No problem! I like you was once totally new to this whole process. I can’t believe its all going to be over for me in Four days!
Firstly you need to show “evidence of support” at your interview. This can be typically in all or one of:
Affidavit of support
Job offer
Savings
An “Affidavit of support” is an actual form that you can get a US resident to fill in. This Affidavit is some times required by particular consulates.
Its basically a form stating a US residents income and that they agree to support you until such time as you have found a job and housing. Its to prove you wont become a “public charge” i.e you wont cost the US tax payer any money. If you have sufficient savings then you may not need this. Although that is country and consulate dependent and may not always be the case. Have a look over this forum and see if people that interview at your chosen consulate have had to produce one even though they may have had funds.
Basically at my interview when I am asked to show my “evidence of support” I am going to show them my savings account statement along with my recent pay slips to show that I will earn a good bit more before I decide to relocate in Sep/Oct.
For me that will be enough, or at least that what the told me over the phone. Obviously if you have all three of the above it will clearly help to strengthen your case, but this may not be necessary.
As I said from some posts that I have read here, sometimes a particular consulate may want you to have an Affidavit of support if they feel you come from a very different cultural background even if the applicant meets the savings criteria according to the poverty guidelines (
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/08poverty.shtml) this is in case the applicant has difficulty integrating into US society. Not sure where the link to the Affidavit of support is, you will have to trawl the forum for the link.
So you can see from the above link that you and your wife need about $14,000 in savings.
The US consulate here in Dublin where I live called me one day! I was actually shocked, I did not know what to say!
They were just checking I had gotten my second NL and that I had all my DOC’s blah blah blah. I have never read of a consulate doing that before anywhere so I was taken back by it I must admit. The woman I spoke to was Irish, and while she was a bit all over the place she was nice enough to me, I was naturally very nervous and was not expecting the call. Anyway I am a few thousand $ short of the 10,400 target so I asked would 8,000 be enough, and she said yes that should be fine.
If your number becomes current and you are eligible then you will get the GC. At least that is the story that I have read over and over and over here from all sorts of users.
They don’t “not” want to give you the visa but the consulate has a civic duty to the United States to operate the diversity lottery interviews in the confides of US law, so they can seem daunting to people during interviews, I guess they are just doing their jobs.
Have to say I am getting very nervous myself about going in for my interview on Tuesday. I am sure I will be just fine but I am still nervous.
