House Of Peregrine (01:03)

everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. Today I'm welcoming back a familiar voice to the podcast, Alex Ingrim, the founder of Liberty Atlantic. Not only is Alex an expert in helping Americans navigate the financial complexities of living in Europe, but he's also our very first returning guest. The insights he shared last time were so valuable, we knew we had to bring him back for more. If you've ever worried about how international move might impact your taxes, investments,

or long-term financial security, Alex is the person to talk to. He specializes in making sense of cross-border finances, helping people optimize their tax strategies, manage their portfolios, and plan for retirement, all while ensuring they can actually enjoy their life abroad stress-free. So whether you're already settled in Europe or still considering a leap, this conversation is for you. Alex, welcome back. I'm so glad you agreed to come back on. I think everyone loved our first conversation, so I really...

want to dive in with you on the world has changed quite a bit since we spoke last.

Alex Ingrim (02:04)

Yeah, absolutely, thanks for having me. Yeah, things are different a few years later.

House Of Peregrine (02:09)

It turns out, always the case. But I think I would love to talk to you. We can just dive right in. You can maybe give people just a quick of who you are, like where you are in the world. And then we can just jump right into the way the world is different and how people can actually make sense of it financially.

Alex Ingrim (02:27)

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm originally from the US. I've lived in Europe for about the best part of the last 17 years. I'm married to a non-American and I have two young kids that we're raising in Italy. Our firm really specializes in helping Americans who are looking to move to Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy. Those are kind of our core countries and we serve a few others. And yeah, we really help people gain the perspective of

what it's like to move, what the implications are on your finances, and how you can plan long-term around.

House Of Peregrine (02:59)

Yeah. And we've talked a lot on this podcast about the tax simplifications, right? So knowing that Americans have tax responsibilities wherever they move in the world to the US still, which is unique. But beyond that, there's so many more moving pieces that actually people don't realize. And so

How has the world changed? This is a question I asked you before we started recording, but I'd love to have the listeners hear you. The world has changed quite a bit, and there's maybe, you know, politically and social, a lot going on for Americans. And so tell me what you're seeing right now. We're in 2025. What are you seeing that's different than five years ago?

Alex Ingrim (03:36)

So I think the first thing that we're seeing is just the establishment of a relatively long term trend. So when we first started the business about four years ago, we felt like a lot of the migrations, so Americans moving to Europe in general and Western Europe, the countries we cover, was probably based around the existence of remote work and how people could become digital nomads and explore living in a different place. And so

we felt a lot of the initial migration trends were kind of an excitement around remote work and exploring a new lifestyle. And then what we found over the past few years is really that migration trend has solidified and it's not necessarily around remote work. In fact, that's probably something that's talked a lot about, but in reality, we're seeing a lot of people that are moving.

for a lot of other reasons. So they're driven by socioeconomic reasons. They're driven by political views that they don't agree with what's happening either kind of federally in the US at a federal government level or locally where they live. They don't recognize it anymore. And they feel like they would feel more comfortable in a different place. And so I think what's happened is

What we looked at initially as this exciting new trend of Americans moving to Europe has really solidified into a, it's still a trickle if you look at the amount of people that are actually moving. So we're not seeing a flood of people leaving, but what we're seeing is just a much more established long-term trend. We're seeing groups of people moving. We're seeing whole families move. So it might be.

House Of Peregrine (05:06)

Yeah.

Alex Ingrim (05:17)

brothers and sisters and their children are actually moving. So generations of people are moving. We're seeing a lot more establishment of trends, you know, where people would move from one city in the U.S. to a specific city in Portugal or Spain. So you'd have a whole bunch of people from maybe Portland, Oregon moving to Porto in Portugal. Right. So there's like an entire Facebook group around that now moving from Portland to Porto.

House Of Peregrine (05:29)

Hmm.

Yep. Well.

Alex Ingrim (05:47)

So,

you know, those weren't things that existed five years ago, right? And so I feel like it's a really exciting time because we're starting to see the establishment of a community. And that's something that Americans rarely ever had abroad, especially in Europe was, hey, here's your community. Here's your group. You know, here's some people that are like you in your new place. So that's really

House Of Peregrine (06:02)

especially in Europe, is that here's your community, here's and here's some people that are like you and your people, like so

much more important. Yeah, and it's really important because it's not, you can't help where you were born, right? But it does affect you. And so that's something that I think people take for granted. It's like, yeah, you're gonna become Italian, but Italian, American Italian, not Italian Italian. it's...

It's a little bit hard to conceptualize before you move somewhere. You're like, yeah, I'll learn the language. I'll put down roots, da-da-da. But you're never going, you're still going to need your American Italians to know what's going on in your life because it will be slightly different.

Alex Ingrim (06:42)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing that I say to people as well is if you think about how your life was back in the US, you you might have friends that you made through high school or grade school. You might have friends that you made through work as you were an adult. You might have your friends from college. So you pick up these friends everywhere along the way. Right. And what happens when you try and integrate into a new community is everyone in that community

You know, say you're moving to town in Italy, everyone in the town already has their friend group, right? They have their friends from high school, from work. So the onus is really on you to make those friendships and establish those friendships. And that can be emotionally draining, trying to speak a new language and connect with people. So like you said, having that Italian American group to fall back on.

where you instantly have some things in common, even if it's just the same frame of reference, right? Or they might be from the same state as you. That's really comforting, right? It's what gives you the emotional energy to drive forward and integrate more. So, you know, we all take that for granted, right? That we have built up these friend groups over decades and so have the people in our new community.

House Of Peregrine (08:02)

And know you have such a broad knowledge about this, but the same is kind of true of your finances. You actually need people to answer questions. Like nobody is dealing with what you are dealing with in your new country financially. Like there's no, they have no idea what you're going through. And so I think that's something that people maybe underestimate. I think I posted something yesterday that said, we barely consulted our family when we moved abroad.

let alone our tax, like a person that does our taxes, why would we, we didn't think about that, right? But our wealth and our money, even if we don't feel wealthy, is something that is in a manifestation of where you're from. And then when you change that, it changes a lot of things. So it's part of uprooting is considering how your finances are based.

