Ep 01: Coming to America: How We Get Here
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A light-hearted episode, of the “International Money Café Podcast". Listen in as Manasa Nadig, EA, and Jane Mepham, CFP® describe their incredible journeys to the U.S. from different continents.
They discuss why they chose to move thousands of miles from their homes to a new land and become foreign nationals on different immigrant and non-immigrant visas, the initial challenges they faced (snow anyone?), things they found stressful, as well as some of the delights of being able to look at old ideas through new lenses.
Learn how they have adapted, and the financial, tax, and life lessons they have for all foreign-born families arriving in the U.S. for the first time.
The views and opinions are those of the speakers, and should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice. Consult your advisor for any legal, cross-border tax, and financial advice.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the International Money Cafe podcast, the show where we filter out the noise on cross-border taxes, finances, and life in the us. I'm your host, Jen Metham, CFP.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm your host, ADE pa. Join us on this journey as we explore these unique challenges facing us, inbound outbound families and businesses onto the show.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Friends, welcome to another episode of the International Money Cafe podcast. So Manasa and I have been having really interesting conversations and Manasa last night I watched the movie Coming to America where Eddie Murphy comes to America from Africa, and the one thing I kept thinking is I'm not from that part of Africa where Eddie Murphy comes from. But anyway, that's besides the point. And so I thought it would be really interesting if today we could talk about our journeys to America. I'm really keen to hear your story, man, would you say?
Stories of Moving to America
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Oh yeah, my story is definitely not the same as Eddie Murphy's in that movie. So yeah, I know it's always interesting to hear about different immigrants, foreign born nationals who came to the US and what their story was. And definitely the background behind our move to the US was my husband got a postdoctoral fellowship in Baltimore, Maryland, and just before that we had recently got married, so he was going to come here and I joined him a little bit after and that's how we started our life together in the US as a newly married couple. And it was sort of a honeymoon slash I love it. You are migrating to a new country slash getting to know each other. So there was a whole, yeah, there's a whole lot of new experiences, not just one. So it was interesting. What about you, Jane?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
I have to say that's a great story of starting life together where you're moving to a new place. Mine was a little different than that. So I grew up in Kenya. I went to school there all the way through high school in and I was really keen on traveling and I'd seen my dad travel quite a bit and I remember I used to do some things around, and so I used to kind of travel a little bit. And at one point I thought, you know what? I think I want to pursue the American dream that everybody talks about. And that's how I ended up, my whole family helped me, but getting on a plane with a one-way ticket on an F1 visa, and I went to school up in Boston and the thing I remember is it was very, very different to say the least, from where I was coming from.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And I came in as an F1 student, which is probably why I am really passionate about talking to students on F1 visas. So arrived, went to school, obviously it's a multi-year journey and I'm happy to talk a little bit about it. And at some point I ended up getting on a work visa in here. We are obviously lots and lots in there, but it's the very specific things that I remember. So for example, the people that I met as Ike mean and some of those people have really made a huge impact on my life and I'm still in touch with some of them, but it's almost like, as you say, having a brand new canvasing and really trying to figure out how do I make it in this new place? How do I figure out, we spoke English, which is good, but it sounded different.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Let's just put it that way from the way everybody else spoke. I had to get used to the food also tasted different. And that's all I'm going to say. The money was completely different, the financial system was different. And so it really was a journey in starting to figure out my new way of life. But the one thing I knew, and this is what I like to call the immigrant mindset, is we are here, we are going to make it. We've come so far, there's no way we are turning back. So I'm curious, can you think of your early days, any things that stick out to you? Any stories?
First Years in America
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yes, yes, of course. I have so many vivid memories of my first few years in America.
