baron555

Email the Embassy and discuss your situation.

Your lucky, usually they just throw that stuff out.

Certified appraisals for all assets. If you are this close, then get a cosponsor.

You would need certified appraisals

So far we haven't yet met in person. However, my flight is booked and I'm ready to visit her on February 10th 2016.
Good
We never skipped any days of messaging each other. We have done hundreds of hours of video and phone calling.
Exchanged over 160,000 text messages so far.
Fine but content is key, not quantity. What do you talk about? Relationship evidence is about the serious stuff.
I have some understanding about the K-1 Visa. What worries me is the fact they say three years of tax filing history.
I just started working on July 13th 2015. I have never filed tax before because I never made over 400 USD.
Fine, many folks are former students who have just begun to earn a living.
Also I had it pretty hard for being in school. I was a late graduate because once my mom died from cancer. The school decided to put me back one year. Which means all the homeschooling my mother did for that year didn't count. I believe I completed highschool at the age of 19.
I work 40 hours a week for my job, and get paid $13.50 USD per hour. Which means I make around $27,000 USD before tax. Sometimes I end up working 45 hours a week. For the month of December, I have be working 43 to 53 hours each week.
Is it possible I could just use one year of tax filing history?
Yes, current income is key.
If I must wait three years, I plan to just get married in the Philippines. Or I can try to get my cousin to be a co-sponsor.
You might be fine as it is. No need to wait to file. Bring back your fiance's signature on the G325A and Letter of Intent forms and a passport photo.

The K-1 visa was cancelled when he arrived at the POE and replaced with a I-94 visa with a 90 day expiration.
Of course he can leave at any time, but if he doesn't have his AP or GC (all done by submitting the AOS packages) then he will not be allowed back into the US. Then you will have to apply for a CR-1 spousal visa which takes about a year to obtain.
So the short answer would be No. Don't do that.

Many would be very surprised at the nice and comfortable lives that many from UA (and Russia like my wife) are able to eke out. Very very similar to our lives here in the US and in many aspects, yes even better.
Yes most likely she wasn't ready for the move and being away from her family and friends, regardless of her fiance's efforts.
And trying to live in the SF area? They should have discussed those costs, etc prior to any talk of a visa.
OP; Do you NEED to live in such an expensive place?
And was she from a major city in UA or a smaller town? That would also be very telling.

Many would be very surprised at the nice and comfortable lives that many from UA (and Russia like my wife) are able to eke out. Very very similar to our lives here in the US and in many aspects, yes even better.
Yes most likely she wasn't ready for the move and being away from her family and friends, regardless of her fiance's efforts.
And trying to live in the SF area? They should have discussed those costs, etc prior to any talk of a visa.
OP; Do you NEED to live in such an expensive place?
And was she from a major city in UA or a smaller town? That would also be very telling.

OK, so you have records that you two had a conversation. Can you print out exactly what you talked about? I think not.
You have to prove to a total stranger, the Embassy CO, that you have a legitimate relationship and are not trying to circumvent immigration laws or commit visa fraud.
How can you prove this without showing evidence of what you talked about?
Most relationships follow a normal evolution, IMO, there is the getting to know you stage, talk of more serious nature, more intimate or lovey-dovey talk (couples planning to get married to each other do that), talk about the visa process, talk about marriage, talk about life in the US, talk of the move to the US, planning for life in the US, etc.
All your evidences, when viewed together, should show snippets of each stage and should tell the story.
Your Embassy is very hard on K-1s and front-loading with relationship evidence should be done.
Start using other mediums for communication where you can show what you talk about. Emails are great.

You're fine for the 129f submittal. More face time is always a good thing....but for the interview you need to prove you have a legitimate relationship. We only met once, on purpose, since we generated great evidences of our seriousness of the relationship......
so what that is, to me, is you need to show to a total stranger, the Embassy CO, that you have a legit relationship.
Most relationships go through a normal evolution, the getting to know you stage, the talk of more serious nature, then talk of marriage, then talk of the visa process, then moving to the US, talk of life in the US and the planning for that. Your evidences should show snippets of each of these stages.
Mere photos alone or additional visits may not truly convey these details.
But definitely you do not need to visit again before filing. File now and get going.

Plan for 10 months and be happy with 5.

Depends on intent. Many folks travel to the US and then they and their friend suddenly decide to get married and do and then AOS successfully.
But to come to the US on a Tourist Visa with the intention of becoming married and AOSing and staying is visa fraud.
If this is detected, usually during the AOS processing or interview, then deportation and a lifetime ban could be applied.
Your choice.
It may be country-specific on those who USCIS will scrutinize.
The "minor benefits" are that you would be doing this correctly and in accordance with the rules and regulations. Since you already have marriage intent, as shown by calling your friend as a Fiance in the title of this thread, what you are proposing by your second option is not the right thing to do.

Yes the cosponsor must meet the minimum poverty levels on their own; one can not comingle the incomes.

The 129f instruction 8b specifically says a passport sized photo of each is to be included in the petition.

No, but you would probably want to include some sort of statement showing what the adjucator is looking at.
I did the same, included a copy of the receipt of a pizza for delivery that was in my wife's name and sent to the apartment where we were staying.
I included a copy of the rental receipt for that same apartment which had the same address....therefore establishing that we both were in the same place.
I also include copies of currency exchange receipts which established an address in the city where we met in person along with a date, to corroborate the dates of our meeting.
So I scanned these in and pasted them into a Word document, inserted the scans and typed descriptions similar to above beneath each.
No RFEs.

The Embassy CO is highly trained and seems that their conclusion was suspected prior to the interview and maybe confirmed during.
You need to submit evidence that your relationship is not for visa fraud purposes, or anything else other than you two living together forever in the US.
You need to submit evidence that your relationship followed the "normal" evolution process that the majority of relationships undergo....there is the getting to know you stage, then more intimate conversations, then the meeting in person, then talk about life together, then the visa process, then moving to the US and then to continued life in the US.
I'd venture to say your evidences didn't show much of these stages.
I suggest to everyone, purposefully generate all kinds of evidences, that show these various stages. If you don't have them, for hard Embassies, you can get denied.

Use the passport version. Moscow deals with this issue all the time and it will not be an issue.