What Moving Abroad Really Costs Americans - Arielle Tucker, The Expat Money Playbook

Arielle Tucker (00:00)
in the United States, we have citizenship-based taxation, meaning even if you leave the US, you are working outside of the US, your all of your wealth and assets are completely separate from the US, you are still tied financially to the US system and they're still expecting you to be filing a tax return every single year.

Meaning, if let's say we'll take a situation, Mickelle you live in the Netherlands, you are a resident of the Netherlands. So of course you file a Dutch tax return every single year. If you were to pick up and move, and let's say you move to Germany and you fully end your residence and you have no

financial holdings or real estate in the Netherlands, then you no longer have any financial ties to the Netherlands and you no longer have to file a tax return. And now you live in Germany. But regardless of whether you're living in Germany or the Netherlands, the US is still expecting you to be reporting back to them every single year.

Mickelle (00:59)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. I'm Mickelle Weber, and today we're talking money and finances. It's one of the first things that gets complicated when you live between countries and where the fewest experts lie to help. My guest today is Arielle Tucker. She is returning to the podcast today to talk about her new book, The Expat Money Playbook, published by Wiley. She is a certified financial planner who has spent more than fifteen years helping Americans abroad make sense of money.

She's New Yorker, turned Swiss resident, the founder of Connected Financial Planning, and the host of her own show, Passport to Wealth, which I have been lucky enough to be a guest on. Welcome back, Arielle, I'm so excited to have you back on today.

Arielle Tucker (01:35)
Thank you so much for having me back, Mickelle. I really appreciate it.

Mickelle (01:38)
So you're coming back on the book Baby Has Been Born. I am so proud. I have can I say I'm proud of you for this book and such needed. I have it's I have it right here. I've read it cover to cover. and it's exactly the book I wish I would have had before I moved abroad as an American.

Arielle Tucker (01:54)
Yeah, it's it's been such a process to to birth this book. I think when I talk to people about becoming an author, one I never thought in a billion years that I would become an author. It was never like a lifelong goal for me. It was more just as I kind of started to own this space and started to write, I realized I was never going to be able to serve everyone. And I have a real passion for educating people in the space.

And so that's why we birthed the Passport to Wealth podcast, where we just talk about US cross-border issues. and I was writing more. And actually, it was through LinkedIn. I got a LinkedIn message from an editor at Wiley, and they said, Would you be open to a conversation? And I was like, sure, why not? We had the conversation, they asked a lot about my audience. I am not a social media influencer, right? I am a cross-border financial planner, I am a US tax nerd, I am just trying to learn how to write.

So when they asked me to write the book, I spoke to a couple of professional colleagues and I'm like, what do you think? Should I do this? It sounds like it's gonna be a lot of work. And I already have a lot of work, plus two kids and a husband. Like I'm I'm already tapped out. And everyone I talked to said this would be an amazing opportunity. Publishers aren't right asking people to write books right now. And if you're being asked to write this book, you should try to make that work. They wanted us to write it super quickly. and

so

I think I got the official contract in October, and then my final draft was due at the end of February. So I just remember last Christmas I locked myself away into a friend's apartment while they were traveling over at Christmas and New Year's, and I just wrote every day for like eight hours. it was it was a lot of work, but then I I I also really wanted our community to be part of it. I think.

one of the things I truly believe in the cross-border financial planning world or just cross-border planning, it's a team effort, right? You should be talking to other US expats who maybe aren't financial professionals and hearing about their experience, right? We asked you to contribute to the book, which you did, and our conversation changed so much about how I think about cross-border financial planning, really. And

So it was, you know, we went out and we asked our community community for quotes and tidbits that we could integrate into the book. And that was really important to me. and then the book finally came out on in October. So it takes a long time from final proofs to to get through. I think there was like four or five different editors involved. There's a marketing team, a publicist. and then the book finally came out last week on October sixth.

Mickelle (04:23)
Amazing. Well congratulations. And it highlights one thing and one of the reasons I do what I do, which is it feels like we don't realize that how

Much is missing, how much infrastructure is missing, how much wisdom is missing, how many experts are missing, in being able to not completely just decimate your life financially or otherwise, by doing this, which is actually a an ancient human impulse to migrate to somewhere that suits you better, for a season, for a time, for a lifetime, for monetary reasons, for immigration reasons, for safety reasons, for whatever reason it's a

Impulse as old as humans. but there there is so little ways of doing it safely. And that that is where I see your book sitting in the grand scheme of things and your work because we still treat it like a massive exception, which it is. We're lucky to live abroad, not many people do it this way. And it's actually very important that we as people who have immigrated or live abroad.

Americans or not to be able to share that wisdom. and I think in our last conversation I was asking you about my situation. You're like, no, no, you scare me. Like you and just so many exceptions, so many and and and and entrepreneur, entrepreneur couple, kids, American passport in the Netherlands. It's just too many exceptions for anyone to have an expertise in it. and that's worn out.

Like that born th that industry is being born as we speak, actually. And what your work is doing in your book is giving us the playbook because it didn't exist anymore. And and that was shocking to for me to realize, even though I realized I'm lucky, we're doing we're living the life of our dreams, but I didn't realize there was zero of this. And so when you say you were speaking to your community and speaking to other people who were doing it, that's so powerful because that's the wisdom of the collective.

that is actually siloed right now. and we're all recreating the wheel over and over and making the same mistakes in in your case with money. And it's devastating. It can be devastating to your financial future.

Arielle Tucker (06:29)
absolutely. And I think this is what I hear from people all the time is they move, they kind of make that leap. And it takes so much energy to make the leap and organize themselves just to get over. And then comes the financial fallout when they realize I didn't like doing my taxes when I lived in Florida. And now I have to do my taxes in another country. And I still have to do them in the US. And I didn't realize that.