Cultural Differences
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So just like you said with there's so many cultural differences. My husband and I, we came from India, and you're right, we speak English. The English that we speak in India of course has a British influence. So the syntax and the grammar, everything was different. And when I came here, obviously in the beginning I followed my husband. So really I was following his American dream of coming to the us. True, yes. But when you come here and it so happens with a lot of other women who come to the US and then they are on dependent visas. I was on a J two visa, my husband was on J one, which is usually given to researchers and students and so on. So it was interesting, the J two visa had an ability to where you could go and you could work. So that write off the bag gave me the freedom to go out and find a job. So it was definitely an advantage. And that opened up a lot of different experiences for me.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Of course, food, the culture and all of that is you read about what it's like and you have seen movies to your point earlier about this particular movie about Eddie Murphy. But of course, I mean then you do land here, it's not the same thing. It's totally different. And what your individual experiences is completely new and it's nice. And one specific thing that I remembered, and you know what though, we must tell our listeners this, it's kind of poignant that we were talking about this earlier, right? We are recording this episode on July 4th, which is, so yeah, I landed in mid-June in Maryland and it was kind of a muggy afternoon and all of these images that I had in my head from movies and reading and all of that was like America was snow, it was cold. There were people in long fur coats and things like that. And then here I was, and the weather was exactly the same as where I had come from. There was thunder and lightning and there was rain. But yeah, that's one thing that really sticks out in my memory. So yeah,
Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's interesting you talk about when you landed. So because I was going to school, I had to follow the school calendar. So I got here, I think it was around probably August, around August 15th I remember. And school was starting in two weeks time. And again, you have these very vivid ideas and things of what you've seen and you come in with expecting to see things play out. You have your own ideas, let's just put it that way. And I think the thing I realized is once I got here, I landed in Boston. At that time, the weather was fine. The people were very, very different. Again, I'm coming into a situation where I've grown up in a completely different culture. So my values are already set, the way I think about things is already set, but I also have this huge hunger to learn more. And again, I'm looking at this, this is my one shot at making it in life. This is my opportunity to pursue the American dream. So I'm coming in with all these ideas, but also very, very determined. And the thing I realized, oh, I learned almost right away, as long as you're very determined and you're willing to talk to people, you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone to ask questions.
Advice on Coming to America
Speaker 1 (09:43):
You do get help. So when I look back and people say to me, what are the three things or what are some of the things you'd advise, for example, somebody coming in on a student visa to do so, the first thing I say to them is learn everything you can about the student visa.
Learn Everything You Can About the Student Visa
So there's obviously very specific requirements you need to stay in status. You can't work without special permission, but you can pursue the O-P-T-O-P-T send, that kind of thing. So that's the first thing I say to Fox, learn everything you can about this visa. And the same thing I say to advisors, if you are working with people that are on any visa, whatever that visa is, make sure you know everything about that visa. What can they do? What can they not do? And then secondly, I say, I know it's really, really comforting to want to be around people that once speak your language and where you make a joke and they get it right away.
Step Out of Your Bubble
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And all these jokes will sometimes tell that sounds so much better when spoken in your home language. But despite all that and despite all that comfort, I say to folks, please try and get out of that little bubble and move into the community and try and integrate and get to know people around you. Because the thing I realized is as a people, we are always very afraid of what we don't know. And so one way to make sure the people that are around you, the community know you, is by you going out and getting out into the community. Again, it's very comforting to be in your own bubble and it's okay and it's fine and we should do it, but you really should try and move out into the community, learn how they do things. You start to pick up on how people think, and some of it you just have to observe the culture, the way people interact with each other. And that way you do actually have a chance to succeed regardless of whatever is that you are wrong. So when you look back
Speaker 3 (11:52):
On
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Your alley life and you had to go back to you've just arrived, what would you tell your younger self in terms of the visa and just getting on and getting used to the American life?
Get out of Your Comfort Zone
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Oh, there's so much I can tell my younger self, sure what I should have done and I should have not done. But when I think back, really you're right. It is very important to get out of your comfort zone and go out and talk to people, which is one is that gives you an opportunity to get out. And what I found
Speaker 2 (12:43):
As a personal anecdote is when I realized that I had come here, what do I do next? I had the opportunity to have a work visa. The first thing I did was go to the nearest university and go to the library and say, Hey, I speak to the library over there. And I asked her, I said, I've just arrived here and what are my options? What can I do? She suggested, and this was just totally new to me at that time, she suggested, why don't you volunteer here in the library? Just volunteer for a few days a week and a few hours a week, sorry. And see what explore, talk to people, take the time to find out what you would like to learn more about and what's a better place than to learn about things and read up stuff than the library. And so that was something that really opened up my mind.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
But just to give you a quick background, of course, like I said, my husband and I are from India. When I was growing up in India, I lived in a lot of different places Growing up within India, my father had this job where we moved from one place to another. And so I already had this kind of mindset where I would be thrust into new situations and new cities and new friends and new people every so often. So that was something that I think it was a mindset that was already inculcated in me growing up. So for me, just going out and talking to new people and making sure that I was understood, even though I knew that my English sounded different a little bit, but not so much. I felt, especially because we lived in a university town at that time and people over there used to having students come from many different countries. So that was of course one thing that I did was to go out and volunteer. And once I got out and started talking to people and getting these different information from what I could do, I realized that this, like I said, a J two visa was the one where you could work. So it opened up opportunities for me. I applied for a job and I did start working. Did I answer your question?
