Have you a place to live sorted or are you going to be living in a hostel for the few few days/weeks? Hostels over there are about 20/30 dollars a night and will seriously eat into your money until you find you own place.
It's more than likely that you'll need to pay a deposit on your house over there when you move in which is about 1 months rent for the place plus you need to pay your first month up front so thats 2 months straight up which could be about 500 dollars depending how many of you there are.
A lot of places won't give you a job/pay you until you get your social security number which could be 2/3/4 weeks from the date you apply. How are you going to survive until then? And thats if you get a job.
Then you have to consider how crap the wages are over there unless you're earning tips. You could be earning as little as 6/7/8 dollars an hour which might just cover you for food and the piss up you plan after work.
Not to put a downer on this but i think to be safe and without having to work yourself to death over there, you will need at least $2000. Best to work and save as much as you can over here before going and then just work over there a couple of days a week for the experience.
On a plus note, drink is sooooo cheap in supermarkets over there. You'd pick up a 30 pack of cheap cans for like $12 or a 1.75litre of cheap vodka for $10. Can't wait to get back there this year!!
once ya get your social security number ya should be able to get a bank account there and can put money in. Just hate the idea of walking round with huge money or leaving it in a hostel while ya getting set up.
@mullthedrummer, you've got the right idea, leave it in your bank account(or the majority of it), when you get your american bank account set up, use internet banking to transfer it, hey presto! no huge massive transaction fees cos you're not using an atm to move it, you could be using the internet banking in ireland for all aib/boi know!
I strongly agree with globaldeejay on this! I have been on 2 J1's before and I think $2000 is required in most cases unless you get lucky to have a good job sorted asap. The first few weeks are going to be very pricey as you will be going out lots, eating out, buying some nice new summer clothes, forking out rent deposits etc. The last summer I spent in the states I didn't work as I had saved up working full time the whole winter at home and was not on a J1 but a holiday visa. Anyway in the 3 months I managed to burn through around $9000 but my lifestyle was amazing and I was just spending like it was nothing. This summer will be a lot different though and I am hoping to scrape together $2000 to have with me when heading over in June. Depending on where you are in the states, you can actually live very cheap if you are careful. Bring naggins out with you everywhere! :) Seriously they are like $3.50 and save you soooo much money over the summer. Just don't get caught ;) Food in supermarkets can actually be quite expensive but definitely cheaper than eating out all the time so do some home cooking. Drink is dirt cheap if you buy in shops and always buy your weekly pass on the trains too. Again it all depends on what your lifestyle is over there and if you are happy lazing around a beach all day you can spend as very little but if you like getting out and about and going to gigs, events and stuff then it can be a good bit more expensive.
As far as I know you can set up a bank account without a SSN or while it is pending. Get all your money in an American bank account as the fees for using Lazer or Credit card can be pricey. Enquire though where you will get the best conversion rate from € to $. Somebody once mentioned something about using paypal to get the absolute best conversion rate but I am not sure how this works. I remember taking out money from my Lazer card over there and thinkink I was getting the same rate that was listed on xe.com when in fact it was a good bit less. Just ask around about this.
