Advice needed URGENTLY!! (PLEASE)

[Mick304824]

Hello everyone,

I am new to this forum, so guess the best place to start is here!!I have come here for some serious advice. I have been talking to my love Diana on the internet for over 2 years, and went to Cebu to meet her in February/March this year. Whilst there, we got engaged and confirmed our love for one another.

My problem is, I want to bring her to UK to live together, but as things stand I am NOT working at the moment. I have read the guidelines saying that I must produce 6 months payslips, 6 months bank statments and either own my own home or live in rented accomodation with tenancy agreement etc. At the moment therefore, I cannot bring her here, but intend to get back into work, so that I CAN start the process. Working on the guidelines that I have to prove I can support her without the use of government funds etc, I need help....

Advice I need is as follows..........

1) How much MINIMUM would I need to earn to show that I can readily support her.? I obviously have rent and bills to pay, but assuming I can keep these expenses to a minimum, and not "waste" any money, what amount would they consider acceptable to bring her here?
2) Would it be of benefit for me to go back to Philippines to marry her there? What would be the advantages/disadvantages?
3) I sent Diana some money to pay for her visa application etc, plus another £3000 on top. I have asked her to look after this to support the application as and when the time comes, because I don't want to fritter the money away here, which I might do if it was in MY account. Would this be enough money to suppoprt the application

I am thinking that as i am not really skilled in any particular field of work, that the average amount of money I am likely to earn is going to be approx £240-260 after tax, although I am looking for work that involves looooooooooong hours, such as security, where I might earn more. With rent, electric, phone, food and other minimal bills totalling about £200, I could "on paper" show that I have £40 per week to support Diana. Bearing in mind, all other costs will be the same other than food, and her clothing etc, I feel this COULD be enough to support her. What are your views on this please??

As I said, we met in Feb for first time and have 500 pics and movies of our meeting. We also talk on skype and watch one another sleep every day for 16 hours or more, and have plenty of chat history. We call one another too if we're ever apart, so there is no doubting our love. We do intend to marry, but don't know whether UK or Philippines would be best..... Thanx in advance for anyone's help. Please feel free to email me on [EMAIL REMOVED: PLEASE DONT POST YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS ON FORUM] Thanx again

Bye and nice meeting you all

[joebloggs]

hi- (keith you didnt ban me )

1) i don't think there is a minimum salary you would need, but the only figure that i can ever remember seeing to support your wife is the minimum figure that she would get if she could claim income support/unemployment benefit. but obvious the less you get paid, the more chance of her needing 'recourse to public funds', i was made redundant about 6 years ago, as i was just going to apply for a spouse visa, and i took the first job i was offered and that was only 15k a year . but like you said, it depends on your out goings. also remember once your wife has a 2 yr spouse visa, she can work here straight away. and the £40 a week you mention is less than income support.

2) benefits of marrying in the philippines is cheaper, my wedding cost about £2000, not counting air tickets. but that was 5 years ago. , depends if any of your family is going with you. also if you marry in pinoyland, you can get a 2 yr spouse visa and as ive said she can look for a job stragiht away here, i cannot remeber if you can on a fiancee visa ???.

3) get your money back, you need the money more than her, its you who will be supporting her, not her supporting you.. . thats the kinda minimum figure you should have in your bank, when you apply for a visa.

get your 3k back before she spends it , put it in either a savings account or current account, find a job, start saving, your prob best putting it in a current account with your wages, so by the time you've paid your bills etc, you should still have about 3k left every month in it, instead of the £40 or so that you say you could only save.

you need to prove 3 things to get a visa

1) finances.
2) accommodation
3) a relationship

good luck thou,

[Peanutz]

She can't work on a fiancè visa, she have to switch it once they get married and then she will be granted a provisional spouse visa valid for two years which she is allowed to work and at the end of that two years she can apply for ILR if the marriage still exists.

Your situation looks tough, but when there is a will there is a way...Goodluck!!!

[aromulus]

hi- (keith you didnt ban me )

1) i don't think there is a minimum salary you would need, but the only figure that i can ever remember seeing to support your wife is the minimum figure that she would get if she could claim income support/unemployment benefit. but obvious the less you get paid, the more chance of her needing 'recourse to public funds', i was made redundant about 6 years ago, as i was just going to apply for a spouse visa, and i took the first job i was offered and that was only 15k a year . but like you said, it depends on your out goings. also remember once your wife has a 2 yr spouse visa, she can work here straight away. and the £40 a week you mention is less than income support.

2) benefits of marrying in the philippines is cheaper, my wedding cost about £2000, not counting air tickets. but that was 5 years ago. , depends if any of your family is going with you. also if you marry in pinoyland, you can get a 2 yr spouse visa and as ive said she can look for a job stragiht away here, i cannot remeber if you can on a fiancee visa ???.

3) get your money back, you need the money more than her, its you who will be supporting her, not her supporting you.. . thats the kinda minimum figure you should have in your bank, when you apply for a visa.

get your 3k back before she spends it , put it in either a savings account or current account, find a job, start saving, your prob best putting it in a current account with your wages, so by the time you've paid your bills etc, you should still have about 3k left every month in it, instead of the £40 or so that you say you could only save.

you need to prove 3 things to get a visa

1) finances.
2) accommodation
3) a relationship

good luck thou,

I must agree with Joebloggs, especially on getting the money back. Definitively on getting the money back. I don't want to seem pessimistic, but, by now, quite a bit of it will have been spent. I dearly hope not.
But trying to get the money back will pose a couple of problems, I think.

1- I don't think that she will be allowed to send all that cash out of Phil.

2- Face... If you ask for the money back, she might think that you are not interested in her anymore ... No matter how you sweeten the pill.

