Before You Move Abroad: The Money Mistakes No One Warns You About

You've dreamed about it. Maybe you've even Googled it. But what does moving abroad actually cost — financially, practically, and emotionally?

In Part 2 of our series with the State Department Federal Credit Union (SDFCU), Shelby and Belinda sit back down with Sam Salmon and Josh Barrett — two financial professionals who aren't just advising on international living, they're currently doing it. From hidden garbage taxes in Spain to bills buried in junk mail in Belgium, this conversation gets into the real details that most people don't think about until they're already on the plane.

We cover banking across borders, credit strategy, U.S. tax obligations that follow you everywhere, and what to do in the 12-18 months before you make the move. If you've ever seriously considered planting roots somewhere new, this one's for you.

Here are a few acronyms that were used in this episode:

• WISE (Wise is an international money movement solution); SDFCU has info on WISE on their website, https://sdfcu.org/
• FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Reporting Requirements) 
• AARO (Association of American residents overseas)
• FAWCO (Federation of American Women's Clubs Overseas)
• ACA (American Citizens Abroad)

Missed Part 1? We kicked off this series talking about raising money-smart kids — find it wherever you're listening now.

Learn more about SDFCU's international services: https://sdfcu.org/

Transcript

The Financial Reality Check

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Today we're going to talk about the financial realities of living abroad. We know a lot of Americans are thinking about relocating, and it's useful to have in your back pocket some really solid financial advice on how to prepare for that major pivot. So grab a notepad. You're going to get a lot out of this episode. So without further ado, let's get into it. Great. So welcome back, Josh and Sam. We are going to continue part two of this series and shift gears a little bit and talk to the adults about the financial reality of living abroad. What do you need to do before you pack your bags? What are some of the things you should have thought of? And so we thought we would just start by asking you beyond the romance of living abroad, you're on the plane and you're suddenly panicked. Oh my goodness, am I really ready financially to make this move? What are some of the financial realities that most people forget to Google before they get on the plane?

Hidden Costs And Surprise Bills

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Thank you for having us. We're really grateful to be here today. And I would say there's a lot. Yes, it is wonderful to live abroad. I cannot emphasize the benefits, the privileges that comes with being able to live out, being able to live internationally. And but the downside of it is all the expenses that come along with the potential expenses that you don't think about. So whether it's immigration, utilities expenses, rent amounts, and what all that includes, cost of living, and then the emotional and financial cost of living in another country. You can sit there and you can make a detailed list. You can even over budget to say I'm going to have some contingency funds and things like that. My own personal experiences of living in three different countries in Europe, Germany, Belgium, and Spain is you don't ever, even though you think you have everything covered, there's always something that's a surprise or some tax that you weren't aware of. Recently, I received notification, for instance, that I didn't pay my garbage tax. And I was like, I've been waiting for it. I notified the government, everything like that. They sent the bill to the previous person, and I'm still responsible for it, even though it went to the previous individual. So fortunately I got it and paid it. It was a small amount, but it's like the hoops that you learn to jump through or getting your mail in your mailbox and thinking like, oh, I've been watching for these bills and they never showed up. You know that junk mail that you get? Sometimes they like to shove those bills in the middle of there. So when I lived in Belgium, I literally every time I get the mail, I'd sit there and fan it all out, and a bill would fall out of the middle of it. Why you do that? To make sure that you're not missing anything, because you're still responsible for it. And the ways that they collect on debts in other countries is not the same as the United States. All of that aside, it is a magical experience, but that doesn't mean spend all your money now or you need to go to this magical place. You can really make any place magical. It's really up to you and your family and how what is it that you want? I'll go to Spain, for instance. Yes, living in Barcelona is amazing if you love the city life. If you don't like the city life, then it's not going to be for you. Go 30 minutes out of the city and you're gonna find an amazing little village, amazing little small towns that are probably half the cost at least, but maybe more in line with who you are and what it what the lifestyle is that you're looking for. If you are a big city person and you want the hustle and bustle of Barcelona or Madrid, excellent. But that doesn't mean you need to also get an apartment that's right in the center of everything. You can do it just a little bit out and you're to find a cheaper place. Or some place that, okay, maybe it's not newly renovated and all this stuff, but two blocks away, it might be cheaper than what you're looking for. Make it last, make your money last and budget it. If you've, let's say you've retired and you're on a fixed income, there's no more extra coming. You know how much you're gonna receive, which is great. That's a wonderful position to be in, but you need to make sure that you're you've planned appropriately for everything that you're doing. Also, you live here now, so you will have time to enjoy it. If you've just moved to a new place, I'm gonna keep talking about Spain, but you're fortunate enough to move to Spain. I moved to Spain last year, to be honest. I lived there for three months and I never even went to Barcelona, other than to literally go to the business stuff that I needed to do. I went in, did the business stuff, and went home. I didn't go and do any of the touristy stuff. I didn't go and explore anything. I live in a little town that's outside of Barcelona. And I really didn't do any traveling or anything else besides stay in my little town because I needed to get settled, A, first of all, get all moved into my apartment and all that stuff, and make sure all the political business stuff is done, if you will. I say political and registering with the town, doing the police stuff, doing all that, all the legal stuff that needed to be done, and make sure I was good to go before I did anything else. And also keep reminding myself, yes, it's very tempting to go here, go there, go do all this stuff, but that's not who I am as a person. I needed to feel settled and relaxed and then go out and do it. If that's if you're not that type of person, then that's fine too. Just that's just something I found for me. It helps me also have a more accurate sense of my expenses and how everything was, so that then I could set myself up for success forward.