I didn't enjoy personal finance and banking and I didn't think about this or talk about this when I lived in the US. Now I'm doing it abroad and I'm wearing handcuffs because I'm a US citizen. So the rules are completely different. And so it's, it's like if you didn't like it when you lived in the US, you're gonna really hate it once you move abroad. And instead of just burying your head in the sand and saying, it doesn't exist, I'm like, here's here's the checklist. Here are the questions to ask.

So that you are thinking about it. And if you can't self-organize yourself, you have the playbook to go and speak to the professionals and say, what about this? And it's also kind of a great study. And when you're talking to people and you think, can this person really help me? Start asking some of those questions to them. And you'll get a sense if do they actually even understand what I'm talking about?

Mickelle (07:46)
Yeah. And these are such this is such a great we'll get into the book for sure. but I just want to start at the beginning. Like maybe people know by now, but ten years ago when I moved abroad, nobody actually realized that US and and your book is written specifically for US tax residents. Right? Do I have right?

Arielle Tucker (08:03)
Yeah, so all US connected people. So US citizens, US green card holders, people who maybe have assets in the US, somehow they're US connected because that's very specific. It's a completely different kind of tax considerations, financial planning considerations than pretty much everyone else. So this this and this this conversation, the book is really for those US connected expats.

Mickelle (08:26)
And I like how you say US connected because sometimes you don't realize that you're US. You go over in the book being married to a US tax

Arielle Tucker (08:32)
Yes.

Mickelle (08:33)
resident. and that's such a great distinction. But people don't realize that, especially when I moved, and even now, sometimes people will move abroad without realizing the implications of their money that way and how it is so much different, like you said, than anywhere else. And so in the book, can you just tell us give us a quick

definition of citizenship based taxation and how it differs from residence based taxation.

Arielle Tucker (08:57)
Yeah. and that's like this is the fundamental difference between US citizens and everyone else. So in the United States, we have citizenship-based taxation, meaning even if you leave the US, you are working outside of the US, your all of your wealth and assets are completely separate from the US, you are still tied financially to the US system and they're still expecting you to be filing a tax return every single year.

If you have, if you're from pretty much any other country besides the US or Eritrea, then you are on residence-based taxation. Meaning, if let's say we'll take a situation, Mickelle you live in the Netherlands, you are a resident of the Netherlands. So of course you file a Dutch tax return every single year. If you were to pick up and move, and let's say you move to Germany and you fully end your residence and you have no

financial holdings or real estate in the Netherlands, then you no longer have any financial ties to the Netherlands and you no longer have to file a tax return. And now you live in Germany. But regardless of whether you're living in Germany or the Netherlands, the US is still expecting you to be reporting back to them every single year. And so what happens is there's just like this kind of catch 22 a little bit, where US citizens go abroad, they're talking to their professional colleagues and their neighbors and their friends

And then he starts to say, yeah, we're really gonna plan out our life here financially, right? How did you save for retirement? How did you invest in real estate? How did you start up a company? And we have all of these systems that are set up, right, in other countries and tax incentives that are available to the residents of that country. But then you have to also add in the US rules on top of that. And sometimes they just don't fit nicely together. They don't play well together because we have the US system, which has its own incentives.

And oftentimes they just don't match up with the foreign incentives that we see. And so it does put US citizens and US connected individuals at a bit of a disadvantage when they're trying to build wealth and businesses and real estate outside of the US.

Mickelle (11:06)
Yeah. Yeah, and it's really cultural. It's cultural in a way, but also like you said, and there are ways and that's what you actually need to to educate yourself on, I think, and be aware of. it's not always that it's gonna be that way or you're but if you don't know, it's it's a little bit like

Arielle Tucker (11:25)
It's not always that you're gonna owe tax.

Mickelle (11:28)
Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (11:28)
And I think I think that maybe is what you're trying to say is you're not always going to owe additional tax to the US. Even if you have a filing requirement, there's a number of opportunities to avoid double taxation. And if you're not making very much money and you don't have a lot of assets and you don't have a company and everything's pretty straightforward, honestly, your situation like is it

can be quite straightforward. You file your tax return, you can do it online, maybe you pay a couple hundred dollars to file it. Not that complicated. But what I see is kind of life happens. And so the student who moved abroad at, you know, 25, really simple situation, by the time they're 30 or 35, they're marrying a non-US person, they're starting to save for retirement. Maybe they want to start a business, they're thinking about buying real estate, they're going to have kids with multi

different nationalities, we start thinking about estate planning, inheritance tax planning, saving for university education. And then like the kind of complexity, it just kind of like sneaks up on you. I went from, yeah, it really is a very simple situation to, my gosh, life has happened and it's become a more complex situation. And I didn't realize

Mickelle (12:36)
Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (12:37)
it.

Mickelle (12:38)
Yeah. You it's automatically complex. I mean, even when you're twenty five. But what happens is, and I always feel like this is a really good analogy, it's like we have a baby, we read all the books, we we go to university, we know how to do that. But sometimes we move abroad, myself included, without researching anything about money, about planning, about estates.

And that is unwise. We wouldn't do anything else like that. We wouldn't we wouldn't not Google like what is my tax. And it I don't know why. And we've talked about this before. Like we don't want to encourage people not to have adventure and do this stuff. But it is a big, big deal to physically move your as a US person. It is a big deal. Do it do it well. Now we have a manual. So I just like to encourage people.

To not be scared and not not do it, but it's gonna cause a lot of chaos and pain and cost if you don't know these these things. so if you don't educate yourself. And I love what you said about like if you didn't like doing tax I always say this about admin. If you didn't like doing admin or taxes in in the US, pe prepare to pay a lot of people, have new professionals in your life because there's not an option anymore to to do it the easy way.

Arielle Tucker (13:55)
Yeah, if you didn't

like doing it in English, you're not gonna like doing it in Dutch or German or Spanish or whatever, you know, country you're moving

Mickelle (13:59)
Yeah. Nope. Yep.

