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My Two Cents<\/a><\/p>\n \n Personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles asks the nosy, revealing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about money so you don\u2019t have to.\n <\/p>\n \n Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n Last year, a record number of American citizens moved out of the U.S.<\/a>, citing better affordability and quality of life abroad. (In fact, more people moved out of the U.S. in 2025 than moved in<\/a>, which hasn\u2019t occurred to this degree since the Great Depression.) It\u2019s not hard to understand why: Other countries offer cheaper housing, education, and health care, which comprise the biggest pain points for many American households.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not all smooth sailing. Starting over in a new country requires up-front costs (plane tickets, for starters), not to mention plenty of unexpected ones. Here, three American citizens who moved abroad for financial reasons share the unanticipated costs of doing so and how they\u2019ve made it work.<\/p>\n \u2014 a 40-year-old woman who lived in Turkey by way of Ann Arbor, Michigan<\/p>\n After college, I taught abroad in a few different countries, and while I was teaching in Turkey, I met my husband. He came back to the U.S. with me on a fianc\u00e9 visa, and we lived together in Ann Arbor for five years. I started my own business coaching people in intercultural relationships. But the business didn\u2019t grow like I\u2019d hoped, and I was working part-time jobs to pay our bills.<\/p>\n My husband also felt stuck, professionally. He was working initially as a preschool teacher and then as a full-time babysitter. Thankfully, neither of us had student loans, but we were renting an apartment that cost $1,200 a month. There was a real mismatch between our income and expenses, and it didn\u2019t seem like things were going to change. So in 2021, we decided to go back to Turkey for a little while. Our hope was to get out of our paycheck-to-paycheck situation and save more money than we\u2019d been able to in the U.S.<\/p>\n The timing worked out. My husband\u2019s job was coming to an end, and one of my part-time teaching jobs was winding down. Our lease was ending, too. And my husband had gotten his American citizenship, so we could travel more easily. We sold our car for a couple thousand dollars, used all our credit-card miles to buy our flights, and moved in with my husband\u2019s family in Turkey for a few months.<\/p>\n The move created space, financially and psychologically, for me to start a new career as a fiction writer. I wrote two romance novels during that first winter in Turkey. We were staying in my in-laws\u2019 one-bedroom farmhouse that wasn\u2019t insulated, so I wrote every night huddled up next to the heater.<\/p>\n I also got a remote job in ed tech, a part-time contract role for an American company. I made about $700 a week before taxes, so I took home about $400 or $500 a week. I still had to pay American taxes. With the exchange rate when we first got there, we felt great just on that income. My husband didn\u2019t get a job \u2014\u00a0he took care of all the home maintenance, car maintenance, and groceries. Everything seemed so cheap. When we eventually got our own apartment, it cost about $300 a month, and that was for a private villa near the coast with three bedrooms and its own pool. Compared to our place in Michigan, it was incredible.<\/p>\n We also got state health care, because my husband is a Turkish citizen, so I was able to get it too. It was free, which was amazing, even though we didn\u2019t wind up needing it. One other thing that was very cheap was veterinary care. We adopted four cats while we were in Turkey, because there are so many strays, and we were able to get them neutered and spayed for a fraction of what it would cost in the U.S.<\/p>\n One thing I didn\u2019t anticipate was that cars in Turkey are extremely expensive. We spent about $4,000 on a car from 1997. That\u2019s about how much money we got for the car we\u2019d sold in the U.S., which was from the early 2000s. Plus, most older cars in Turkey have been retrofitted with propane tanks, because propane is cheaper than regular gas. If you\u2019re at all inclined to be paranoid, like I am, you\u2019re always worried about blowing up.<\/p>\n Eventually, inflation caught up to us.