Alex Ingrim (08:49)

Yeah, and I think money, we underplay how emotionally tied we are to our financial situation, right? If your financial situation is even temporarily less than you expected it to be, it can affect you emotionally. It can affect your relationships with a partner, with children, with coworkers, with friends. So it is really important. And I think one thing that we take for granted as Americans is we hear

a lot of different things about what it's like to move abroad. And one of the first things that we hear is that you're still going to have to file or pay U.S. taxes. And one of the big misconceptions about that is that that should then be your primary concern is how do you deal with your U.S. taxes when you live abroad? And while that's true, what we tell most of our clients and prospective clients is that you usually don't actually have a U.S. tax problem.

abroad. You usually have a tax problem that's Italian or Portuguese. You know, the country that you're moving to may have a different tax code that your asset base or income streams are not well adapted to at this point, right? Because why would they be? You spend your whole life in one system, optimizing for that one system. And then when you move to another system, you have to play by two sets of rules, right? You still have to keep

House Of Peregrine (09:56)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (10:15)

compliant with the US tax code and then say you move to Portugal, you have to be compliant with the Portuguese tax code, but then also recognize that the rule book is written completely differently and that there may be some things that you should do before you move to make sure that you're optimizing for your move to Portugal or Spain or Italy or places like that. So there's a lot that you can do beforehand. It's just having the awareness that

House Of Peregrine (10:26)

Yep.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (10:42)

you need to start thinking about it usually about a year before.

House Of Peregrine (10:46)

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that another way of saying it is like tax codes are cultural. They're optimized for different things. And that it's just big time. And that culture comes through so strong in what like and America is unique. The United States is unique in how it's optimized. But sometimes directly, at least in my experience in the Netherlands, it's directly opposed to the some of the values in the Netherlands. And so but but you're

Alex Ingrim (10:54)

Big time.

House Of Peregrine (11:16)

it's you're held accountable to both systems and if they're at odds. And of course there's some loop, there's some things you can do and then some treaties luckily, but yeah, knowing I think just with that awareness and it's not just you and it's not your there's just no system made for people like us yet.

Alex Ingrim (11:33)

No, and look, it extends even further to that. For the work that we do, and I've talked to other firms in our space helping Americans to move abroad, there's no textbook to train people in our space, right? Because it's so country specific. If you work on Italy and the US, it's one interaction. It's the complete opposite almost of doing France in the US. And then UK in the US is a whole different kettle of fish.

House Of Peregrine (11:46)

Yeah.

Alex Ingrim (12:01)

How does anyone gain enough knowledge to deal with that interaction? And if you're a globally mobile person who, you we always say, if you move once, you're more likely to move again, right? If it's a successful move, it just sparks an inner curiosity where you may move again. And we get that request from clients all the time. So how do you deal with being a globally mobile person and trying to understand how to optimize your asset base for that?

House Of Peregrine (12:22)

tips.

Alex Ingrim (12:30)

And so it is hard. There's no easy answer. And it's just all about planning and preparation. It's about setting your expectations to match your future reality. Right. So don't move to Italy and assume you're going to pay the same tax bill that you would in the U.S. Right. That's you're going to be dumbfounded by how different it is.

House Of Peregrine (12:48)

Yes.

Yeah. Do you think people have to, this is a question I always ask myself, so I want to ask you, do you think you have to let go of some of, or like, do you have to compromise on the amount of success you can have financially if you're a globally mobile person?

Alex Ingrim (13:07)

I don't think so. We've, in my relationship between me and my wife, we've always kind of had this rule of thumb that we only gained this perspective probably after 10 years or 12 years of living together and moving around the world. And so what we found from our experience was that one of us could have a really good career at any given time.

House Of Peregrine (13:20)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (13:31)

and it had nothing to do with who we were or our relationship or how it functioned. It was really just playing the odds, right? So if you move to France and neither of you went to school in France, have a network, have any kind of connections and you're looking for a job in France or you're starting a business in France, the odds are that one of you would be successful at it and the other might not just by the situation and by happenstance.

House Of Peregrine (13:39)

Mm.

Alex Ingrim (13:59)

So what we found is that we always financially planned for one of us to be successful in our career. And that if that happened, we would structure our family life accordingly. whoever kind of was lucky in that given jurisdiction, I don't want to say lucky, but whoever had some success in their job search, that would take precedent and priority.

House Of Peregrine (14:00)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Alex Ingrim (14:26)

And so we were lucky enough to be able to do that and have that perspective after about a decade. But it kept happening enough times that we just allowed it to happen, right? I don't think you can put a cap on success because I think there are things that translate into every culture. you have a high level of emotional intelligence, if you have a high level of cultural sensitivity, if you are willing to

House Of Peregrine (14:32)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (14:52)

work hard and understand the people around you and their needs, I think you can be successful in any culture. I think the tax code in any given jurisdiction might make you feel like you're not as successful or you're making less money, but you have to bring it back to the cultural relevance of that country. So what we say to people all the time is in Spain, you you get taxed at really high tax rates at 60, 70,000 euros a

you feel like you're really getting hit by Hacienda, by the tax authority at that level. But what we tell people is if you look at people earning an income in Spain, you're probably in the top 10%, the top 20%. You know, and once you're at six figures, you're probably pretty close to the top 5%, if not the top 1%. So success is relative, right? And we're just talking about financial success, not even

your own personal definition of wealth or success.

House Of Peregrine (15:53)

Yep. about income is one thing and that's a whole section. But then what about wealth you've acquired or other kinds of things you're creating? some me and my partner, we create businesses and businesses have to be rooted somewhere. And so right now there's a big conversation in the Netherlands about tech companies because they're taxed differently and there's a lot of labor laws. So there's a lot of things to this. But

What we see is it's all connected throughout the world because we can't compete in the Netherlands as the US. And so it's cultural. That's the answer. But what we're wrestling with is should you choose a country more carefully? So with quality of life, but also with the idea that your wealth will be moving between these two countries.