Arielle Tucker (14:02)
to. It's like the say, you know, it's a different level of of complexity. And it takes, I think for so many people, it takes so much effort just to like, what is my pathway? What's my visa pathway? Where am I gonna live? Where how am I gonna get insurance? That it's easy to just like forget how fast like multifaceted the the complexity is.

And how it just applies to every aspect of your life.

Mickelle (14:26)
Yep. Okay. So I love your book. I've again I read it cover to cover and it's full of frameworks, which I love. because it helps you when we talked about this in our podcast, and this is my quote in your book is find your why, don't run away from things, run towards them. And so that starts you off on a really good, I think, mindset for we're working towards something. All this complexity and paperwork and blah blah blah. It has to be worth

your why. So if you know your why, everything becomes easier, more simple, and it's just about working it out, right? It's just about getting the information. And so I feel like your frameworks help us walk through that. Starting with your why. Is living abroad in another country important enough to me to make the sacrifice of the extra time, extra complexity, an extra cost, which is gonna happen. and so tell me about the frameworks a little bit. I feel like they really hold you through

You know, this process.

Arielle Tucker (15:25)
Yeah. and I'm gonna I'm gonna grab a book and I'm gonna kind of walk you through the different sections. Hold on, give me a second.

Because I am like, yeah, this book. so for part one is just the decision to leave. And you are the gift to that chapter and that section because our conversation kind of became the framework of how I wanted to think through this conversation with my clients. And that became especially important after the election.

We had so many hits on our website. We're a small financial planning firm. I'm not trying to be some, you know, massive firm, that it literally like broke. It like broke the internet. and I realized for so many people, just having someone like me to talk to about what would it look like to move abroad, like that was the action that they wanted to take. That was the conversation that they wanted to take, whether or not they were actually gonna move abroad, like that felt like they were like somehow making progress.

on having conversation, like, am I really crazy to even be thinking about should I should I move? So so that starting with why it that is to me the the basis of should you even move abroad or not? And you were so fundamental.

Mickelle (16:34)
Yeah. And when you're having that convers yeah,

Arielle Tucker (16:37)
Yeah.

Mickelle (16:37)
yeah, and when you're having that conversation with someone, the the running away and running towards is really important because is it worth again, the elections are so so impactful in so so many ways. And if you're running away for those four years, and again, I'm not minimizing it, but is it worth the cost? It might not be worth the cost to run away.

From that. Again, running towards a different kind of living is is a different mindset, in my opinion. And that's what I found. I don't know if that's what you found, is like putting a number to that getting away from, which is important. Totally make that investment, but it might not actually get you through what is needed to be able to make that leap and the investment and the sacrifice that it might be to run to.

put distance between yourself and something like an election.

Arielle Tucker (17:33)
Yeah, and I see that play out in my practice on a regular basis. I have conversations with people who made the decision to move and and the reasons have changed and now they're going back to the US. And I think that's really important. Like in so many situations, at some point, a lot of people do end up back i in the in the US for financial situations or aging parents or just other life factors kind of play out, or maybe

the kids.

End up going to US universities and it just like life somehow moves you back there. And I see that conversation over and over again, which is why like my last chapter in the book is actually about going back to the US and preparing for that as well. So that we've kind of gone full circle in the book. But going back to the different sections, so part one is the decision to leave, part two is the US follows you. So that is going through, and I and what I try to do is

I think I I laughed when I saw this book came up as like the number one new release in international taxation. I laughed because I was worried that that would actually scare people away from the book because it's not written like a dense tax law book. Yes, there is a lot of factual information and frameworks about why do you have to file an FBAR and why do you have to, you know, file a US tax return and just asking questions about how do you do that, practical considerations.

But not from a very legal technical framework, from a I I try to give like a voice of fun to it. so it's not just dense and it's not like miserable to read since I have to read all of the miserable text for everyone else. so we talk about you know you know, filing your F bar, what happens to my retirement accounts. I get this question all the time.

I wanna break my ties with the US. I want to take all of my money out of the US and I want to take it abroad because I hate what's happening in the US and I just want to like take everything. Okay, well, it's not that easy sometimes because again, if you close out all of your accounts, there's gonna be additional tax considerations for that, maybe that you haven't fully thought through. And no, your 401k doesn't just automatically roll over into a foreign pension. It's different systems, different considerations, and you kind of I kind of give a framework of how to think through.

All of those questions. How to continue to save for retirement abroad, right? We have a lot of incentives locally to save for for retirement abroad, but we also have considerations in the US still. And sometimes they could still make sense to contribute to those. How do you invest as an expat? And as you and I both know, Europe has very unique considerations compared to the rest of the world. So understanding the nuances.

And how do you look for those red flags and proactively think about how do I set things up smartly before I move? Or if I've already landed, how what are the what are actional steps that I can take to be able to start investing if I've kind of been frozen? This is another here thing I hear all the time. I have money in the in a bank account. I know I should do something, but I've been frozen with fear of what even to do.

So we walk through kind of some different examples of what to do.

Mickelle (20:38)
Yeah.

And I think it's that's really important what you said. The US follows you. So what people don't realize is when you're born in the US, you have certain obligations that you just sign up for. You're you're you're not a baby signing a contract. Like your US passport and your US citizenship, you you have obligations. And every country's like this, but in the US, you have obligations with your money that follow you through your whole life. And that is

Not obvious if you never leave. It's not anything that people think about very often. but it is important to realize and it's unique that way. And so being born to a US in the US with a US passport, you have obligations that you can't get out of. There's no there's no way around it, especially with money. And so I think that's a good place to start, is like there's no

Like there are strategies which we're helping people learn. There are awarenesses, but there's no like you have to come to terms with this at some point in your journey.

