The Nitty Gritty

What we think we are supposed to be doing....

As one might imagine, there are some logistical challenges associated with making a permanent move to another country. We find ourselves asking, “Oh, what about…?” and “What happens to…?” on a daily basis. Presumably, those who embarked on a steamer ship with all of their worldly possessions in the 1800s brought their savings in cash and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Those of us with U.S. retirement accounts, expectations of staying in close contact with friends & family, and ongoing commitments to the IRS, however, need to do a bit more planing. All of the following decisions we have made were influenced by fellow expats, Reddit threads, and other deep dives on the internet. We hope we’re doing it right!

1. Telephone Communications. Obviously people still want to be able to text or call us as they have always done. But our Verizon phones won’t work overseas unless we maintain a very expensive account in the U.S.

   

   Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

   We have been advised to port our numbers over to Google Voice, which will allow us to make international calls for a very low fee and text for free. People also use this to maintain their 2-factor authentication for U.S.-based accounts. This service only works while on wi-fi, however, so we won’t be using it as our primary phone service. We will be porting our numbers to Google Voice at the airport on the day of our departure, as doing so requires one to be in the U.S. but then cancels the ability to use the Verizon account data afterwards.

   Anyone who has traveled internationally appreciates the ubiquity of WhatsApp, a Meta-owned app that allows free data-based (either cell data or wifi) calling and texting to any other number that is enrolled in WhatsApp. Once we have New Zealand data plans, this will work at all times and not require us to be on wi-fi as Google Voice does.

   When we arrive in New Zealand, we will also set up phone plans with a +64 country code for local calling and data access. Over time, we will likely make these our primary WhatsApp numbers as well. After all, how will we pass our citizenship test if we never adopt a New Zealand phone number?

2. Mail Forwarding. We have read conflicting reports about whether or not USPS will forward mail internationally. In reality, one usually does not need to hold their mail in hand: they just need to know the content of the information. In this global society, virtual mailboxes have sprung up to serve expats and digital nomads. Such services will scan your mail into a PDF, deposit checks, and forward any packages at your request (for a fee, of course!) We have asked USPS to forward our mail to our virtual mailbox for the next 18 months. This service will bridge us through the in-between of having footholds in both countries.

   

   Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash

3. VPNs and personal IP addresses. What used to be the instruments of hackers and criminals are now essential tools for expats. Whether one is trying to access their retirement account from overseas or simply watch their favorite American shows on Netflix, being able to log into websites from a U.S. address will keep us connected in a functional way. NordVPN is a popular and affordable option used worldwide.

   

   Photo by Petter Lagson on Unsplash

4. Money money money! Checking accounts, retirement and brokerage accounts, credit cards, U.S. and NZ taxes, HSAs, life and disability insurance, Kiwisaver… Dad has been spending many hours a day on all of this and will write his own Substack article on this soon enough.

It may be boring, but diving into the details now will make the move as seamless as possible (hopefully.) The last thing we want is to realize that we needed to do x, y, or z before we left America. That would be a bummer.

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