And not just money, not just your income, not just your paycheck, but also your investments, whatever value you're creating, even if it's in a Dutch company or an Italian company. Sometimes they're just, it's just not a fit.

Alex Ingrim (16:54)

Absolutely. mean, we have this saying that there's an asset base for every jurisdiction. So there's a good fit for each country based on the tax code in the double taxation agreement. And what we're finding, one of the really interesting immigration trends with Americans is that as a culture, you know, we pride ourselves on being a country founded by immigrants, right? And we have this

House Of Peregrine (16:59)

jurisdiction.

Hmm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Alex Ingrim (17:23)

kind of sense of self that's rooted in immigration and Americans are not very specific on where they want to move to. So if someone makes an inquiry that's saying, I want to move to Spain and we say, look, your asset base is just not a good fit for Spain. Most often they reply with, Hey, well, where is my asset base a good fit for? And then we start talking about a few other countries that pique their interest. You know, so we're not

House Of Peregrine (17:44)

Yeah

Alex Ingrim (17:51)

like rooted in I have to move to one country. So we have that conversation a lot, cross jurisdictional comparisons. What is a really good fit for your income stream, for your asset base based on a domestic tax code in that country and the double taxation agreement. And there's other considerations you have to take into account too. So if there's an immigration regime that's a really good fit for you, great.

House Of Peregrine (17:59)

What is a really good fit for your income stream?

Alex Ingrim (18:16)

Let's prioritize that and build a plan that we can make that move happen for you. If you need to move to Spain because you can get Spanish citizenship really quickly, if you need to move to Italy because you can get Italian citizenship really quickly, let's do it. We'll figure that out. But in the absence of that, hey, let's have an open conversation about where your asset base is a good fit.

House Of Peregrine (18:31)

Yep.

Yeah, and that and it's such a it feels a little like

It feels like if you really have a place you love, like you have to move to Spain, you'll make it work. Like if your heart is saying Spain, but then you might take a little bit. It might actually be a little bit more expensive for you, but that's a values call. Right? And making that mindfully is super helpful because, and that's what I mean, I guess, if you're going for your heart, you might be paying for that, which is not a bad thing. But doing it mindfully is really, important.

Alex Ingrim (18:57)

Exactly.

House Of Peregrine (19:11)

Well, it's not really important, but it is out there. It's available to be able to make an educated decision and then decide, you know what, I'm going to pay extra for that place I love and pay extra sounds. So I hope you know what I mean. I'm going to pay a premium for that. And it's not like we're purchasing a country that's not, or purchasing, we're not consuming a country, but you are actually investing in the place you are.

Alex Ingrim (19:15)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

House Of Peregrine (19:37)

And that's just a matter of being a U.S. holding a U.S. passport. It's just one of the facts of that. And so I always like to be really careful about how we talk about value because I think it's really easy to get into consuming places instead of actually being in them. But saying that you can follow your heart, but it's just really nice to have these comparisons that you do. And so if someone is thinking of moving, they reach out to you and say, this is my tax.

my financial situation, you can help them do that comparison of like, hey, have you considered this place in the countries you specialize in? That is worth so much if you're considering a move, I have to say. It makes you sure in your choice.

Alex Ingrim (20:15)

Yeah, what we say is we want to give people the data to make decisions, right? So if you're going to pay that premium, you actually know what that premium looks like, right? So that you're going into it with an educated mindset so that you're not just saying, I think I'm paying more to live in Spain. You actually know how much more you're paying to live in Spain than, say, France.

House Of Peregrine (20:20)

Yep.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (20:40)

And so that you've actually made an informed decision between those two countries if you didn't have a strong preference one way or the other. So that's all that we're trying to achieve is to give people a little bit more knowledge because you can't Google these things out, right? It's just not possible.

House Of Peregrine (20:56)

Nope. You can't, you

actually can't. And that's part of what I kind of love about it is it takes another human. have to, you enter the world of humans once you move abroad. And that's, it's humans all the way down. There's no Google. Google doesn't care about this, what we're yet. And it changes. It changes so often, I think than people might realize.

Alex Ingrim (21:12)

No, no.

I mean, there are tax jurisdictions and especially, you know, when you think of what happens in the US to get a tax law changed, it is difficult. It's not that straightforward. You have to get usually the executive and Congress to agree on what's happening and drive legislation forward. And that's actually not how it functions in a lot of countries.

House Of Peregrine (21:43)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (21:43)

relatively

short process to create a budget for the next year and all of a sudden two or three months later the taxes have changed or just one legislative bill can change tax law dramatically. So we say this all the time when you're looking at a country how reliable is that country the the tax law the legislation in that country and how often does it change? In some countries

It changes much more often than others.

House Of Peregrine (22:13)

our entire visa changed. Like we were here with a letter from the government saying you have eight years on the 30 % rule. And then they're like, just kidding, five years. And we were four years, 10 months in. And so it really, it is really a vulnerable place to be in financially to be a global immobile person. Probably less so in some countries. I'm not sure if the Netherlands would have been on the list of less stable

when we moved here nine years ago. Yeah.

Alex Ingrim (22:40)

No, mean, you know, Portugal wouldn't have been 10 years ago, 15 years ago, right? And now it is now. It absolutely is. You know, Italy would have been a very unstable place 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And now it's starting to look in relative terms, very stable compared to other tax jurisdictions and just politically.

House Of Peregrine (22:44)

10 years ago, 15 years ago. And now it is, now it's not.

Alex Ingrim (23:04)

for the first time in a while, Italy's got a little bit of continuity in the government, which is not a normal thing here.

House Of Peregrine (23:11)

You're

like, where is this? So when you're looking at countries, really is cultural. You really have to kind of dive in to what's going on culturally. And that's kind of where you help people because they can't do that. You can't Google what a culture feels like financially.

Alex Ingrim (23:13)

Yeah, exactly.