Arielle Tucker (21:36)
Yeah, and there's a couple of things that I want to call out on that thought. One, yes, if you're if you're born in the US, you're automatically, we have birthright citizenship. And that is also very unique in the world. Most countries, you're born in a country, you're not an automatic citizen. There is generally a formal process, especially if your parents are not citizens of that country. So that's very unique in the US, in the same way that citizenship-based taxation is unique to the US. It's just a completely different system. Another thing that I'm seeing a lot of now.

Is children born abroad to US citizen parents, they have n may have never stepped foot into the US. Your citizenship isn't chosen. it's generally automatic. So if your parents grew up in the US and they're US citizens, you're generally a an automatic citizen and they generally have a legal right to register your birth abroad, there's like a whole process. So

I get these questions all the time. Well, I never registered my kids. Well, it doesn't mean they're not US citizens. And banks have gotten a lot smarter because oftentimes on their risk compliance forums, they're not asked they're not only asking, Are you a US citizen and do you have a US social security number? Where were your parents born? And just your parents being born abroad is their compliance team like little, like, okay, well, prove to us you're not a US person.

Mickelle (22:54)
Yep, and th that is I just think mourning that somehow it gets people stuck. Like it seems

Arielle Tucker (22:59)
Sucks. It sucks.

Mickelle (23:01)
really unfair, but y it that can keep you stuck for years and not know what to do. And just I I I think that's a really important part is just like mourning that you didn't sign up for this, but you're not responsible for.

Arielle Tucker (23:14)
Yeah, and there is a formal process. So if you are listening to this and you're like, my gosh, I never signed up for this, you're right. There is a formal process and you can renounce your US citizenship. You do need to have you have to have another U citizenship. So you can't just be abroad on a visa and you're like, ugh, I don't wanna I don't want to deal with the US anymore. You still have to be a citizen of another country. There is a formal process. If you were only a US citizen at birth,

There's potentially even an exit tax to consider. You have to pay the US to leave. But there is a process and it's something to consider. But just know, once you go through that process, you're never getting it back. It's and you might even lose some of the treaty benefits available to other people who are citizens. So it is something that you need to talk to a professional about and have a really thoughtful conversation. And I think we talked about this last time.

But I always go back and think during COVID times when the border shut down and you could not enter certain countries if you did not have a citizenship or permanent residency. If you have aging parents in the US who are relying on you and you decide to give up your citizenship, you might not be able to go and visit them if we have another global pandemic or some crazy thing happens. And we live in a crazy world and crazy things are happening all the time. So I tell people to really think back.

what would have happened and how does that make you feel? It's much more than just a tax conversation to me.

Mickelle (24:45)
Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. So moving through, I just wanna

in the book, like there's again, it feels like a complete like guide, like you said, even to repatriating and marrying a US person, having a baby. You go through all these things and I I just wanna go through some of the things, like you said, giving up your

citizenship, something I hear a lot is Americans think that life abroad will be cheaper.

Arielle Tucker (25:12)
Hm.

Mickelle (25:13)
and it when you look at the price tag, it's like, yeah, rent's a little cheaper, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But in the book you go over that that sometimes that usually is not the reality when you when you put it all together. Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (25:26)
Yeah, I think it's really

important to think about this because when we look at those costs of living guides, and then you see, wow, it's like 50% cheaper to live at this destination. Let's just all of our problems will be solved if we could just, you know, stretch our dollar you know, 50% more. Well, maybe that's how locals live and they live very different lives oftentimes than US expats, right? So what is the quality of the housing based on that survey? And

versus what is the housing that you would actually be comfortable living in. when we talk about countries, especially developing nations, where oftentimes they do have government healthcare. Awesome. That's great. That sounds wonderful. But what is the standard of the care that you're receiving? And as a US person, are you comfortable with that standard? Does that fit your needs and your expectations for your retirement? Same with food. How, you know, if if a

If a country is primarily eating rice and beans and you're used to eating meat every single night, well, how's that going to change the cost of your grocery bill? Or if you're planning on dining out every night because it's so cheap, how does that change? And the probably the biggest thing is currency conversion, right? If your whole portfolio and retirement and all of your assets are in the US, and for again, because we're still tied to the US system, for a lot of people, that still makes sense. That's still the most you know, that's still the the best option for a lot of people.

Well, how is your financial situation change when we have currency movement? And you and I saw this really play out in real time over the last year, living in the Euro and the Swiss franc, where we saw the dollar really weaken. And part of that was policy, government policy to weaken the dollar. So that is going to have a huge impact on our financial plan. And it means that oftentimes we have to have a higher emergency fund than local people because.

We need to have more money in the local currency. So when there's market fluctuation, when there's currency fluctuation, we have what we need and we're never panicking. but those policies could go into play for years. And if you've done all of your financial planning based on one currency rate and you didn't give yourself, you know, a 10%, 20% fluctuation, worst case scenario, what's gonna happen?

You might be in a place where you're like, wow, it's way more expensive to live in Portugal today than it was two years ago when we we did all the calculations to make the move.

Mickelle (27:54)
Yeah. That has been s ever present in my ten years abroad is we if you see in my kitchen we have a currency converter in our kitchen, because of how how much it has changed. It w went from being dollar, euro, one to one almost, to massive changes over time. you also talk about lifestyle inflation, which I think you've covered, but I would like to say you

don't realize that often people who are living locally have a lot of of a network support. So grandparents if you have children or s high school buddies or people that can help you if you're going through a divorce or a sickness or so there's lifestyle inflation and lifestyle things like you're talking about, but there's also network effects. that people who are local, they're like, yeah, we can live with less childcare or less something if I get

sick.

Because I my mom is less than an hour away. And so there's there's lots of these unseen costs that I think when we think of ourselves as an individual instead of as a collective, it just when you're making an international move, you are literally on your own. And so that

Arielle Tucker (29:01)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (29:02)
comes with costs, like unseen costs that you can't account for before you leave. If you live near your parents, if you ha are friends with so and so, you know, if you can if you can't reliably f have a GoFundMe.