Banking Assumptions That Break Overseas

SPEAKER_00 5:46

There's so many details when you are moving to another country, and there's so many assumptions we make. I think I I definitely hear that and what you're saying. One of those is often about banking. And I'm wondering how does banking change when you move abroad? And what mistakes, and for the sake of argument, maybe we'll focus on Americans since there's so many variables. But what mistakes do particularly Americans make by assuming that what they're what they have working domestically is going to transfer with them overseas?

SPEAKER_03 6:17

Yeah, a lot, quite a bit, frankly. So and even if you I say there's it's important to plan, but even when you plan, there are some in-country specifics that you just are going to have to run into that you're gonna have to roll with the punches with. At least that's happened, that's what happened to me. I'm talking about my personal experience. But so one of the things that we do, I'm just gonna talk about briefly about SCFCU, but I have my account with SCFCU with WISE that allows me to have a European bank account, but it's not Spaniards, Belgium coming in and trying to set up my my bills, my utility bills to transfer over, they wouldn't take my Belgian bank account, which they're legally required to, but don't tell that to the Spaniards. Then then they somehow I was forced into opening a Spanish bank account, which I could, I just didn't want to because I didn't need to legally. And then that may create a tax burden on me. So I had to do all this research. And thankfully, in my tax situation, I was able to, I'm not giving tax advice, let me do that. But in my tax situation, if I keep that Spanish account under a certain amount of money per year, then my tax situation doesn't change, which is fine because I just need a free utilities, right? And it's just two utilities that absolutely require me to have one. Now, this is very specific to Spain. It may not happen in another country. You may be able to do all your banking from your US-based financial institution through WISE, and especially if you're in Europe. So it it's those little things that you have to be prepared for, but not necessarily like you I planned everything the way I need it, and then this happened, right? Everything else, literally, that I've been able that I've had to do financially, I've been able to do through my SDFCU account just fine. And so that's just something that, like I said, just country specific, it's the way they want to do things and they have their way of doing things, and I want to live here, so there that's what I'm gonna do. But within the research that I did to be to protect myself as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah, so just one follow-up there. So what I'm hearing you say is just that when you are researching where to go, like for me, I'm very focused on the Caribbean, then uh you want to really understand that country's rules about whether or not you have to open a bank account and how that's gonna balance with your US bank account. And it sounds like you even need to get a tax professional to help you think about different accounts.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