No, no, I mean,

we do a little bit like for some groups, we do cross-cultural training about, you know, just how you think of money in a different country, right? And one of the big points that we always try to make is let's say that you're going to a barbecue in your new country. You can go through an entire barbecue of three or four hours in Western Europe and no one will even ask you what you do for work.

House Of Peregrine (23:58)

No,

Alex Ingrim (23:58)

No one cares. They're

going to ask you about your family, about where you've gone on holiday. We're going to talk a lot about food, like what you're eating and why you're eating it and recipes. But you're not going to talk about work and you're never going to talk about money. So, you know, you're not sharing stock tips over a coffee with a friend and Europe. It's it's never, ever going to happen. So you're not working

House Of Peregrine (24:12)

Yep. Yep. Never.

Alex Ingrim (24:25)

to live or you're not living to work, right? It has nothing to do with your identity, right? Your family usually comes first in a lot of these cultures. And also a really good example of the culture being embedded into the tax code is when you look at things like inheritance tax in Italy, Italy has really low inheritance taxes. And I always say to people, they're like, I thought Italy was

House Of Peregrine (24:29)

It's not your whole identity here.

Alex Ingrim (24:51)

high tax on everything. And I said, if you understand Italian culture and how much gets passed down from generation to generation, there would be a riot if they raised inheritance taxes to the level they are in some countries like France and the UK. Italy has, know, traditionally you pass down your house to your children and even, you know, the other parents at school, they talk about that. They're like, I'm buying a house and

House Of Peregrine (25:06)

.

Alex Ingrim (25:18)

I wanna make sure it's a place that my son can live and I'm like, your son's seven years old. Like, you know, how do you know where he's gonna wanna live in 20 years? But that is the mentality, right?

House Of Peregrine (25:23)

Yes. Yep.

Yep. Yeah. And that makes sense. In the Netherlands, I think they Google you before so they know who you are, but they don't talk about it. No, but I think, yeah, as people doing startups for us, our whole identity was our work. And so that was a big shock when we moved here. And not because you want to talk about money. It's just that's what you do all day.

Alex Ingrim (25:35)

Okay, there you go.

House Of Peregrine (25:49)

from when you wake up to when you go to bed. And so it's actually really interesting to do startups in Europe because that mentality, people are like, this is just my job. And it's like, okay, we're gonna, but there's a happy medium, right? Like I don't think one is better than the other, but it has been such a rich inner journey to be in both systems.

Alex Ingrim (25:49)

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah, I agree completely. Like trying to adapt to a European lifestyle while running a company is incredibly enriching because you're constantly torn between different perspectives and it forces a really rich self-examination of why am I doing this right now?

House Of Peregrine (26:18)

Yeah.

Is this programming or is this the right thing? Often it comes to a third option. What I want to ask you next is I have this idea. So if I were to do this again, I think I would recognize my love of moving and being in new cultures. And I think that I probably would have planned a little bit. of course, knowing the plan wouldn't work. But

Alex Ingrim (26:33)

Yeah.

House Of Peregrine (26:51)

spending a few years here, there, there, and kind of mapping out, maybe not putting down roots as strong as we did here, not because I don't like here, I love it here actually, but just being strategic about where my other options were, or like if I move here, then here, then here, I can both live out my values and my finances would follow me in a way that's really true to who I am. Is that something people are looking at doing? I mean, not because they don't want to put down roots, just because they recognize

that they might want to move around and experience different things.

Alex Ingrim (27:21)

Yeah, so we're having that conversation relatively often with people that you'd call them like an early retiree. So typically mid to late 40s to early 50s, they're looking at just dipping their toe in the water in a country like France, but also saying we love the idea of France, but we also know that if we're early retirees, we might have other passion projects we want to pursue.

we might want to go see what it's like to live in that next country five or 10 years down the line. We are going to travel a lot, you know, should we have our eye on anywhere for our next move? So we're having that conversation over and over again about what does a next step look like and what does that mean for your finances? And we want to make sure that it's a structured conversation.

Meaning, okay, well, let's not plan for too many variables, right? Let's make sure that we have a finite list of variables that we can model and really talk about. Otherwise, we're just dreaming, which is great. I mean, everybody should be doing that, but you've got to dream with some structure in order to build a plan to make it happen. And that's how we're trying to frame the conversation.

House Of Peregrine (28:20)

Yeah.

Yeah. In my head, I see this, this is not what you're doing, but in my head, I see this like guide to, if you want to live in Europe when your kids are little and you want to do it for 10 years, here's the combination of countries you can try with your current financial backpack, right? This is your financial backpack you've got on. If it kind of looks like this, you know, that's kind of the, if I were to create a guide in 20 years, so that people could do this more easily.

That's kind of what I envision, which sounds really silly, but that's what I do for a living is make guides for people to make it easier for them. But you're doing that custom for people, which is really, really cool.

Alex Ingrim (29:20)

Yeah, and I think, you know, there's a, there really is something to, okay, you have young kids that are under five years old. Here's what you should think about, not just financially sure, of course, but lifestyle wise, right? You know, are they going to go to daycare? Are there enough parks? Because these are things that we absolutely take for granted. There are assumptions in the back of our mind about what school looks like, what play looks like.

House Of Peregrine (29:34)

Yep. Yep.

Alex Ingrim (29:48)

Right? So my kids, no, absolutely. Yeah. Big time. you know, we have a, we have a garden. We've had a garden or a yard for probably the best part of the last five years. My kids have gone out to play in the yard, like less than a dozen times because they've grown up in a place where you socialize at the park. You don't go have a playdate and go out into your backyard all the time.

House Of Peregrine (29:48)

Yep. What bullying looks like. Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (30:17)

you would

go, especially when they're younger, you go to the park. That's what socializing looks like. So, you know, there's that shocked me. I just kept thinking over and over again, why do we even have that garden where I have to, you know, take care of everything in it every weekend? But it's just that cultural adjustment, right? So I think there really is something to your kids are moving through different stages of life, which country accommodates that.