I sincerely hope that you will be able to get it back, because as Joe said, you will need it in your bank to prove means of support. You can always arrange for a monthly allowance to be sent.
Before I got married last February, I used to send £50/70, now it is £100/130.

Getting married there, would be the better option, and also cheaper. A hell of a lot cheaper. Besides, family and friends would be there, and for a lot of pinays, it is matter of pride.
Kind of "show off her white guy"....
I know for a fact, that what I paid for my wedding there, would not have paid for the wedding car over here....

I wish you all the best of luck.

(no joe, you didn't get banned, maybe Keith has a soft spot for you after all... the cess pit at the bottom of the garden...?)

[joebloggs]

the ban me bit is a joke, as i'm going , he knows why


best thing for him is to get a job, get the money back, show he has money in his current account, and for the next 6 months, save his pay slips and bank statements. and every penny he has, to show he has a steady or increasing balance over the next 6 months, even thou i hate banks, i would even go as far as to pay some of the bills by credit card, so keeping the cash in you current account, when hes got the visa pay the cred card off.

[aromulus]

the ban me bit is a joke, as i'm going , he knows why


best thing for him is to get a job, get the money back, show he has money in his current account, and for the next 6 months, save his pay slips and bank statements. and every penny he has, to show he has a steady or increasing balance over the next 6 months, even thou i hate banks, i would even go as far as to pay some of the bills by credit card, so keeping the cash in you current account, when hes got the visa pay the cred card off.

Realistically, now.....

what are his chances of getting that money back????

[joebloggs]

if it was my wife none
she would have spent it on a new air-con,mobile, sofa, tv, etc
not a good thing to do, as he is the SPONSOR ! that means he has to financially be able to take care of her for at least 2 years, with the legendary 'no recourse to public funds' , its good to see that evil is no longer on my wifes and kids passports, bit on a insult when this country is one of the richest in the world..

[tommyw]

Hi, and welcome to the forum.
I'm not on here so much as I am really busy working privately as well as my own job.
I got married in the Phils. I dont know the total cost, but it wasnt too bad.
After that I had to apply for Lyn's spouse visa. I think that came to around £300!
Lyn got her visa double quick. This was probably helped by healthy bank statements, payslips etc. I wish you had kept the money in your account...MUCH better idea. It would really help your case.
Best of luck. I hope all works out for you. We are really happy together and expecting our 1st child in Nov.

[zheanney]

Mick304824:
I sent Diana some money to pay for her visa application etc, plus another £3000 on topAromulus:
Before I got married last February, I used to send £50/70, now it is £100/130.My husband never send me any money when we are still gf and bf. he just started sending me money after we got married, £115/150 a month. am a bit kuripot so not bad beside he is saving for me visa money.

[zheanney]

Mick304824:
I sent Diana some money to pay for her visa application etc, plus another £3000 on top


Aromulus:
Before I got married last February, I used to send £50/70, now it is £100/130.



My husband never send me any money when we are still gf and bf. he just started sending me money after we got married, £115/150 a month. am a bit kuripot so not bad beside he is saving for me visa money.

ay anong nangyari sa unang reply ko?!

[Peanutz]

Realistically, now.....

what are his chances of getting that money back????

No refund, no money back it is a lifetime investmentJoke!joke!

[Peanutz]

No refund, no money back it is a lifetime investmentJoke!joke!

That pose a real problem in getting the money back...I hope she will understand that...

[Mick304824]

Hello everyone,

wow, I didn't know there were going to be so many replies!! I have read and absorbed them all, and thank everyone for their advice

There's a few comments I would like to make, mainly in response to the fact I sent Diana money over to Philippines. First of all, we had a good laugh between us at all the comments about things that she may spend the money on already, such as new air-con unit, tv, mobile phone. I can assure you, as I know Diana so well, that she's not gonna do that. She has had more than one occaision where she could have used it for personal matters, but has refused to do so, cos she sees it as money for our future. without going into too much detail, it was sent to her really because for a personal reason, I couldn't keep it in my account, so for now, she is holding it, until I start working. I would also like to add that although she was born and always lived in Phil, she is actually of Chinese parents with a very disciplined and good morals upbringing.

I gather from all the info and advice given that I must do almost exactly what I thought anyway... Start work, keep spending to a bare minimum, open a current account, keep bank statements and payslips, get the £3K back from Diana and put it in the current account as show money, and to start the process running. I certainly have proof of the relationship....... we have over 500 pics and videos together... Also Diana has kept a printout of all of our skype chat for the past year, which amounts to a full ream of paper's worth of chat ( and that's printed on both sides!! lol). I also have proof of accomodation that I have been at for almost 3 years, so basically its get a job time!!!!

OOOH, ONE more thing while I think of it: Whilst in phil, I got the taste for asada siopao.... have tried to find a supplier here in UK but no joy..anyone know where I can buy some please??


Anyways, thanx all for your advice... I am sure I have forgotten to say something here, so u will prolly find a follow up message a bit later........ Nice meeting you all and thanx again so much. You have all been very helpful

Mick and Diana

PS Diana read all the last post replies, and will maybe, join herself when she's not sleeping hehehehehe,. see yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[tommyw]

It's great that you have been saving evidence Mick, but try to keep good old fashioned letters - VERY helpful!!! If you have none, start now, these are very important. Good luck, Tommy and Lyn.

[gyle2007]

Hello!

You can find the asado siopao on one of those huge chinese supermarkets around the UK. There's one in London somewhere, one in Manchester and Leith (Edinburgh) that much I know. I can't quite remember the names though so you better check telephone directory. Good luck!

[fred]

Good luck with your job hunting mate..You`ll get there in the end of that I`m sure..

Siopao will never taste the same over here..Different ingredience,but we won`t go into that now..You have enough problems!!