Yes, apologies. Let me backtrack. Yes, absolutely. So to your like just you said it beautifully. So first research what in country banking is like as a person who has, I was born and raised in Ecuador, right? Coming to the US, I was used to the Ecuadorian financial system. Then I have to learn what the financial system in the US works like. And then now I'm having to learn a different one. Everywhere is different. And that's something that not a lot of people are aware of. It's part of the it's a big part of the education that we do. And so when you're planning to move abroad, you absolutely need to understand how the financial system works, how reliable it is, what's the minimum expectation, right? When I was researching around, hey, which bank should I? I was asking my Catalonian friends, which bank should I open my account with? And they said, ah, they're all the same. Not meaning not great. I won't name any names because and then they said, This is the best of the worst, but nothing like what you're used to. And it could be a complete opposite. It could be like this is the best of the best, and you should go there because it's better than the, you know what? It depends on the country that you're in. Then, second, absolutely, once you do realize that you are going to have to do that, hopefully you won't. But if you do end up having to do that, then what does that mean for you as a US citizen? Our tax situation as US citizens is very complicated. So I would recommend everyone to at least do a consultation with a tax advisor. Every situation is different in how it would affect you depending on the country that you're in. If I was moving back to Ecuador, I wouldn't have to worry about any of it because the financial situation in Ecuador is completely different. But because I'm in Europe, then I do need to worry about my tax situation. And so you in the Caribbean, I'm not, I would have to research it, but again, to your point, educate yourself, plan as much as possible, take all the documentation that you may need. That's another thing that thankfully, because of the my visa application, I had some pieces of information already with me that I needed for financial purposes, but otherwise I wouldn't have had. And I would have had to contact my bank back in the US and get those things shipped. It's just try to prepare as much as you can.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yeah, it's important to plan.

US Taxes Follow You Worldwide

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Although, as you said, you can also take an opposite approach in terms of planning for things to go wrong, frankly, when you're moving abroad. And something else that Josh mentioned about unexpected tax bills that he had to pay that were hidden in his mailbox. And so we're wondering, and we know that you all are not tax professionals, but as financial professionals, financial specialists, we're wondering like terms like foreign-earned income exclusions and tax treaties and other things that expats need to think about when they move abroad that they're just not thinking about, frankly. How do people get blindsided by US tax obligations that follow them, no matter where they end up, whether they're in Spain or the Caribbean or wherever?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

I would say the main thing is education for myself. Yes, I very quick, I try every year to file my taxes as soon as I possibly can. And then that way it's done because I know if not, I'll procrastinate. And before I know it, it'll be actually June 15th, because overseas we get an automatic two-month extension, which is great. But I know I would delay that long. And so I'm like, nope, I'm gonna do it. So I do it as soon as the end of January, beginning of February that I can. But I think for the biggest part here, and I like taxes, so a lot of people just do not truly understand the requirements. They hear foreign ground income and they think it applies to them and may or may not. They hear tax treaties and think that they're covered, they may or may not be covered. F bar, foreign bank account reporting requirements, and they get scared about that. But it may or may not. I personally don't think it's anything to be scared about, but some people do. Or this magic, if I have more than $10,000, what's going to happen? May or may not be anything. But just it depends on every individual and their individual situations and what's going on. But if you're unsure, don't rely on free advice as much as I would love everybody to listen to us and be like, oh, they're the experts they know. This is actually something where you do want to pay to figure out what is the right thing for my individual situation, especially if you are, if you have multiple nationalities. If you are an American, if you're a dual citizen with two different countries, there may be different situations that don't apply to any of us on this that are talking right now. It may be something completely different. Yes, the U.S. does tax worldwide income regardless of what country you're in. It's one of the few countries that do that. But maybe there's something unique about the other nationality that you have hold as well that you need to consider, or the country in that you're in right now, which may not have anything to do with either of your nationalities. So you need to make sure, hey, pay the money, figure out what is going on from the experts that know, still do your research or looking to hire somebody, but figure out what's going on. I would not solely rely on internet searches or word of mouth myself. I'd always do your research to make sure the free gets you what free does. So it could be something or it could be something that's not really the most beneficial for you. Situations are different, and yeah, that's pretty much the main thing. One other thing I will say though, especially as an American, put reminders on your calendar to make sure I try to do my FBAR filings at the same time I do my taxes, and then I procrastinate. And honestly, filling out those forms is not that complicated or that long in general. But if you have a more complicated situation, regardless, and even if you're paying somebody else, still put reminders on your calendar just to make sure you don't forget it. It's really there's options out there for extensions, things like this, and maybe that's warranted in your situation. But follow up, make sure you're on your accountant or your tax advisor to their traffic of it all because you're just one of their many clients. So you at the end of the day, you're responsible for your completing everything, and something that you just don't want to forget about.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

