Moving your family internationally, even with all the help, is not easy. It involves a lot of planning and keeping track of the to-do list. We only heard about our latest move 3 months before the moving date, and after the initial 'shock' to have change the vision we had for 2022, we moved into action. Here is my top 5 of things that I recommend you do before a move!

1) Start a googledocs to do list to share with other people (partner, family, PA, HR, or whoever is involved in your move) and assign tasks and do-by dates.

2) I took the opportunity to really Marie-Kondo our house and I gave away and sold everything we don't need anymore. From all our electronica (Japan has different voltage to Thailand) to toys, to clothes to furniture to school uniforms. I created a googledocs form I could share with friends and my Kyoto community and used color codes for items available, reserved or picked up, with dates when they would be available. I used fun language to describe the items and got a laugh out of people. Knowing which things are expensive or unavailable in Japan / Kyoto, I priced everything accordingly - and made close to $3000 in sales. Ka-ching! (Yeah, good money but I had to buy new things in Bangkok upon arrival of course haha!)

3) Don't wait until the last minute to do farewell parties or playdates. We have everything scheduled ahead so that the last 2 weeks we can take it easy and wrap up. Well apart from my birthday but that's taken care of by someone!

4) Look at your finances early on to anticipate expenses. Even if the company is facilitating your move, it is still expensive in many different ways to move and set up home again. Some expenses I didn’t anticipate exactly were school uniforms, health checks, and PCR tests for example. It also takes a while to get paid from the new job, which eats into the savings.

5) Organise your home before the movers come. I've spent quite a few hours to sort all the toys, art, put all the books together, and put things like clothes, cuddly toys and blankets in vacuum bags.

Okay, I said 5 but actually there is another one: ENJOY the process too! Take a break when it becomes too much to handle, take care of yourself, carve some minutes out of your day to rest. Everything will be okay in the end!

Anything I missed? What is your toptip?

Living abroad

Moving abroad - the BEFORE tips!

Lin de Leeuwerk