complain that fuel is expensive, but it’s actually not,” she says; in the UK, petrol is roughly double the price per gallon.
Although Nicole says her family feels “significantly” better off overall, she does not find it much easier to save. Instead, she attributes feeling that she gets a better deal here to a way of life that doesn’t revolve around constant driving. In Utah, as with many other American states, public transport is limited to buses, meaning many people drive an hour or more to work.
“Here, you can go to the centre of the town and everything you would ever need is right there,” she says. “In the US, you have to drive to every single place.”
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