\u00a0People talk about how it\u2019s been bad in the U.S., but in Turkey, inflation was over 70 percent at one point. Rent was still much cheaper \u2014\u00a0by that time, we were paying about $500 or $600 a month \u2014 but we were saving less than we wanted to, and there were more job opportunities back in the States. So the advantages started shrinking. We\u2019d been thinking about buying a house there and staying for longer, but then we realized that might not be the best decision. We decided to move back to Michigan about five months ago, stay with my family for a while, and save up for a house here instead.<\/p>\n All together, I self-published 14 books while we were living abroad. I haven\u2019t been able to earn a full living from them, but that\u2019s partly my own fault, because I haven\u2019t put a lot of time into marketing. I earn a couple hundred bucks a month from them, probably. They\u2019re always sort of ticking along in the background.<\/p>\n Moving back was expensive. We had to fly back twice because we wanted to bring our cats with us, and you can only bring one animal per person at a time. It wound up being about $6,000 total to do that, which ate up a chunk of our savings. We still had about $12,000 left over, though, and we\u2019ve been staying with my family, which has enabled us to keep saving. We\u2019re hoping to be able to buy our own place around here someday. So far, it\u2019s going well. My husband got a job that he likes a lot as a driver. I am still job-searching because the market is terrible. I keep a spreadsheet of all the applications I\u2019ve sent out. But I\u2019m continuing to write as well. Moving abroad was definitely the best decision, financially and otherwise, for that time in our lives, but I\u2019m also glad we came back when we did.<\/p>\n \u2014Evelyn, a 33-year-old who lives in Turin, Italy, by way of Middlebury, Vermont<\/p>\n I moved to Italy about 15 years ago because the college tuition here was so much more affordable. I\u2019m from Vermont, and even in-state tuition was three times the cost of tuition plus my rent and living expenses in Rome. I wanted to study archaeology and history, and Italy seemed like a great place to do that. I went to the American University of Rome, so I have federal student loans from the American government, but much less than what I\u2019d have if I went to school in the U.S.<\/p>\n When I finished my bachelor\u2019s degree, I had about $18,000 in loans. Then I decided to get a master\u2019s degree in business, which was another $25,000 for a one-year program. So in total, I owed about $40,000 to $45,000, which is significant, but people I know from back home owe much more than that. I consider myself pretty lucky. I\u2019m on an income-based repayment plan, which has given me a lot of flexibility. I have years when I\u2019m not making a lot because I\u2019m freelance, and it\u2019s never been a problem. My loans have also been in forbearance for much of the past six years, partly because of the pandemic and also because so many of the federal repayment plans are up in the air. I\u2019ve paid off about $10,000 so far, and I\u2019ll take care of the rest when I can, but it\u2019s not something I lose a ton of sleep over.<\/p>\n I pay taxes in Italy, so I have state health care, which is free. But sometimes I\u2019ve paid for private health care. I get migraines, so in one case, I got a referral to a doctor who didn\u2019t have appointments available for months. Instead, I paid for a private neurologist who did some scans. But it was only about \u20ac200 (about $235). All of my prenatal care has been totally covered, but I did pay out of pocket for a DNA test, which wasn\u2019t cheap \u2014\u00a0about \u20ac650 ($765). Still, that\u2019s a lot less than what most health insurance costs in the U.S.<\/p>\n Right now, my husband and I are considered decently well off by Italian standards. Together, we make the equivalent of about $50,000 to $60,000 a year, after taxes, and we\u2019re about to have our second child. My husband is Italian and owns rental properties that he inherited from his family, so we don\u2019t have to pay for housing because we live in one of the apartments. We can afford to pay for what we need and go on vacations occasionally. But by American standards, we\u2019re almost poor. In fact, even if we wanted to move back to the U.S., we couldn\u2019t afford to. We considered it during the pandemic, but once we researched basic costs, it was a nonstarter. We wouldn\u2019t be able to afford a deposit on an apartment, and at the time, we\u2019d never even had a credit card, so we couldn\u2019t get past the first step of a credit check. Credit cards are much less common in Italy. Car financing wasn\u2019t even widely available until recently.<\/p>\n We can barely even afford to visit the U.S. these days. A few summers ago, we went for two weeks, and we spent over \u20ac3,000 on the flights, groceries, car rental, and travel health insurance. That\u2019s a huge expense to us. So I definitely don\u2019t think about moving back anymore \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s just not possible, even if we wanted to.