We were just participating from a summit. They invited us to talk to uh people that wanted to move to France and what they in in the situation and financial situation, and something happened. One of one of the people that joined the summit was hard set. Hey, I'm gonna move. Actually, she wanted to move to Spain, which is interesting because she was in the France Summit. And there's a ton of resources out there. If you want to join these summits, they're very useful. We partner with a ton of organizations that advocate for tax for Americans residing overseas. I we can we'll be happy to share. Aero, ACA, Falco. What am I missing, Josh? On that. That's it. Okay. And so there's any resources out there. This is a very hot topic for Americans overseas. But one of the things that Josh just made me think about is this this lady had her heart set. This is where I want to move, this is what I want to do. And then a couple of days later, of talking to us during the summit, then she said, I don't think this is gonna be the most feasible country for me to move into, even though this is where I want to move.

Building An Expat Emergency Fund

SPEAKER_00 16:27

This is actually, I think, a good opportunity to shift to thinking about the things that maybe are more easily in our control, like an emergency fund. And I've seen in my experience working overseas, I've seen Americans not prepare for medical emergencies and things like that. And I'm wondering what are the best ways that they can begin to save in that respect?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

I would say that you have to factor in at least six months of local expenses or what those local expenses are, plus airfare to return to your home country. And so this is an example where you're not traveling internationally as part of a job where they're sponsoring you or assisting with that relocation or government relocation or something like that. So you want to factor in those expenses. And then also, what is the exchange rate? Make sure that, especially in current times, I will say exchange rates can fact can fluctuate significantly. And so while you want to say that we'll use keep using Europe as an example, one dollar buys 85 euro cents, we're up to about 87 right now. Is that where I want to plan on? Or do I want to try to go down to say one dollar gets me 80 euro cents or something like that? From the perspective of you want to make sure that you have enough set aside for those emergencies when they have also how much is the last-minute ticket for each of your family members to return back to the United States, for instance? So factoring all that in, last-minute tickets are not cheap at all. Factoring all that in, I think it gives you a more realistic picture of how much you need to have set aside. Credit cards are great tools, but I don't ever like to encourage that as the first line of defense, if you will, or first security blanket. That should be, oh, I have my emergency savings and then I have that as a backup, or I use it as a tool. Yes, of course we want to use our credit card to get our points and our or rewards or something like that. I 100% support that. If you never have to use them, fantastic. That's wonderful. They're there for a purpose. If the purpose never comes up, great. But if the purpose doesn't present itself, make sure that you're informed and aware. And it's not, oh, now I'm in the emergency situation and I'm trying to figure out what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, that all makes sense.

Keeping Credit Alive From Abroad

SPEAKER_02 19:11

You mentioned being careful not to use your credit cards for expenses. Obviously, we have credit cards for emergencies and that sort of thing. But as you're relocating abroad, it's really important to think about how you're using the financial resources at your disposal. Which leads me to my next question. Because I think sometimes Americans think, oh, my credit report or how I build credit that's frozen when I'm living abroad. But now I'm ready to come back home. And so I guess I'm wondering if you all could talk a little bit about what does it mean to continue to build your credit when you're living overseas? And is your financial identity essentially frozen while you're living abroad?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I would say absolutely your financial identity is not frozen while you're living abroad. And it's definitely important to maintain it, regardless of whether you're living in the United States or living overseas, and you're living overseas permanently, temporarily, whatever it is. You never know when you're going to need it. And things, simple things such as renting a car or you have to come back to the states and you either get car insurance, utilities, things like that. Most of those check your credit. And so you need to make sure that you maintain good credit so that you're not having to put down these large deposits that were getting denied service. That's I recently purchased a home in the U.S. again, first time I ever purchased a house in the United States. And the things that were involved with setting up the utilities for it, I actually had one utility say, we don't have any record of you having previous utilities. And I'm like, because I've lived outside the United States with the U.S. government. And then they were like, oh, okay. And part of that was coming into a community that's not heavy military or heavy foreign service or something like that, that they were just, it took them a minute and they figured it out. But just those type of things, especially coming from overseas and as an American, and it just reiterates to me how important it is to make sure that you're maintaining that. And a bank account doesn't do it. You need to have a credit card or a loan or something like that where you're actively maintaining that credit history, even for insurance. It's very important if you're let's say you're moving overseas and you're like, all right, I don't plan on coming back to the United States. Still look into your insurance and see some insurance companies offer a non-driver's policy where you're paying 30 bucks a year or something like that, something really inexpensive that maintains your insurance history with that company. And so that way when you do come back to the US or life happens all the time, that all of a sudden you have a 20 or 30 year history with this company, and that may actually save you a lot of money in the law. Especially as you're repurchasing those the insurance and things like that. So I would just say at the end of the day, yes, it's very important to maintain your credit. You can always freeze it, actually. Highly encourage people to freeze their credit. And what that does is it means that if somebody steals your identity and goes to apply for something, they're going to hit hopefully a brick wall of your credit's frozen. You need to unfreeze it before we can pull your credit report. To me, it just puts the power in your hands and empowers individuals because I know when I want to apply for credit. If I'm applying for a mortgage, then I will go and unfreeze the credit reports and I'll make the application. Or for a credit card or auto loan or personal loan, whatever the case might be. I'm the one that's applying for it. I'm the one that's unfreezing the credit report, doing that, and then freezing it again. This doesn't affect active credit cards or loans or anything like that, or even for the credit monitoring that's out there. They can still, there's other avenues to get that information and give that to you, but it prevents new applications from going through and just puts another lock, if you will, on it, and you're the only one with the key.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

