Moving anywhere is a balancing act. Managing time, resources, and energy in order to make your move as smooth as possible–it’s hard. This is even more true when you’re moving abroad, the currency exchange alone is headache inducing. Of course, it doesn’t have to be. Here are a few tricks for cutting expenses when you move.
- Pay less for your flight
Plan your flight well in advance of your departure date. Not just a couple of months–at least a year. Why? Because if you anticipate your move this far in advance, you can also sign-up for a credit card with frequent flyer perks. This is a clever way to make one of the most expensive facets of going abroad less so. Use that extra cash to buy yourself a drink at the airport (those aren’t cheap, you know!).
Once it’s time to book (7 weeks in advance, is ideal, according to a study performed by Cheapair.com), avoid popular travel seasons, holidays, and other fare-spiking times. Remember, too, that Tuesdays and Wednesdays offer lower fares than other days of the week.
- Don’t take the kitchen sink
If you’ve ever moved across town, you know how pricey it can be to take your possessions with you, an effect that’s amplified when moving across continents and oceans. A clear cost-benefit analysis of your possessions will be a prerequisite to relocation. Take into account the length of your relocation, how much you value each object personally, how much the market values each object, and how much that same object will cost to transport.
It sounds tedious, but gets exponentially easier once you realize that packing kitchen utensils, office supplies, and many other “necessities” isn’t cost effective.
- Find a reliable, budget friendly mover
Once you’ve chosen the bare necessities, it will be particularly important to hire an international moving company with a good reputation. Maybe you’ve seen the episode of 20/20 where moving companies were going MIA with whole households in their rigs? That’s a nightmare it’s important to avoid, even on your home turf.
Selecting an experienced mover will set your mind at ease. They will know all about international laws, customs, and other mind-boggling, fear inducing aspects of international relocation. Shop the options well in advance.
- Exchange your money wisely
Yes, exchange rates are “set,” but the rate of exchange your local bank offers you doesn’t have to directly reflect the 1:1 ratio you expect when you’re thinking of exchange rates. It may seem counterintuitive, but if you rely on your bank to provide your rate, you won’t get the best one. So, if you want to save some money, shopping around will be important, no matter where you are relocating. Sometimes this shopping around will require using third parties that you might otherwise be skeptical of, but in the case of foreign currency exchange, the best deal wins.