House Of Peregrine (30:21)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (30:42)

Right. And then how does that impact your finances? Because there are very low impact places that are really good for trying out. So France, Malta, they're usually really low impact places. If you're working in Italy, absolutely can be a really low impact place tax wise, where then you just get to try it out. You you see if this lifestyle is for you. And, you know, it depends on what you're trying to.

House Of Peregrine (30:51)

Mm-hmm.

think we really love you.

Alex Ingrim (31:09)

what your relative comparison is. So what are you trying to get away from in short, right? Is it...

House Of Peregrine (31:16)

That's

what I keep telling people. I'm like, do not run away from something. Run towards something.

Alex Ingrim (31:22)

Yeah,

well the grass isn't always greener, like it's just different. you know, the logistics and infrastructure might be different here in Europe and that might drive you crazy. And you might not have even known that about your personality because you might not have confronted it before.

House Of Peregrine (31:25)

No. Yep.

It's so true. It's so true. So the conviction of why you're going somewhere, that's a layer on top. for me, it's like getting everything to work in concert is actually, it's like a little bit like building a custom life. Like if you compare it to building a custom home, you have to choose every single part of your life and help it work in concert. And if it's not, then you have to make big decisions, bigger than moving to another state in the US or

Like it is a custom life you're building instead of a pre-built one where there's a lot of assumptions and a lot of things. So the country you're in, the passport situation, your financial situation, all of those things need to work in concert in a way that works for you. And like you said, it's impossible to Google this stuff. when you help people, so when you sit down with people, what is the first meeting with you look like? Because you guys are...

Wealth managers, right? That's kind of what you're helping people do. But also you're strategizing with them what to do. I'd like to call it your financial backpack. I don't know why, because if you're in one country, it's like a tree with many roots. But when you're a globally mobile person, it turns into a backpack. And so you help them figure out what they're taking their tree and making it into something that's globally mobile, more globally mobile. Is that right?

Alex Ingrim (32:54)

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a big part of it. It's the first conversation really looks like, you know, tell me what you're trying to do and why you're trying to do it. We're trying to understand your motivation. A lot of it is just soft facts about, you know, why are you moving to Europe? What's that look like to you? What's important about your move to you? Is it based on your values? Is it based on a sense of adventure?

House Of Peregrine (33:06)

I'm trying to understand your motivation.

Alex Ingrim (33:24)

And then we start getting into your asset base. So that is that backpack, right? It's because you are uprooting it. You're making it subject to taxation somewhere else, essentially. And so what you're trying to understand in the first call is really, you know, how can we help you? How does our help or the work that we can do with you align with your goals and your values? And then

House Of Peregrine (33:29)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Ingrim (33:49)

Is there anything immediately that we can tell you about your situation that you need to be aware of in order to make the move successful? So, you know, a great example is you might assume that, you know, your income isn't taxable in Europe because all of your clients are in the U S and that's not true at all. You know, your, your income's almost always going to be taxable in Europe. That maybe there's a few exceptions, but

So it's just, can we provide immediate value? Do we understand why you're moving? And how could we help you? How can we work together to get you to where you want to be? And some of it is a transformation exercise. So as we go through actually working with a client and taking them on board and saying, Hey, you're moving to Portugal in nine months. We look at what can we do before the move, right? So what are some really

House Of Peregrine (34:40)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Alex Ingrim (34:44)

actionable planning strategies to alleviate your future tax burden after you move to Europe. Because typically most European countries, you're going to suffer a higher tax burden than you would in the US. There's some exceptions there. And you know, if you're moving from California or New York, maybe it's more like for like than you'd imagine. But if you're moving from, you know, a no income tax state, then

Yeah, you might be shocked by what your tax bill looks like.

House Of Peregrine (35:13)

Yep. So you're more, you're also kind of like a life coach.

Alex Ingrim (35:16)

I mean, I think what we're trying to do is ground our clients perspective, right? So it's very much like, hey, we wanna help you get to those goals, but are those goals realistic? And that's where we're kind of like a reality check, right? It's, hey, you can't really live in Italy with the asset base you have, with the lifestyle that you wanna live.

And we're a life coach in the sense of like, you know, a lot of people will tell us, I really want to move to this town that I went to holiday on went to went to on vacation. We think it's great. And, you know, a lot of either me or one of our other members of staff will be like, Hey, you know, I've lived in a small village in the middle of nowhere in Italy or France, or it looks really great at first blush. But after six months there, are you really sure that's where you want to be?

House Of Peregrine (36:07)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (36:10)

You know, maybe you should move to a bigger city and then transition to the village. So I think we help people kind of re-engineer their plan to make it successful at the start, right? We want to see people have a great first six months or year and give themselves the highest chance of success that they can have, which isn't usually

House Of Peregrine (36:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (36:35)

super specific, like I have to go to this town and I have to live in this house because that's where your expectations start to have this huge mismatch with reality.

House Of Peregrine (36:45)

Yep. Yeah. I think that it's those we know this that first year, you're working hard. Like this is this needs to be a goal. This is not a vacation you're on unless, of course, you're only there for a year. You can make it a vacation, but then you would plan it differently. And so that perspective is super helpful because we know that a lot of international people who are moving abroad, they struggle and they didn't actually realize they would struggle in the ways.

It's an additional life stage. Like I keep saying over and over again, like think of it as you're having a baby or moving in together. This is the type of challenge you're taking on and it's well worth it if that's your goal. There's so much good stuff, but what you're saying is grounding it is because then they can kind of be prepared and not feel so lonely.

Alex Ingrim (37:30)

Yeah. And I think one of the really important things that you just brought up is that most people are making this move on the back of other changes in their life. Right. So they're retiring or their kids have reached a certain age. Maybe they're moving out of the house. Maybe their kids are living in Europe already and they're having a child and people are becoming grandparents. Or what we're seeing more often now is my kids have to start school in earnest. Like they, you know,

House Of Peregrine (37:39)

Hmm

Thanks.