I had no idea you could free freeze your credit. That is something new to me. And I consider myself to be pretty credit savvy and smart.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

All three credit bureaus, Equifax, Experience, and TransUnion. It's a free service that you do. You used to have to pay for it back in the day. COVID actually cemented it to where it was free. One of the laws that was passed during COVID cemented it to where it was free for everybody. So yes, it's free. I highly encourage people to use it and it just puts it, puts the power back in your hands.

Which Cards To Keep Open

SPEAKER_03 23:46

I was just going to uh uh get on Shelby's and Belinda side a little bit with the questions for you. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like? Because what I think an important thing to point out is how do you do that more efficiently, right? So if you're planning on leaving the US, having lived in the US, and you have all these credit lines, I think the impulse or what we see in our industry is people who just closed everything and moved. So what would be the appropriate way? Can you talk a little bit about what would be the appropriate way of doing that in addition to the freezing of the credit?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

I think it's important to do a realistic picture of what all you have open. Of course, you can pull a credit report, lots of utilize free credit reporting, a lot of financial institutions have that as a free option. You can go in there and pull your credit and you can see, oh, here's everything that's going on. You also have the ability to pull free credit reports from the bureaus directly. Some of them have some limits on there, others you can pull a free one once a week. So it just depends on the individual bureaus and what's going on. You are legally entitled to a certain number every year. It doesn't necessarily give you a score that they can still charge for directly from the bureaus, but you can pull a detailed, in-depth credit report to where you can see what's going on. Always do that. I highly recommend that because then that makes sure that, oh, is there anything that you're reporting incorrectly or stuff like that? But from the aspect of it, it gives you a full picture of here's all the credit cards, lines of credit, mortgages, auto loans, et cetera, that I have. And then you can, if you're, you know, maybe you forgot about one. If you have multiple credit cards, it can be, that can occur. But think about your credit cards that you have. That's I think the most typical one when you move overseas. If you have multiple credit cards, sometimes people are more likely to cancel the ones that have an annual fee or something like that. Look at the benefits that you're getting from those cards. Yes, you might be paying X amount, let's say $500 as an annual fee. But if you're making $1,500 to $2,000 a year in benefits, does it really make sense to cancel that? And will those benefits still be applicable when you travel overseas, especially the travel incentives that come from using that card. So think about what it is that you're going to be doing overseas, the specific things. And then also, if at all possible, always keep the credit card that you've had the longest, because that leads to length of credit history. And so people sometimes close it out thinking, like, oh, I'm not going to use it anymore. It has a really high interest rate or whatever. If you're not paying any interest on it, does it really matter what the interest rate is? That's always been my perspective on it. If I'm not, if I'm using it every couple months and pay it off, then I really don't care what the interest rate can be 30%. And I don't care. But I've had that card for 30 years. So I'm not going to close that because that's actually really that's a significant percentage that goes into a credit score, is length of credit history, on-time payments, usage, those types of things. Sorry, I could really get on a soapbox about this, but just really prioritize like out of all the cards you have, what are you using? If you have a card that you're that you haven't had for a long period of time, it doesn't really give you any benefit. The credit limit on it's really low, then close it. Yes, it's going to temporarily lower your credit score, but in about six months, you're going to see that credit score back up, go back up to what it was before. So just rank and stack them. I think is a good way. Figure out what it is, what's your priorities, what makes most sense to you. I would also encourage a wide range between Visa MasterCard and American Express discover is kind of changing with the Capital One purchase. When you look at those four credit cards, Visa and MasterCard are accepted very widely around the world. I recently learned that American Express is quite popular in South