Continental Shift

Budgeting for your move overseas October 14, 2009

You’re now well-prepared with information and plans, but there’s one other thing you’ll need – money. It’s time to start saving.

Rice fields, Sapa, Vietnam

Moving countries is an expensive undertaking. Some costs are similar to what you would experience just moving across the street. But other costs are either far higher than they would be for a more usual move, or they are specific to moving overseas, and they add up.

Costs can include:

• Airplane tickets
• Visa and permit applications (plus associated costs of obtaining notified translations, photographs, copies of necessary records etc)
• Transport of goods
• Storage of goods
• Vaccinations and other medical care/preparation (see Chapter 12 [coming soon])
• Pet transport (see chapter 18 [coming soon])
• Housing maintenance to prepare your current home for sale or rent
• Temporary accommodation both just before you leave your home country and just after you arrive in the new country
• Finding and renting or buying a house in the new country – though renting seems like the cheaper upfront option, it can include paying months of rent in advance, depending on where you are
• Buying a replacment car.

Some countries will also demand that you have a certain amount of money in your bank account on arrival, or that you are carrying a certain amount of cash with you when you arrive. For example, Libya specifies that visitors must have US$500 each on arrival at the Tripoli airport; we have never actually been asked to show this cash, but have always ensured we had it with us as you never knew when some official was going to play power games.

You may have a cash injection from things like selling your car, having a garage sale, or even selling your house or other property. However, you should also remember the set-up costs you will experience at the other end, which can include new furniture, temporary accommodation, rent in advance, stocking a new kitchen and so on.

Keep these expenses in mind, and try to work out roughly how much cash you will need in reserve. If you are lucky, your company will pay for some of these costs, advance you cash to pay for it, or come to some other arrangement with you. However, you will need funds of your own. Be aware of that, try to estimate it, and try to have spare cash on top of your estimate.

CASE STUDY
My partner’s company paid for every ‘non-voluntary’ cost associated with moving countries – our pre-move medical, dental and safety preparation costs, airfares, transport of a limited amount of goods, storage of everything else, temporary accommodation, purchase of new furniture, new house rental costs etc.

However, it did not pay for what it – fairly – considered as voluntary costs, like transporting our pet to Libya with us. There were also costs associated with preparing our house to be rented, buying clothes suitable for a hot climate with Muslim modesty, stocking up on food and health products to take with us, and so on. Even with cash from selling our car and a general ‘moving costs’ allowance from the company, we had to have our own funds at hand.

ACTIVITY
Begin gathering quotes and estimates of the costs of moving, including most importantly your transport costs (see Section 3 of this guide for extra help [coming soon]) and a just-arrived buffer. It is important to be thorough and realistic at this stage. Add 10–20% to the final figure to account for unexpected expenses.

If you do not have the amount necessary ready to go, you need to begin saving, keeping in mind your planned moving date. If necessary, you may have to push that date back, or make cutbacks to your lifestyle to save the extra money.

How to move overseas. That’s it for this week. Next week, I’ll discuss how to finalise your ties in your current country.

See past topics and what’s coming up next at the table of contents. Subscribe or check back for more content soon.

If you don’t want to wait, or you want the content in a nice, easy-to-read format, you can buy it in paperback from Amazon, or in paperback or electronically from Lulu.

If you’ve read it and have a spare moment, please review it at Amazon.