Alex Ingrim knows a lot about how to move to a new country.
He was studying in San Diego when a study abroad trip to France led him to meet his now-wife, Louisa; in the 17 years since, the pair have grown their family and lived in Canada, France, the UK, Malta and now Italy.
Ingrim, 36, is a financial advisor with Chase Buchanan USA based in Florence, which has roughly 70 clients, where he advises fellow Americans about taxes and other financial planning involved with moving to Europe.
In his years helping Americans move overseas, he says one major expense ends up not be worth it: paying to ship your belongings to your new home.
“You can’t just pick up everything from your old house and put it into your new house in Europe,” Ingrim tells CNBC Make It. “It’s not going to fit the same way or look and feel the same way.”
A lot of times, larger furniture pieces simply don’t fit in oftentimes smaller European spaces, he says. Plus, “The plugs on the appliances are a lot different. Certain things about TVs might be at a different standard. People underestimate a lot of those aspects. So that’s been one piece of feedback we’ve gotten from people, they didn’t think [shipping their belongings] was that worthwhile.”
Instead, Ingrim says people have a better time of selling most of their belongings in the U.S. and moving to their new home country with a few suitcases.
The good news is that people are often “pleasantly surprised” at “how much cheaper a lot of the furniture is in Europe,” Ingrim says. That goes for appliances, too: “A new kitchen in Europe is a lot cheaper than it is in the U.S.”
No. 1 piece of advice for a successful move
Overall, Ingrim says his No. 1 piece of advice for people moving to a new country is to be realistic with their expectations and generally throw any ideas of space, efficiency and speed out the window.
“The one piece of advice I always give people is that your move is set up to fail when your expectations don’t match reality,” Ingrim says. “You need to go in with relatively loose and low expectations around what what your lifestyle in that country is going to look like. Expect life in Spain to be slow, because it’s going to be. Don’t expect it to be efficient.”
“Don’t expect a 2,000-square-foot apartment, it’s not going to happen most of the time,” he adds.
Of course, where there may be logistical challenges in making the move, there are plenty of cultural benefits to look forward to. “Expect the food to be good. Expect the people to be pretty friendly and nice, as long as you treat them with respect,” Ingrim says. On that note, defer to local customs and consider how showing respect may look different in your new home country.
“As long as you set your expectations accordingly, then you can take it slow and adjust at your own pace,” Ingrim says. “If you expect your American life to be transplanted to Paris, that’s going to be really, really hard to adjust to.”