Alex Ingrim (37:58)

they're going to be a first grader or a fifth grader, whatever that means to your family unit and the change, then there's a, there's a lot of other stuff going on in your personal life when you make this move. So what happens is you start to see all of these changes compound and you genuinely do become a different person with a different perspective. It's a lot like becoming a parent for the first time, for those of us that have done it, you can't go back.

House Of Peregrine (38:08)

Yep. Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (38:26)

You can't go back to the way that you were. You've got

House Of Peregrine (38:26)

Yep. Yep.

Alex Ingrim (38:29)

a different perspective. And so when you have multiple life changes happen at once, what's really useful we find is just having other people to talk to. Whether it's someone like us that's a professional, whether it's other people that have done it before, it just gets some of that stuff off your chest. Maybe you're an empty nester who's just retired that's moving abroad. We see that one a lot.

House Of Peregrine (38:39)

Yeah.

Okay.

See you.

Alex Ingrim (38:53)

my gosh, that's so many things happening at once. That is your perspective on life changing Go find someone to talk to. Make sure that you're doing it right and you're thinking about it in the right way rather than setting your expectations different.

House Of Peregrine (38:56)

Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Yep, going it alone.

That's why we're House of Peregrine, right? You're never the same again, and you're more like people from other places in the world, perhaps, than the people you grew up with now. Your perspectives, your life experience, it changes. Do you ever have anyone decide not to move after they talk to you?

Alex Ingrim (39:19)

definitely.

Yeah, pretty often. mean, yeah, a few. there's a few situations where that happens. One, someone has their heart absolutely set on a country. Then we talk to them and they realize, no, I can't do this because of the tax burden. Right. So that happens. Sometimes we then take that conversation and say.

House Of Peregrine (39:27)

really? yeah.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (39:47)

Look, your asset base is a better fit for somewhere else. Have you thought about that country? And we've seen actually, and I mean, these aren't even people that became clients. We've seen that conversation be really transformative and successful for some families where they just always thought about one place because they thought it was the easiest. And then we said, well, hey, go talk to like three other people we know about France, for example, and figure out if that's the right place for you instead.

And we've seen people actually make that move. and then, yeah, we have people that honestly, it just gets too overwhelming, right? It's just a little bit too much more than they expected.

House Of Peregrine (40:18)

Hmm.

Yeah, I think if I would have talked to you, we wouldn't have moved. no, but not you specifically, but like we knew we wanted to go. We knew probably it wasn't wise financially, but we knew we wanted something different. And if we. Yeah, I mean, I just think some one of our podcast producers, she said, I'm glad I didn't talk to someone because I wouldn't have done it. And so that's another perspective. But saying that.

Alex Ingrim (40:30)

I'm glad you didn't.

Yeah.

House Of Peregrine (40:51)

I think if you really want to do it, you just need to know there's a price. There might be a price.

Alex Ingrim (40:56)

Yeah, and I think, look, there's also just this idea, especially when you're looking at the financial side of it, is that, you you can say that, like, if we talked to you, we probably wouldn't have moved, but you guys are young, right? So you have your whole life ahead of you. You've got lots of different decisions to make about your finances going forward. And you've got a lot of time to make, you know, your financial situation successful.

House Of Peregrine (41:10)

Yeah.

Alex Ingrim (41:24)

Where we see people that really do need to make a yes or no decision is if you're gonna move in your 67 or 70 and you're trying to live, you know, the best years of your life in Italy or Spain or somewhere like that, then yeah, you're not going to have infinite resources or infinite time to make money. Your career is probably coming to an end and you need to figure out

House Of Peregrine (41:29)

Mm-hmm.

you

Alex Ingrim (41:50)

if you plan ahead, if you can make that move successful. So it's a lot different, you know, when you're 40 years old, maybe, or 30 years old to move abroad than it is when you're in your late 60s. So that's where I think that youth part, like, you know, I moved when I was 19. It wasn't even a conscious decision. That's really beneficial. Like you just, you make the decision and you move on and your life becomes something else.

House Of Peregrine (41:54)

Yes.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Yep. that's, I mean, we were still pretty young when we, but we had three tiny kids. So it was, yeah. But when you need to go, you go. And I think that I wouldn't do it any other way because it's just like going anywhere. There, there's consequences, good or bad. yeah, I really love that you're providing this fellowship almost for people to be able to, do what they're doing. And that's.

Honestly, what's missing in the international community and it's starting to come, which I really love, is this fellowship of people like, never going to be like you were before. So just relish that. And you might never need to be able to talk about stock tips at a barbecue anymore, actually, because your perspective is totally changed. Yeah, cool. So when you have clients, so let's assume they make it past the first.

Alex Ingrim (42:50)

Yeah.

Yeah.

House Of Peregrine (43:05)

conversation and they become your clients. What does that look like? How do you partner with people in their financial lives to live where they want to live or plan ahead for the life they want? Tell me how that looks.

Alex Ingrim (43:17)

Yeah. So, I mean, we typically take people on a journey help them decide if they want to become a client first. So we take them through something we call a proposal process, which is actually three meetings where we start to develop the outline of a plan together. the idea is, and it's totally free, and we're just trying to give people some actionable data points to understand the financial implications of their So,

We take them through a second meeting where, you know, they've given us a lot more data about their asset base, their income, and who they are. we talk about how we're going to build the plan. In the third meeting, we show them, you know, the outline of a plan that's already pre-built in our system to say, this is what we would suggest you do. This is how we would manage your investments. These are the instruments we would use. This is why we're using them, and this is why we're making the recommendations.

so that people understand one, how we can help them, but two, really the implications of the move as a whole. So the things that they need to do, whether we work together or not. And then once we are working together, it's an ongoing relationship. So if you move, we're typically, if you're a client in a year that you are moving, we would typically meet anywhere from like four to six times a year just to check in on you, see how you're doing.

