Preparing for an Overseas Move
Leave your old car at home and buy locally. You’ll save money and time for three reasons: First, importing your car may require you to make some adjustments. Second, shipping the car costs a minimum of $600 each way and takes six or more weeks. Third, if your car is not a common make or model, parts will be expensive or unavailable. If you’re overseas longer than a year, consider selling your car instead of storing it.
Store or sell most things, buy the rest. To start with, shipping is expensive. A 40-foot container— enough to ship a medium-sized household— costs a many thousands of dollars, not including moving costs to and from the ship. A storage locker, on the other hand, costs from $600 per year. So, pack only what you know you’ll need regularly and immediately. You can also rent a furnished apartment unitl you acquire new things to replace rented ones.
Bring your laptop computer if you have one, but not electrical appliances. Voltage is different in most overseas locations than that of the US. You can use transformers for US appliances, but they are bulky and consume more energy. As far as desktop computers are concerned, be aware that purchasing one in a foreign country will also mean you will have a foreign language keyboard and version of the operating system and applications.
Find a property manager experienced with hard-to-reach clients to manage your house. Most property managers charge 7 percent to 10 percent of the monthly rental income.
Keep phone numbers, addresses, and paperwork handy. Write down every phone number, address, and email address of every business and government organization you’ve dealt with in the last two years—including auto, health, and home insurance, computer technical support, doctors, magazine subscriptions, and the IRS. Include account numbers for mutual funds, bank accounts, frequent flyer miles, business license numbers, and serial numbers for any equipment you bring, such as computers, cameras, and bicycle locks. You never know when you are going to need the numbers. Set up on-line statements at your bank and credit card providers. Also set up on-line bill payment. You will be doing your banking via the internet while you are overseas.
Make copies of important paperwork such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, divorce decrees, school transcripts, and old tax returns.
Arrange for VOIP service from an independent company (not your local cable TV provider) company such as Vonage. You can take your service with you and have a US phone number that works in a foreign country - provided of course that you arrange for broadband internet access in your new location. As an alternative, you can plan to use a service like Skype on the web. However, you will have to have your computer on all the time and make calls / answer the phone at your computer - which is not very convenient.
Get an email account.If you don’t already have one, set up an email account to stay in touch with family, friends, and to take care of personal business. You can sign up for a free account with Google (Gmail) or Yahoo, for example.
Arrange for handling your mail. You can forward your mail if you already know your foreign address. Change the address for your most important mail, such as credit card bills and bank statements. Cancel mail order catalogs and magazines you can do without and change the address on the ones you can’t. Otherwise, find a mail service, relative, or friend who will send you your mail regularly.
Begin learning the language. Take time to learn at least some basic words in the new language before you get there.