Look at Opportunities Around You
Speaker 1 (15:36):
You did. It's going back. The person that you spoke to at the library told you to volunteer and you did. And that really gave you opportunities to explore other areas. But it sounds like you already had the mindset. So if you had to go back, you'd say keep that same mindset, be willing to explore and be willing to look at all the opportunities around you. So I keep thinking one of the questions I also hear, to your point, people will come in and say, how do you move from your family thousands of miles and come into a new place? And they try and look at it through their eyes and they'll be like, I don't think I can ever do this. I don't know how you do it. How do you answer that question?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, that is always very difficult. Getting out of your comfort zone is one thing. Moving to another country is really, really getting out of your comfort zone. But that is a huge step. There will be, I was homesick, I have to confess. And I think that back then international phone calls were very expensive and it is different now. Communication is almost free. It's almost taken for granted. It's not a big deal to open up your WhatsApp or your FaceTime and you can talk to your parents and your family back home. But the important thing is once you are out of your comfort zone, is to have a goal of what you need to achieve in the next few years.
Have a Plan
Really going back to your question about what I would tell my younger self, I think that's what I would tell my younger self is have a plan. Of course this plan is going to be affected by other things. It'll be affected by your visa status about the kind of employment that you might get and whether you get married, who you get married to or you choose not to marry or you choose to go back to your country in a few years. These are all options that are open now of course, but it is important to have a goal to know where you are going and work towards that. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, so the first thing I say to folks is it's hard and I'll be the first one to acknowledge it's hard your living family.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I agree. I agree to your
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Point, initially at that point, we didn't even know when we'd see them again. So yeah, it is hard. There's no doubt about it. And so when I talk to people, I say, yes, it's hard and it's going to be hard. So the question is how do we manage that with what we are trying to achieve? And so I go back to my parents sent me to the us, they made all the sacrifices that they did. My whole village helped to send me to the US because they had a vision. They knew if I came to the US I'll be able to pursue my higher education, be able to get a great job and really have a great life for my kids. And so I keep that in mind. And when I started out, like I said, I learned everything I could about the F1 visa and I learned what I needed to do to stay in the country, which was to get the H one B and then get the green card.
Stay Focused on Your Goals
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And I focused. And when I say focus, I mean I drew up a plan that would allow me to get to the end point as fast as possible. So for example, with the F1 visa thing, I ended up finding, I was able to connect with this professor who became my advisor, and I had to go to school to ask for a different advisor. By the way, the first one they gave me, we just didn't do too well together. So I said, I need somebody that will believe in my dream of I want to complete this program in as short as a time as possible. And so they connected me to this computer science professor, God bless her. And when I told her what I wanted to achieve, she looked at me and said, if you're willing to act Jane, we can do it. It meant drawing up a two or three year program where I'll be able to take so many classes and be able to do some practicals in there and that sort of thing. And the fact that she believed in me convinced me it's doable. It's the thing I like to talk about and I call it my prime directive from static. What is that one thing that you're going to pursue and pursue with everything that you have and not let anything else come in the way? And for me, those first couple years was I need to get this degree done. I need to get my OPT,
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Need to get a company that's going to look at me and look at other students knowing I need the H one B visa and hire me and then be willing to get me my green card. It was that simple to me and that straight. And so with that framework to, it's easy to start moving forward saying, I know I'm going to miss my family. I know it's going to be hard, but this is the goal that I want to achieve. And so as long as you're working towards that goal, I find it gets a little bit easier knowing you have something that you want to achieve. And what I say to folks, it's only for a short period of time, focus, focus, focus, give you H one B, get whatever else that you need, and then you be free to move around and do whatever you need. So I think the focus, we miss the families. It's tough. We focus on our