House Of Peregrine (44:14)

so that people understand.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (44:41)

understand what may have changed as far as what you expected and what transpired in your move. you know, we're honestly just making sure people are okay. And then from there, we're just it's an ongoing tax compliance piece in terms of like, okay, are you following the plan that we set forth? Have the rules changed in any of the countries that we're working in? How's the investment performance? So

what you typically expect from someone who's managing your wealth, but it's always with an eye on multiple jurisdictions. And it's always with the understanding that this might be a new, fresh experience to you. And that there are other things going on in your life that we might need to talk about that we might need to talk about how much you hate the apartment that you rented, right? That's a, that's a big one that comes up like, we didn't expect.

House Of Peregrine (45:24)

Yeah.

Alex Ingrim (45:33)

you know, these three things to happen and we hate our neighbors. Great. Let's talk about it because I've been there. I can, I can tell you that there's another side to it. You're going to get over it and move on and enjoy other parts of

House Of Peregrine (45:39)

Yeah.

Yeah, but it seems big at the moment and it does affect your finances. It really does. It might make you go home, which has its own set of text implications. we were speaking earlier, we spoke about the changes that are happening in the perception of people who live abroad. You were saying, and I wish we could have recorded it, but from 10, 15 years ago, the perception of people

Alex Ingrim (45:47)

Absolutely. Yeah.

That's it.

House Of Peregrine (46:09)

who were moving from the US to Europe was that they had to be wealthy, a certain wealth. Tell me how that's changed and the reality.

Alex Ingrim (46:13)

Yeah.

Yeah, so I think, you know, when we look back at the past immigration trends of Americans moving to Europe, a lot of us had it in our mind that Europe is a really expensive place. I need to be able to afford to live there. You know, we're thinking of people skiing at Swiss ski resorts in the Alps. You know, that's the image that comes to mind or at a French chateau. And the reality is that what we're seeing now is a broad swath.

of US society, people from all sorts of socioeconomic backgrounds are So we're seeing families move. We're seeing people that, you know, are willing to take a bet on moving their young family over to a country like Spain or Portugal and becoming a one income family instead of a two income family like they would be back in the US.

House Of Peregrine (47:08)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Ingrim (47:10)

And a lot of that is just because there's more information available on what it's like to live in some of these countries. There's a broader understanding that if you move to Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, you're going to have a lower cost of living. You might not need to both work, particularly if you're digital nomads, if you have a remote job and you make an American salary. People are realizing I can do that. I can live in Spain. One of us can work.

and the other one gets to watch our kids grow up or we just have a calmer, more peaceful family life that isn't centered around work, that isn't centered around how we're gonna be able to save for retirement or college. So I think that's a really important demographic change is that we're seeing more families, we're seeing more retirees, early retirees, that people retiring at 55 or 60.

and saying, I can do this now. I can't do this back home. I know I can't do this in the Bay area or in Dallas or in Florida, but I can do this in Spain or Portugal. And so I think I was saying, it's like you've opened Pandora's box, right? Everyone is coming to this realization that the quality of life is good in Europe. The cost of living is relatively low. don't have to worry if you're an early retiree about

House Of Peregrine (48:12)

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Alex Ingrim (48:33)

how you're gonna pay for healthcare. It's coming out of your taxes, you're contributing to the system. So that's a huge mentality shift from what it was like a decade or two before.

House Of Peregrine (48:44)

Yep. And I think something that people maybe underestimate as well, if you have kids, is college, a university in Europe. That's an option if your kids have grown up here, is they have two places to consider. A university, which if you're someone who worries about funding your kids' university, it can be seen like a relief if you want them to have that option, to maybe have that as part of your wealth planning.

that they might have options that they don't have in the US if they were raised there. And so I think that that's, well, when I was living in the US and thinking I would only live in the US, those were my major stresses, getting sick, making sure my kids can go to college, making sure we have a house. Those occupied most of my worries. Of course, know, financially speaking, there was lots of other worries. And so those are different here. And that changes your perspective.

Is that, do I have that right?

Alex Ingrim (49:36)

Absolutely. mean, it frees up bandwidth to do and think about other things, right? So if you're, if you know that you're going to be taken care of, if you get sick, then that the, mental strain that that relieves is massive, right? It's not going to bankrupt you financially to get cancer in Like, and honestly, maybe it's just, I've lived here for so long, but

That's just a value that should exist regardless of the society that you live in, right? That it's not your fault if you get sick and you'll get taken care of. So think what it does...

House Of Peregrine (50:05)

Yeah.

My daughter spent some

time in the hospital last year and we've lived here for nine years. You'd think we'd be kind of used to it, but my partner said to me, midway through when we knew she was going to be okay, he's like, you know how much less stressed I am right now? He's like, I would have been stressing because this would have cost us half a million dollars in the States. Just to find out what's wrong with our daughter who was actually really, really sick.

But he's like, I can't believe that would have been on my mind, but it would have been. that was a moment for us to be like, what were we, I mean, that is such a survival instinct in the US. And it is, it changes you. It changes you to have that experience.

Alex Ingrim (50:50)

Well, and I think, you know, raising children in Europe, one thing that I've realized is that when you have the health care taken care of and you have a lot of the education costs taken care of, it frees you up just to be a parent and be emotionally available for the other things that kids need because they need so much more than just going to college or making sure they're healthy. Those are just the basic ground level things that should exist for a kid in every society.

House Of Peregrine (51:07)

Yep.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (51:18)

And then after that, there's a lot more that you have to do, as we all know. But I think that bandwidth that you get back from not having to plan for a college education or not having to plan for health care costs, when we think about how a European, like how Italians live, they're going on holiday.

House Of Peregrine (51:22)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (51:39)

domestically and not really expensive holidays, but August is time to spend with family. It's time at the beach. The reason that some of these ideas and concepts and philosophies exist in Europe that August is for family is because you're not worried about, no, no, no, I have to save every last dollar I get for college education. I have to make sure I can pay for my health insurance. It allows you to pivot towards, why don't we just do something fun with the kids?

House Of Peregrine (52:00)

Yep. Yep.