<\/p>\n \u2014 Kate, a 22-year-old woman who lives in London by way of San Francisco<\/p>\n I grew up in a suburb of St. Louis, and I didn\u2019t know anyone whose family set up a college fund for them. It wasn\u2019t part of my family\u2019s reality, either. So when it was time for me to go to college, I either had to take out huge student loans or go to the University of Missouri, which gave me a scholarship. I didn\u2019t like it there, so I went for one year and then moved to San Francisco and finished school remotely. I was able to graduate early, at 19, by testing out of introductory classes and applying my AP credits.<\/p>\n Moving to San Francisco was a cultural and financial shock. I\u2019d always wanted to move there and get out of the Midwest, and I\u2019m glad I did. To afford it, I had several part-time jobs. I did college consulting and worked part-time for multiple nonprofits. And because I no longer had to pay for the dorms at the University of Missouri, they credited me my scholarship amount for room and board. So they wrote me a check for $14,000, which was nice.<\/p>\n Even still, the cost of living in San Francisco was hard to keep up with. After a year, I moved in with my boyfriend, and we were each paying about $1,650 for a two-bed, one-bath apartment. My car payment was $350 a month, charging it cost $150 a month, and the car insurance was $450 a month. After that, I spent about $250 on groceries. So my average monthly expenses were almost $3,000, just for the basics. And I was making $70,000 working for a nonprofit, which in the Bay Area is abysmal.<\/p>\n I decided to go to grad school when I realized that I was never going to get a bonus or any kind of raise at my job. So I looked at master\u2019s programs in climate-change management and finance. Columbia\u2019s program cost about $120,000. They offered me a $20,000 scholarship, but that was negligible compared to the price difference with the program I\u2019m doing in the U.K., which is about $55,000. It\u2019s still a lot for one year, but it\u2019s a prestigious program, and I\u2019ll be qualified for much better-paying jobs after I complete it.<\/p>\n The U.S. government does offer student loans for my school in the U.K., but the interest rate was so high that it didn\u2019t make sense to go that route. So I went with Sallie Mae, which had a slightly better rate, and I took out a $90,000 loan to make sure that I had enough to cover all of my living costs and the tuition. I won\u2019t need all of it. I\u2019m very diligent about saving. But I wanted to be sure that I could cover everything I needed, and London is very expensive.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that health care in the U.K. through the NHS is free, but if you\u2019re here on a student visa, you still have to pay an enrollment fee. I think it was about \u00a3700 (almost $1,000). The medical care is not great, and there are extremely long wait times. Nobody has dental care. I had to get a crown replaced for my teeth, which cost the equivalent of $500, and I had to wait multiple months for an appointment. Then I lost my hearing aid. Theoretically, hearing aids are supposed to cost about $70 through the NHS, but then they told me, \u201cYou are literally never going to get through the queue to get a hearing aid, so you should just go through a private service.\u201d The private service quoted me \u00a31,500, about $2,000. So this \u201cfree\u201d health care is not really what it seems.<\/p>\n I ran all the numbers before I took out my loan, because I needed to know how I\u2019d pay it back. Starting salaries for the type of jobs I\u2019ll be qualified for are closer to $100,000\u2013$120,000 in the San Francisco area, which would enable me to pay off the loan fairly quickly. It has stressed me out knowing that I have to find a job with that salary, but I already have a summer internship lined up, and I\u2019m interviewing too.<\/p>\n A lot of people in my program plan to live in the U.K. afterward, but that\u2019s just not possible for me. It costs almost as much to live in London as it does in San Francisco, but the salaries aren\u2019t as high, so I won\u2019t make enough to repay my loan. I live in South Kensington, in London, and I pay about $1,800 a month in rent. I thought I\u2019d want to stay here, but I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n Email your money conundrums to\u00a0mytwocents@nymag.com<\/a> (and read our submission terms here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n