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Dream
Be Patient
Speaker 1 (21:45):
And then be very, very patient for sure. The other thing,
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Tell me,
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Sorry, I was going to add around the focus on, so there's a focus, there's a focusing on the dream and going after it. And then the patients, sorry, the other thing I was going to throw out is there's so many opportunities in this country, but you have to be willing to see them. Okay, back to you.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
No, I totally agree with that. And the opportunities are available or you find out about the opportunities that are available to you. If you go out and you meet people, you talk to them, you're willing to, again, coming back to square one is getting out of your comfort zone a little bit. And especially for those like me who either came here because their spouse moved here first, or there are other reasons why you've come to the us. You may not be a student or a spouse, office student or a researcher or a H one B worker, but the important thing is to get out of your comfort zone to go out there, meet people, talk to them. Most people are really friendly, I find, and yeah, and I'm willing to help you. So that's what I agree with you. But just moving things a little to a different topic. Now, I'm interested that you came here, you were on an F1 visa and you studied computer science, but then tell us how did you become a certified financial planner? Well, because that's
Speaker 1 (23:47):
How we
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Met,
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Right? That is true. And this is probably going to be another episode, so I'm going to give you the very high level version of it, of course. So
401k and the American Dream
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I come in, you're right, I get my H one B visa and this company hires me, and it was great. And the HR person says to me, Hey, Jane, here's this thing that you need to use to save for your future. And I'm like, and what is this thing? It's called a 401k, and it's how you build your American dream. And I sat there frozen literally because I had no idea what a 401k is. But secondly, she just said to me, this is your key to the American dream. This is the thing that I've been pursuing and I've no idea what to do with it. And I looked at it and I asked around, and I could not get anybody to tell me. They could maybe show me how to open it, but nobody could tell me how to choose, what investments to go into, what investments I could even go into, how much to put in, and really as an F1, as an H one B visa holder, what I could invest in or not.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And walking away from that, it was this huge weight of I've come so far, I'm so close, but I think I'm just about to lose it. And really that's what prompted me to say, I'm going to learn everything I can about the US financial system, so the next person in my situation gets this opportunity. They'll know exactly what to do. And really that's what has led me to being, I like to describe myself as the guide that I wish that I had had. And so of course from there it is, many years I had to stay on the H one B visa, get the green card, and then become a citizen before I could make the pivot. But once I did, and I used to live in Boston, and then it got too cold up there, so we moved to Austin, I found myself a couple of years ago saying, what is it that I want to do when I grow up?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
And I realized when I started on that whole 401k story, I pretty much read everything I could on personal finance. I subscribed to Money Magazine, I got all the Dave Ramsey books, I got all the Susie Orman, pretty much every personal finance book that you can think of. And I actually started teaching personal finance classes at my church and talking to different people about it. And so when I finally had the opportunity, it hit me. People are coming to me to ask questions on what to do. And these were not just America. I mean these were not foreign born families. Were American citizens asking me, how do we go about this? And of course, in a minute, any chance I would get out, talk and talk and talk and talk about money. So yeah, a few years ago I made the pivot. I went back to school, I decided to quit the whole tech career, which I really enjoy, don't get me wrong, but really
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Be
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Able to make the shift to help those who would've been in my situation a couple of years ago, did my CFP. And we can talk about that maybe in a next episode, and ended up getting satisfied and ended up starting the firm. Elgon Financial Advisors is the kind of firm that I'd have wanted to have or to work with because I'm very niched on niche depending on where you went to school. And I wanted a firm that we only work with foreign born families. And so this is how we end up here today. Again, I'm happy to, I think we should do a whole episode on that side of things. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, that'll be interesting. Yes.