Like in your new country, you are at a disadvantage. yeah.

Arielle Tucker (29:17)
Yeah,

just the concept of the GoFundMe in the US, like that doesn't exist in in Europe. A few times I've seen it, it does not go over well.

Mickelle (29:20)
Yeah. No, it doesn't. But you still might need it. Yeah,

yeah. But you still might need it and you won't have that local

Arielle Tucker (29:29)
Yeah.

Mickelle (29:30)
people who are you know, helping you. I know, it doesn't even exist.

Arielle Tucker (29:32)
Yeah, I don't know how it is

in the Netherlands, but where we've lived in Germany and in Switzerland, school ends at 12 o'clock on Wednesdays. Every Wednesday, your kids are home.

Mickelle (29:39)
Yep. Same.

Arielle Tucker (29:42)
And so, yeah, and I think that's very common in a lot of Europe. Your kids are just home. And so either if you're working full-time, but that doesn't work. So you need care. For so many people, I mean, it's so common here. Grandparents just take the kids on Wednesdays. And if

Mickelle (29:56)
Yep. Yep.

Arielle Tucker (29:57)
they're not available, care is available for 30 francs an hour. That's not cheap.

Right at all. So you really have to think through all of the costs and and dig, 'cause it's not always obvious.

Mickelle (30:09)
Yeah. Yeah. And so you have a list. U predictably in your book you have a list of things that people should budget for that they don't really think of. So those include what I have here is like regular travel home, administrative and compliance costs, currency risk, which we talked about.

Arielle Tucker (30:24)
And I just want to say regular travel

home. Like if you are now living in Europe, you for sure are probably gonna want to fly home at least once a year. A lot of people in Europe are not flying to the s to the US once a year, right? It so that is

Mickelle (30:36)
Yep. Yep.

Arielle Tucker (30:37)
a cost that your friends, neighbors, and colleagues do not bear. And it might easily be 10 grand a year for a family. So if you are on a local contract, you are just automatically disadvantaged from day one because you have this massive cost.

And your salary is oftentimes not built for that once a year or more, right? Emergency flights home. my gosh, my parents are aging, whatever. I see this all the time. And if you're not currently flying to Europe once a year, you might be surprised to see how much airfares have increased.

Mickelle (31:09)
Yeah, it's increased massively. I've been my mom was in the hospital earlier this year. I was there three times. And it's

Arielle Tucker (31:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (31:15)
it is yeah. That you're not no one and again, you could be estranged from your family. Again, this individual notion that maybe you don't need maybe you're the one person who won't fly home when your parents are in the hospital. I can assure you, you are not. So I love that you've included this in your book because people don't put that in the cost analysis. And like you said,

Your local your neighbors are not dealing with this. They drive to grandma's less than an hour away. Like that's how society's set up. and so I really love that you have that level of detail and advice, this level of advice in your book. I love that you cover repatriation, because it's something we don't often talk about. And we don't think about when we're moving somewhere, we're like, maybe people have a plan to move for two years, but usually it's it's not.

So when you when in your book you talk about I talk about this a lot too like living abroad is like a life stage. It's something you're investing in and it changes your entire financial picture, in my opinion, or it can change. So is there something that we haven't talked about besides that perspective that your book covers because it it really is the framework, the mindset, the full list of things you need to consider?

Is there something else that I haven't touched on that you want to talk about?

Arielle Tucker (32:29)
I

do want to talk a little bit. I talk about family structure in the book. and we've talked a little bit about that, but I wanna just expand on that because I know that's a reason that many families are currently considering leaving the US is they're feeling like maybe their rights, if they have children who are trans or they are part of the LGBQ

community, maybe they feel like their rights are threatened. And I think it's really important to think through what are the rights available to you in your new country or country that you're wanting to move through and really think through that whole process and make sure you're not leaving one situation that you feel unsafe to move to another situation that might also feel unsafe. And I will give you an example. I had someone call me and they were feeling it was a a lesbian woman.

in Texas. She was feeling really unsafe in her community in Texas. And she was working in the construction in industry. She had the opportunity to potentially look to to move on a great contract to the Middle East. And I had to have a very blunt conversation with her that that would actually not improve her safety or security

at all. so it's important

Mickelle (33:39)
Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (33:42)
to understand what are the rights that you have where you're living.

What are the problems that you you're facing right now? And then do a really deep dive reality check of what is available in the country that you're targeting. Cause you have to weigh not only the career opportunities, but obviously safety issues and lifestyle just.

Mickelle (33:59)
Yeah. And

yeah, and in your book you I think you talk about how women are disproportionately wanting to leave the US. and I w I wonder why you think do you think do you have a theory about why that is? I know I have my theories, but what what are your theories?

Arielle Tucker (34:15)
I think women are waking up and just realizing, why have we accepted this? And especially since COVID, I think the doors have opened abroad and especially to Europe, right? There's been so much and there's been so many opportunities to to move to Europe that people are realizing, like, I can live a different reality, have different rights in other countries, and that looks very attractive. that's my that's my reasoning. What are what do you think, Mickelle?

Mickelle (34:41)
My experience and reasoning is I think and when I grew up in the US, I was told and people still think, it's a place where women are equal and they're protected and I grew up thinking that and then realized very quickly, not quickly, but after I had kids, the infrastructure is not set up. The it's actually a very unfriendly place to women with like this banner of like, we're all equal.

and so when I realized that it's actually a very unsafe place for women in general, but it's just not overt. that's when Europe became more attractive to me. And it's turned out to be true, not without cost, but it is in general true. It's better to be a woman in Europe, I think, than it is in the US. I always say Amsterdam's like the mom, a best place to be a mom. it's still not ideal or even close to easy to be.

to be a a mother or a woman here, but it's at least somewhat sane. And so I think that

Arielle Tucker (35:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (35:36)
women are starting to wake up because it really is cloaked that it's a bad place. And I think the current president and the current administration is bringing that discussion to to a head, basically, where it's actually no none of us thought that that someone who spoke this way about women would be able to be the president of the United States.