Alex Ingrim (52:08)

or why don't I explore something new? Why don't I go to a different part of the world and gain a different perspective? Because a lot of, you know, I went to graduate school here. Most of my peers were so much better traveled than I am and still are, genuinely, still are because that's their philosophy.

House Of Peregrine (52:08)

Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah, we always tell people we had to learn how to vacation when we moved here. This is I'm not proud of this, but I didn't know how to plan a vacation.

Alex Ingrim (52:35)

Yeah, no.

House Of Peregrine (52:35)

I'd never take it, in

my adult life, I'd never taken a proper vacation. This is not a badge of arm, like I do not, I am not proud of this, but it is a life skill to be able to start and stop your work.

Alex Ingrim (52:45)

Absolutely. It's that it's a big important life skill in Europe too, because again, when we go back to that idea of what are you going to talk about? How are you going to integrate into society? The things that you think are important that you're talking about and you've, you know, you've learned all the words in your new language for, and then you show up and you know, that's not the topic of conversation.

House Of Peregrine (52:46)

and that

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (53:10)

That's when you start to understand those cultural nuances, right? That you have to be able to talk about a vacation to a certain extent. Even if it's just, hey, have you been to the seaside? That's 50 miles away. Do you know what that looks like? Do you know a good restaurant out there? And that's the startling part, being American.

House Of Peregrine (53:10)

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep, it's true. Okay, last question. I don't want to take too much more of your time, but how are things changing for Americans? It really is a unique time in history and it's been changing. It's not just the last year or two or three or four. I think immigration might be changing for Americans a bit. The perception of us is changing a bit in the world, I think. Have you seen this? How is this affecting people? Or is it?

Alex Ingrim (53:50)

I think it's definitely affecting people in terms of, I think what we're seeing is more of an establishment of a trend of Americans living abroad. And that's a good thing. And I hope it does change the way that we perceive ourselves, for Americans that are living in the U.S. But I think that there's beginning to be just this recognition that we're a really big country.

House Of Peregrine (54:01)

Mm-hmm.

Alex Ingrim (54:17)

in the US, not everybody has the same value set and that there are places in the world that may be more aligned with your values or the way that you want to live your life or even the way that you want to eat your food and that you can be globally mobile. And the interesting side is that there are more countries in Europe. Now, we have to forget about all the things that are in the headlines like Golden Visas and things like that. Forget about all of that.

House Of Peregrine (54:21)

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (54:46)

there are more ways and increasingly more ways to move to European countries than there ever have been. And so you're seeing this alignment of more Americans wanting to leave and more ways to immigrate, to truly immigrate and move to another country. And so that's created this opportunity where you're seeing more people that are serious about this. You're seeing

a much broader section of society consider it. And I think all that that's doing is creating a more constructive conversation around what's happening in the US, how it compares internationally to what's happening in other countries that we're aware of. And just the fact that our way isn't the only right way to live. And I think that's really interesting because

House Of Peregrine (55:32)

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (55:35)

I think that's ingrained in us from a really early age. And to have our clients who are in their mid-60s be the ones who prompt that conversation is an amazing thing to see, It's just a great barometer of how we have evolved as a society in a lot of ways.

House Of Peregrine (55:48)

Yep.

Yeah. What about in the countries welcoming Americans? How is that changing or is it? How welcoming they are.

Alex Ingrim (55:59)

I think that the broad scope of things, we have this kind of tunnel vision where we focus on American immigration, right? Oh, there's a lot of Americans moving to Portugal or oh, there's a lot of Americans moving to Spain. And in reality, there really aren't numbers wise. So, you know, there might be anywhere from 10 to 15,000 Americans in Portugal. That's, you know, that's not a huge amount of people in a country of nine or 10, 11 million people.

Right. So we are a very small community, but we're a noticeable community because we make ourselves felt. I think very hyper locally, there are some issues in different communities because Americans like to buy property. they'll buy property. They'll we don't have a good awareness before we move of how much something costs. Right. So we're willing to bid up

House Of Peregrine (56:27)

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Alex Ingrim (56:55)

property prices, rent. We're willing to patronize restaurants and all of a sudden that restaurant's prices get a little bit more So very hyper locally, I've been to and seen some communities that are affected by having a couple hundred Americans move in that are willing to spend a lot of And that's a good thing for the economy, right? We shouldn't discount that. what I would like to see is

House Of Peregrine (57:03)

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Alex Ingrim (57:20)

communities and countries as a whole that are willing to pass that benefit along to everyone. So it's not being concentrated in the hands of a real estate agent or an immigration lawyer, so that it's being spread out so that that leads to increased wages in these communities. So that leads to more job opportunities. know, it'd be great to see more Americans start in businesses that employ local people. That's something that we try and do.

House Of Peregrine (57:27)

Yes.

Go.

Alex Ingrim (57:48)

So that's, you know, I think the next step in the next evolution. We shouldn't be seen as people that are, very entrepreneurial as a culture. We should be trying to spread that through the communities in which we live, rather than, you know, trying to just create a good quality of life only for ourselves.

House Of Peregrine (57:48)

Yes.

Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. I think we do that given the opportunity, but there's a lot, there's a lot language, like there's a lot to do before you feel you can be effective in that sometimes. That's I think a myth, but it's, it's, it's, it's a journey, man. That's all I can say. I love it. Yeah, it is.

Alex Ingrim (58:24)

Yeah, it's a fun one.

House Of Peregrine (58:27)

I want people to get in touch with you. The best way to do it, I'm mindful of your time. I could talk to you about this for a very long time. So thanks for coming back on. Where do I send people to talk to you?

Alex Ingrim (58:36)

So the best way to get in touch with us is probably through our website. So it's www.libertyatlantic.com. You can also feel free to share my email address. So that's also another just good way to get in touch with me personally. Or you can book a call with us through our website.

House Of Peregrine (58:54)

That is amazing. You're an amazing resource to the international community. So I really appreciate it in your perspective,

Thank you so much for bringing your wisdom to us today, Alex.

Alex Ingrim (59:03)

Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me.