Korea. I was very surprised by that. But that's just speaks to where you're going. So if you're going to South Korea, it may be really beneficial to keep that American Express card. Whereas if you're going to Europe, it's kind of hit or miss at times. But just think about those things and what makes sense to you, what really benefits you get out of that. Always keep in mind no foreign transaction fees, because we don't want people paying for that when they can easily avoid it, or even points redemption too on credit cards. So some, yeah, when you live overseas, for example, if you have a card that earns points, what kind of redemptions can you actually get from that? It does a points card make the most sense versus a cashback card where it doesn't matter where you are in the world, you're still going to get that cash back as opposed to the points. If you need to buy a thing, am I really going to be able to purchase a grill or a toaster or something like that? When I'm in Europe, they're not even probably don't even ship it there. And then you got to pay about import taxes and custom. You're not going to do all that. Think about some of those things, which isn't always top of mind when you're going through this process and preparation for moving abroad.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, no, I feel like what I'm getting out of this, what I would impart upon our audience, is that moving overseas it requires a great deal of strategy. Right. And like you said earlier, Josh, the there's the kind of political strategy of how do I get my water turned on? How do I negotiate with a landlord, et cetera, et cetera? But the idea of what is the balance that I'm going to have between domestic and international financial instruments and things like that is important. On a personal level, I feel like what I'm hearing is a lot of things I was doing when I was an expat of keeping that baseline domestic insurance and then raising my overseas insurance, obviously, or keeping a baseline like my cell phone coverage, their baseline in the US, just so that I continue to have an economic presence in the US, were actually best practices, freezing my credit, et cetera. It sounds like as people prepare, they need to really sit down with financial professionals in their lives and think about those next steps.

Planning Your Move 12 Months Out

SPEAKER_00 29:46

So, Sam, I'm wondering, we've heard a lot about what are the right things to do with our credit. Are there any other tips that you might offer for someone who's thinking 12 or 18 months from now, I'm ready to make an international move?

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Yes, a ton. Where do I start? I think everything that we've talked about today, but making sure that you're making the right decision for yourself, making sure that you kind of touch base on that, which is the balance between what am I keeping in the US versus what am I not, right? Everybody's situation is different. Everybody's visa is different. The visa, although it's not necessarily a financial aspect to it, it's really important to keep in mind what type of visa am I going to be applying or what type of visa am I going to be going in country. Of course, if you're a citizen, that's a different question, a citizen of that country, but it's a completely different situation. But considering the type of visa is important because that visa may be limited. So you may not want to make the decision of, oh, I'm selling my entire house, I'm selling everything I have, and I'm moving to Spain. No, you want to make sure that you make an educated decision and what financial contingencies that's going to take in your life. And so, in country, what does that living cost? And Josh was saying, like, where am I aspiring to live? What kind of lifestyle do I want to have? And what kind of finances uh surround that? One important thing that I want to mention is in regards to the visa application, is a lot of countries, regardless of what visa you're applying to, want to see the last three to a year, or two a year, two to three to twelve months, I'll say, financial statements. So as you're trying to plan to move, there's a lot of financial movement over here. And they're gonna want to see your financial statements from this and may have some questions. Something very important to keep in mind, because they're gonna want to see your financial statements over here, and then they're gonna have questions about what you're doing, why you're moving money. So make sure that you have all of that plan, that you have everything as clean as possible, not that you shouldn't do anything. And one other thing that I would say is go back to the drawing board, one country, if it doesn't work out and it just seem over seems overwhelming. There's other countries as well that could potentially create a better situation for you.