And so I think when I moved before this election, I was feeling that in the air. And then it's been brought to light. But I don't think I don't think this this this presidency or this president created that problem.

Arielle Tucker (36:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (36:12)
And so that's why I think women are waking up and like you said, being like, This isn't gonna get better in my lifetime. I wanna live a different reality, like you're saying.

Arielle Tucker (36:22)
Yeah, and I agree with you, especially for as a mom, I definitely know I have a better lifestyle living in Switzerland or when we lived in Germany. I had way more balance and opportunities and just how the community and family was set up, but that doesn't mean it wasn't hard. And because the countries are more set up in family traditional family systems, being an immigrant and not having access to all those systems, like like you said before, it does

It's like, yeah, it's kind of there, but you still then you still b always have to pay a little bit of a premium to fully take advantage of the of the systems that exist. So I think that's important. I also think Europe is a really big place. I mean, the world's a really big place. And so you have to do the next step of research and understand the country that you are target or the comp the regions that you are targeting, the services might be very different. And so maybe if you can go move to the Nordic countries before you're pregnant.

That's really attractive. And yeah, you're going to pay higher taxes, but you're going to have really long maternity leave and a lot of support. And so it kind of pays for itself. But if you've already had your children or your children are older, maybe you don't want to go and pay 50% taxes because you don't need any of those benefits. So you really have to kind of weigh your own situation and where you are in life to kind of, I don't know, I this is things I think about. How do you like kind of optimize where you're

Mickelle (37:46)
Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (37:47)
gonna go?

Mickelle (37:48)
Be strategic. I I always tell people be

Arielle Tucker (37:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (37:49)
p be strategic and don't you're not gonna expect anything for free. I don't think people do expect anything for free. But as a woman, I do think we p financially, fundamentally need to be planning our lives differently than men. especially if you have children. And so I think c country wise that can be part of the strategy, but it's it's not gonna like you said, be prepared to pay fifty percent more tax. That is totally worth it at some point in a woman's life.

because you're already paying it in the US, you just don't see it in tax, you see it in other other

Arielle Tucker (38:17)
Yeah, exactly. Yep.

Mickelle (38:18)
ways. so yeah, I really I loved that you included that statistic about women because I do think it brings up even if you're in a couple, you might need to plan your life in a different way. And I think it's worth a asking the question, is this financial plan good for both of us or is it based on is it optimized for just his vitality and safety and if you're in a heterosexual couple?

Visas are the same way. I I now am on this like partner visa. It's a big it's a big risk if we're talking financially. partner visas, do them carefully. they are a financial thing in the end. so these are things that I think this is the wisdom I want to give people. And this is part of what your book I call this my when I always when I introduce a book this way, I always say this is part of the canon. This is part of the the canon of how to do this well and and not be

Because the st the statistics are pretty wild about repatriation because of financial reasons or tax like violation. divorce rates. Like it is actually really moving abroad is really risky if you don't if you're not informed. and can have really big impacts to your life and your finances. And so again, I love this book is here. Again, part of the canon, because it's not it's not going away. You're not gonna

Just there's no not two options, renounce your citizenship or you know, you're not gonna become something else very easily. And so it's just really good to have the the right way of doing it or the at least the knowledge of how to do it in a non-destructive way to your life in one book.

Arielle Tucker (39:49)
Yeah. And just to kind of expand on your point on the visa planning, it's another point as you're thinking about different countries to potentially move to or wherever you are. Understand what is my pathway to citizenship. Is there a pathway to citizenship in the country? And if there is, how many years is that? What is the language requirement? What visa do I need to be on to actually have the cat the the clock start? and I think again, this all goes into part of like that.

That research at the front. And if you're already abroad, you can still be asking all of those questions so that you can become your your, you know, self-advocate for yourself. No one else is is going to, they're not going to just come to you and say, okay, you can now be a citizen. I I wish it was at least that's not how it is here. I would I love that for you if it's like that in in the Netherlands, but become your own advocate, because I actually think that Americans abroad are rethinking passports, they're rethinking access.

And we're seeing the borders and the visa opportunities shift and change. We're having a move to the right in Europe as well. And having that passport, it gives you a bit more stability than a year to year visa.

Mickelle (41:01)
Yeah, a lot more. And I think that I always talk about this immigration, migration is is old, but the structures we're in as humans right now are not made for people moving around. They they want you especially in the US, they want you in the US. That's that's what everything's set up for to optimize your money, your time, your life in the US. That is what they want.

Humans are valuable, it turns out. Like they want their population. but not realizing that can be detrimental, I think. And also just, yeah, there's no legal system for you. There's no like you said, there's no one watching out. They're just telling there's a lot of ways to do it wrong. And I think another guest I had on a people, this is kind of it's really hard to stay in compliance. Because,

Arielle Tucker (41:47)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (41:48)
like you said, the rules are different in every different countries for visas, for money. It's actually really hard to live

completely legally and in compliance as an international person. It's actually sometimes seemingly impossible. And so that's why you have to be your self-advocate. be self-informed, talk to other people who are doing this, and when you can find them, experts. and that's part of why we're doing this podcast, because there are actually not very many experts in the world who are doing what you're doing and what

you know, what is needed f to actually have advocates in place for this lifestyle. So yeah, my hats off to you. Hats off to your new book. we talked a little bit, I want to just on a last point if you have more time, I want to talk about how like how it is that entrepreneurship affects your it's another layer

And you're doing it and you're writing books and you're but how does that how is that another layer outside of the financial system in any country?