J-1 Visa to Owning a Business
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah. Give us a overview of how you go from J one to owning your own business. Doing taxes for foreign born families.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I know seems like a daunting journey, but it happened. So yeah, I was on a J two visa and working, and then the big 2000 pivot happened, right? People, the IT world was going nuts about things. Yeah, the Y 2K and I guess we date ourselves, but you know what? Yeah, it's fine. So the Y 2K pivot was happening and everybody around me was getting on the IT wagon bandwagon, but my educational background back in India was, my bachelor's was in accounting and business. So I already studied a lot of accounting, business strategy, economics law, and that was my background. And that was something that, of course, I didn't want to be an accountant when I was a little girl, but that at what I had chosen as my career back then. And I had been working on my training to be a chartered accountant, which is similar to A CPA in the us.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
And so when I came here and I saw that I had this opportunity to go out and work and all our ducks were now lined up where I could go out and work, and I thought it a lot and I decided that accounting was something that I wanted to keep pursuing and I didn't want to move away from it. Although of course you need to be tech savvy to learn a lot of things. Everything has that competent, which I did get a lot of training on, but I stuck to this and I started working for one of the big box firms back in the day, and I realized that though, let me backtrack a little bit. Similar to your story though. When you said that you were reading up on finance and money and there were a lot of people who were coming to you with questions about what is this and how you were able to help them out because you had read and you had more knowledge and you knew how to help another person who had come from another country navigate some of this retirement questions and other questions.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Similarly, when my husband and I, we were initially having to file our taxes, we were on, like I said, we were on a J Visa. So a J Visa, if you are from India, has special tax treaty competence and the way you file a return based on your social security taxes and income taxes, et cetera, is different. So when I looked at that, I had to do a bit of reading and remember it was volunteering at the library. So I had material that I could go to, and I started reading up on tax readies, and I realized that there was a lot of nuances to tax filing, and I filed our own taxes, and there were other people who were F1 visa holders around us because we were in a university town and they had all these questions that I somehow, because I was reading upon all of these different things I had answers to, and I could help them.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And I say, Paul, you know what? You should do this. These are tax deductions that are available to you and you can, there is this thing that you, because you are from this country, this tax treaty, this article will apply to you. So move fast forward a few years when I had to then make a decision about whether I wanted to stay in this field, in this accounting tax field or maybe jump the bandwagon and go into IT tech where it seemed like there was a lot of jobs back then, which is different now, but it was Y 2K. So I said we had a family discussion and we thought I should stick with what I like to do and what I've already spent all these years gathering my knowledge about. And I started working, I started working with different CPAs, and then I started working with this one CPA who said, you're spraying yourself too thin. And yes, like you said, we can have a whole episode on this, but I think we should.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
She said, you're spreading yourself too thin. You should focus on starting your own practice and using that to help other people in this niche, because I by then had all this experience working with foreign-born nationals or US citizens who were naturalized citizens who had assets in different countries and things like that. So I got my enrolled agent license, which is a license from the Internal Revenue Service rather stringent three part exam that you have to pass. And I put up my own shingle and I got into business. I did get a lot of help from the CPA who I was working with at that time. She mentored me and she really supported me. Yes. So yeah, that's my story. Jane.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
So what I love through this story, you starting your farm, me starting my farm is we saw, first of all, we had those challenges and then we knew there was a need because we realized a lot of people had the same challenges and they really had nobody to go to or they couldn't figure it out. And as we keep saying, you can read a bunch of stuff on Google, for example, but to figure out how that applies to you. So for example, I'm from this country, this is the tax treaty that applies in my situation. That's the challenge. And that's where, when I think about financial planning, we talk about it being customized, but it really is a challenge. So you have all that, and then we have all these people that we talk to, and it's really been a journey, and they all led us to where we are today, having our coffee and having a chat.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
So it'll be interesting, I think at some point to talk about all the people that we've met on our journey and how each of them has impacted us and how each of them has led us closer to our dream, which I feel like we are living out today. We started out different fields, but here we are enjoying, we love and helping people, which is so huge. So yeah, I'm excited about coming back to some of that. And so is there anything else you'd like to add in closing? I know there's still more we can talk about, but anything else you want to add to this?
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Not really. I would definitely, I agree with you. It's been a challenging journey when you go back and you look at it, entrepreneurship has sort of this glamor around it, this aura around this. But what people don't realize is behind the scenes, it's a lot of really, really hard work, especially if you are in a professional kind of capacity such as you and I where we spend a lot of time taking on continuing professional education and things like that. But coming to America, I would definitely like to think that this was an opportunity that kind of, for me, like I said, came by through my husband. But I'm glad that I'm here and I just love having my practice. And to your point about helping others in this niche because there's so much information out there. And yeah, we are on a podcast talking to people, which may sound counterintuitive, but it is important to work with professionals and I am so glad that you and I are in this space and we are helping people, foreign born nationals and people with the requirement to have all this information and we provide them reliable information.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, I have to agree with you. It's been a journey I enjoyed and I think what I'm going to say we have more to talk about. But in the meantime, if you know of anybody that would appreciate hearing this, please share the podcast with them. This is the International Money Cafe podcast, and you can find us on all the major sites where you listen to your podcast. So until next time, this is Jane and Monica
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Here. Bye
Speaker 4 (37:47):
Bye. Thank you for listening to the International Money Cafe podcast. The content is for informational and educational purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for professional advice. Seek the advice of your qualified service provider with any questions you may have regarding your cross border finances and tax needs.