SPEAKER_02 32:12

Yeah, what I'm hearing you say is it takes an intentional, deliberate plan. You can't just up and decide, okay, I'm gonna move abroad. You really do need to do your homework. Something you and Josh have been saying throughout this episode do your homework, do your research, understand what are the local implications as well as the domestic implications of your move abroad. So it's really important.

How SDFCU Supports Expats

SPEAKER_02 32:44

So we wanted to give SDFCU an opportunity to talk about the specific services that you offer for American citizens living and working abroad. And also wanted to just ask you what makes the credit union different from a traditional bank in the context of living and working overseas.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Absolutely. One of the things that I feel really fills or that we feel fill the niche on is our international support and experience that we bring to the table. And there's several individuals who have not just lived but also worked overseas for many years in many different countries. And so we're able to take that personal experience of some of us living overseas presently to have lived overseas in the past and apply that to our members and give them advice and help them navigate those challenging times. Even our CEO, he actually recently been with the credit union now for about three or four years, and he lived overseas. He was stationed in Germany when he was in the military. And so he has that experience of, I lived overseas. And so from that level of vision and guidance, we help our members and especially the Department of State, but also Americans that live and work around the world, we want to give them that personal help of yes, we know how to pay bills in Europe. Yes, we understand the challenges of banking in Asia. Yes, we understand South America has some unique, depending on the country's unique financial things that need to be resolved or dealt with. And so with all of that, our goal is through using when we have a partnership with WISE within our digital banking to make payments. That was one of the core focuses that we did when we did a complete revamp of our digital banking experience was looking forward to not just having the tools to provide U.S. banking services to those living in the United States, but also those living and working around the globe, along with the security that's needed for 2026. And that's ever changing from it'll be different by the end of the day, it feels because it's changing constantly. And then also the ability to make those payments and transfer money without the having to send a wire transfer or something like that. You can easily go in, transfer the money, know right up front what the costs are gonna be, what's the exchange rate, what what are the fees I'm gonna pay. And in most cases, through our partnership, the money's in the other account 75% of the time in 20 seconds or less. So having those things done, paid for, knowing, oh, I needed that. I unfortunately had to go to the hospital when I was in Norway, how am I gonna make the payment? So they don't accept credit cards. No problem. We can do this, or some other fashion, or I don't have enough cash on me to pay the bill that I just got on Italy or something like that. You just need to be able to do that. And so that's where we step in with those employees with the specialized experience, also the the support for truly international support through address and phone number support. I personally have learned in living overseas that you have to not over-disclose when you're talking to financial institutions, because unfortunately, when you are not in the same country, that can have effects. And that's not just the United States, it's also overseas as well. Making sure in conversation, having a great morning at nighttime, just those type of things. Just don't over-disclose. And that's something that we don't have to worry about with the State Department, Federal Credit Union. We understand our membership. That's one of the core focuses is our outreach to Americans that reside around the world that have encountered challenges through banking in the United States for various reasons. And so bringing that experience, that knowledge, and that on the ground experience and support, it really I think brings us a level above other US financial institutions in helping solve those significant needs.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah, no, that's really helpful.

Resources And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Thank you, Josh. And for all our listeners, we're gonna put additional information about the credit union and the services that they offer. So you can learn more about the State Department Federal Credit Union in the show notes. So we encourage you to take a look at that. And Josh, I would just want to thank you and Sam again for joining us every time you join us. We learned so much. It's so amazing. Shelby and I have been members of the State Department Federal Credit Union for literally decades. And now our families are members. And whether I am at an ATM machine in Togo or I am trying to make a purchase in El Salvador or trying to access my online account in Ecuador, y'all have always been there for me and my family. And it's just really great to not only utilize your services, but learn so much from you all. So, Shelby, I don't know if you have any final thoughts.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

No, just very grateful to Sam and Josh. And sorry about some of the technical difficulties that we experienced. Sam had to drop, but really thankful for you all. And also wanted to put in a plug that the credit union has presence overseas. Both Sam and Josh mentioned that they live in Spain. That's not by accident. The credit union actually has physical presence overseas. That's another added bonus for SDFCU members. So really appreciate the breadth of the conversation that we've had from teaching our kids on how to make smart money moves to having a more focused conversation for the adults about the financial realities of living abroad. I think this financial series will be very useful to our audience.