Arielle Tucker (42:49)
Yeah, I don't think that most Americans appreciate how friendly, how entrepreneurial friendly the US is. If you want to start a business, it takes two seconds. It is so easy to hang your shingle up. But especially in Europe or other countries that have a lot of bureaucracy, it is a there's a whole process to register, to prove the viability of your business.

To prove that you have at least three paying clients, to already start paying taxes from like very low thresholds. you earned a thousand euros. Let's get you into the system and we're gonna audit you and we're gonna follow up with you. It is a whole nother level abroad that I have found. And when I taught and and as Americans, we're very entrepreneurial because we've grown up in a system where so many friends and neighbors and relatives we've seen create their wealth.

Through being entrepreneurs, right? We know most Americans in the US are millionaires if they're if they're entrepreneurs, right? That's the best way to create wealth in the US. There are so many incentives. And I don't think we really fully appreciate all the incentives available to us in the US until we leave and we try to recreate that same system that was there and supporting us there, and it's gone. And now we are creating foreign entities. And the US does not love foreign entities.

Because they see them, are these tax shelters? What are these? And they look at them very differently. And it's really important to understand then how are the treaties? how is the US going to see this foreign entity? How is it going to tax it? And everything just becomes very complicated. And I'll give you a couple of examples. I have I have a couple of clients and they have that are Pilates teachers and they do they have their, you know, they have their studios and they just do Pilates and they're not out there trying to, you know, make millions of dollars with their

Pilates, classes, but just by doing that, having these foreign entity structures that make sense in their local countries, it just makes their situation now so complex that almost every dime they earn is just going to pay for compliance costs now in their local country, which has a completely different system, and then matching that into the US system. So again, they're easier countries to start businesses.

The Europe historically, it it can be a bit more of a bureaucratic nightmare. And you don't really fully appreciate it until you go and you try to hang your shingle and you're like, my gosh, they want what? Why? It's totally different

Mickelle (45:16)
Yep.

Arielle Tucker (45:16)
system.

Mickelle (45:17)
Yeah. It's really different mindset too. And I s I always talk about the difference between Silicon Valley and Europe's startup scene in that sense. It's like a business is a big business here. A business means you're big. In the US that it doesn't always mean that. yeah, so I think that people misunder but it also puts you in another category. So if you don't have a work contract, you're in another exception. So exception on top of exception on top of exception.

So you're from the US, you're living on a visa, you don't have a local contract, so no one increasingly knows what to do with you when you're filing

Arielle Tucker (45:52)
Yeah.

Mickelle (45:52)
your taxes or you're, you know, trying to make sure you stay in compliance again. It's it feels sometimes impossible because you're exception after exception after exception to a system the system just has no place for you. There's no

Arielle Tucker (46:04)
Yeah.

It it's hard. I hire professionals to help me and I do this professionally.

Mickelle (46:08)
Yep. Yep.

Arielle Tucker (46:10)
But I just I've hired my own team to make sure that I stay in compliance, even though I do this for my own clients, just to double check, did I not miss something? Because it's so important, because it will impact your visa or permanent residency, potentially citizenship if you screw it up. And if you're in a country you really want to stay in long term, you want to make sure

you are

you know, crossing the T's, dotting the I's, and that you don't get the little red, you know, mark in the file was not compliant, and then you wouldn't be eligible for something that's so important.

Mickelle (46:44)
Totally, I love that. That's what I want people to hear. not to scare anybody, but just to know that it's important. Last thing I want to talk about.

Arielle Tucker (46:50)
I know, I feel like the no fun

police, which is why I did try to have like a fun voice in the book and 'cause I know the stuff is like, my God, like

Mickelle (46:53)
I know. I know. I feel like the no fun police too.

Yeah, I mean for someone me who just decided on on, you know, three months notice to move a new country with three toddlers, like I I find myself being the fun police often as well. I don't like it and I don't want to spoil people's adventure. I just, you know, learn from us. the last thing I want to talk about is AI and how it impacts your clients, what you're seeing. I know what I'm seeing, which is like

I'm not anti-AI, but like I said, it's a little bit like asking your 25-year-old nephew to give you advice in certain areas, and it's just not there's not enough information, correct information online for AI to use to actually give you completely great answers financially for life abroad. so how do you see it working with your in your work?

Arielle Tucker (47:46)
Yeah, so I'm glad we're talking about AI because it's, I feel like, present in every conversation that I'm having right now with clients, with prospective clients. I'm noticing prospective clients are coming to me with these really long emails that were clearly written front with AI with specific questions. Sometimes they're the right questions. Oftentimes, many of them do not apply to their situation. They're not the right questions. But I do appreciate that people have a better point to help.

organize their thoughts because these are complex topics and they will span many aspects of your life. And so getting people engaged and if they feel comfortable having a chat with an AI agent to help them be more prepared for our conversation, I'm so happy. It also allows me to show my value. I am an expert in this space and I get to own that, right? I've literally written the book on this. So I can very quickly tell people that's crap.

That's right, and help them separate fact from fi fiction. And I think that's really important. And I think it makes our roles even more important because there is no longer a shortage to information, right? You're not having to go to the library and pull out books and highlight and write, take notes, right? You go to your computer and you have all of the information, so much information to you, it's overwhelming. And so it goes back to trusted professionals who've been working in the space forever. I think my fear now.

Is when I look at bringing up the next generation, how do how are they, how are we going to train and teach them? I built my career looking at hundreds of thousands of tax returns and emails and doing it the hard way so that I can just, I just know. But thinking through the next generation, I can do my job faster because of AI. How do I make sure that we also have a space?

for for the next generation to learn and not just learn to l rely rely on AI because that's what actually really scares me.

Mickelle (49:44)
Yeah. And I had a friend recently who spent, I think, almost two years preparing to move to the US, or from the US to the Netherlands. they messaged me, you know, kind of as their process was going, you know, just like, hey, do you know anybody? I would give them experts, whatever. I kid you not, two weeks before they moved, he messages me and says, my god, I just found out about this certain financial thing in the Netherlands that we had no idea. Not one person brought this up.

in our like piecing together this move, that now we're thinking we can't move. We've already s we've sold our house, we've sold all of our stuff, we've

Arielle Tucker (50:20)
wow.

Mickelle (50:20)
done all this stuff, and now financially it would be potentially devastating for us actually to make the move. And it didn't come up. No one had the full picture. No one

Arielle Tucker (50:30)
Yeah.

Mickelle (50:30)
had the full pull picture of the US, their professions, their holdings in the US, and the Netherlands. No one had that.

full picture enough to say, hey, did you think about this? You would never, AI didn't bring it up. And so that to me points out like how, and these are very well informed people. They were meticulous about their their planning, but no one had the full picture enough to give them the advice they needed. And so I think that's where these and I don't know how it ended. I hope they they got it taken care of. I've seen that they've moved, but it was a potentially complete

Like l again, financial life changing move just to move here for a year even or two years. So, yeah.

Arielle Tucker (51:14)
Yeah, and

that's I've seen that that in how I work with clients. When I first started, I would take on practi you know, a lot more projects and ants try to answer specific questions. We still offer our 45 minute expat expert call where we will just kind of work through the questions that you bring to us in that 45 minute session. But more and more I want to work with clients very holistically where I know everything about them because that way if I'm hearing or seeing changes in their local country.

Or in the US, and I know that's gonna have an impact. I know exactly what I need to tell them rather than, you know, I see this all the time, wealthy people trying to piecemeal consults together. And at that point, it's really just not appropriate. And you have to kind of recognize at what point do I need full service professional help versus what when can I just kind of get away with, you know, something really basic? And you have to be able to draw that line. And to me, that a lot of time that goes down to like a net worth.

what is the impact if you didn't realize there was a wealth tax and no one told you and you didn't think about it and now there is? That could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Mickelle (52:20)
Yeah. And it's so niche niche niche that nobody maybe AI will be able to track it someday and be your professional, but like that's not where AI is right now and I don't think you can be as smart as you want in your own country. You can be a rocket scientist and you still shouldn't potentially do this move financially without advice.

Arielle Tucker (52:41)
I am married to a

rocket scientist. I can tell you he is not qualified to do what I do.

Mickelle (52:46)
Exactly.

So don't think it's like an intelligence problem. It really is a specialty problem. And actually, immigration is still very much i in paper and in regul

Arielle Tucker (52:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mickelle (52:57)
local regulation. And so it it has nothing to do with if AI can do it. It's literally sometimes something gets changed, it's written, or you need an apostile. I didn't even know that word until I moved abroad. So

Arielle Tucker (53:09)
Yes, yes. It again,

Europe is so guilty for the paper, all the paper. Why would you need both your university degree and your high school diploma? I don't know. Suddenly you need it, right? It's again, you throw out logic and

Mickelle (53:24)
Yes.

Arielle Tucker (53:24)
we're just in a completely different system. These like little stamps, like even for my company, someone's like, you need to order your stamp. I mean, it's just like, what? We didn't have that in the US. Why would we need that? But this is like it's again, it's just a different system.

And it's much more traditional than it is in the US. Like we complain about what's happening in the US, but in some ways things are are a little bit easier just 'cause we're used to the system.

Mickelle (53:48)
Yeah, it's a different culture. It's a different country. A friend of mine always says you have to realize you're moving to a new country, and Americans have a really hard time with that sometimes. The world

Arielle Tucker (53:55)
Yes.

Mickelle (53:55)
isn't all America. but sometimes it's har it's easy to forget that in business or you know, in everyday life. But thank you again for the book. I love it. I love that you provided this because you can't reach everybody. and the clients that you do get to work with are very lucky, because there are very few

people who have this knowledge. So I'm really glad that you've expanded it for everybody. Please get the book if you haven't, everyone listening. in our check out the link below for any resources that Arielle is providing. You've generously offered to provide the some of the framework from the book to our audience.

Arielle Tucker (54:25)
Yes, we

have a 15 page companion toolkit. So for listeners and members of the House of Peregrine we're happy to provide that for you. And that will give you a taste of some of what the book covers so that if you then want to go buy the book, I think it's like 25 bucks or 25 euros. You can it's it's widely available internationally. So if you're already abroad, you can still order it at your local bookstore or Amazon, but try your local bookstore first, order it. and

Mickelle (54:49)
It is way

it is way cheaper than an appointment and the tax liability. Yeah.

Arielle Tucker (54:53)
It is way cheaper than talking to actually talking to me. But yes, I think it's a

I really I really poured, you know, 15, 20 years of all of my experience working in international tax and and financial planning into this to to just get people set on the on in the right way. So thank you so much for giving this book a bit more of a platform. I really appreciate it.

Mickelle (55:14)
pleasure. It's why I do what I do. Happy to have to be quoted in the book. Happy to have my to have any small part of it. and I just want to express that the the price of inaction is very, very high. And so

Arielle Tucker (55:25)
Yeah.

Mickelle (55:25)
I think that that's also what you're trying to help people to realize and to get unstuck and to not feel shame and just have knowledge. So I really appreciate it. For the American expat community, which I'm a part of.

And so yeah, thanks for joining me today. We'll have all the information, including the link to our two to our two com previous conversations below. And then yeah, I I'm just so happy that you have written this. So I'm happy to have you back on.

Arielle Tucker (55:51)
Thank you.

Mickelle (55:53)
Thank you everyone for joining us today and please feel free to leave your comments below. We read every message. Please review. Send this episode to a friend if they are thinking of moving abroad. And as always, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.