No Stupid Questions
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If you have the money to leave. Buy a couple people on the street loaves of bread or a sleeping bag or something.
Borrow a lot of money and then declare bankruptcy. If you're feeling generous, buy up people's medical debt for pennies on the dollar.
Take sometime to learn about what you will do with your 401k if have one.
Turn the lights out
Make sure your last permanent address is where you wanna be voting. Absentee ballots will all be for whichever district you lived in last.
Don't think they can vote if they're not a citizen, no?
oh right missed that part. well, still relevant for other readers
Visit some of the National Parks, aka America's best idea.
Some amazing ones (they're all amazing, tbh) in no particular order:
- Yosemite
- Arches / Canyonlands (close to each other)
- Yellowstone
- Grand Tetons
- Glacier
- Denali
- Olympic
Buy some non US-based cloud storage and copy all your sensitive data to it, and delete said data from personal devices before leaving the country, so you can safely allow customs access to devices if required.
Retrieve data from the cloud when you arrive in the destination country.
- consider keeping your US phone number until all banking stuff is done since many banks do 2fa and this can be a giant pain after moving. Try to switch to an app if possible. Many providers also disallow known VoIP numbers.
- driving license was another one mentioned. Having it not expire before you can transfer it is preferable (assuming the target country allows transfer. Japan didn't until after two years after I got here and my license expired so I had to start from zero despite driving for 15+ years in the US). You may need to get notarized driving records which is also easier before you leave.
- go through and change/cancel anything with an address on file -- can be much easier from within the US. I went through the past year's bank records to find anything sneaky that doesn't renew monthly. If you have things that only renew every N years, don't forget to cancel or update those (domain names, for instance).
- Make sure all city, municipal, county, state, and federal tax stuff will be OK to do after leaving (sometimes, some prep is needed)
- If you have any retirement plans like 401ks, IRAs, etc. see about rolling them over or whatever
- maybe do something with social security with regard to your target country if an agreement is in place, particularly if you didn't work long enough to claim it. You can get US SS overseas in the vast majority of countries, but there are also certain provisions where you wouldn't or it would be reduced based on what you have in the target country.
- Freeze credit reports at the agencies as others mentioned
Obviously this is entirely dependent on where you're moving to, but I struggled to find the following when living abroad:
- good (American-style) pizza
- good Mexican food
- good BBQ
- certain ice cream flavors (like cherries jubilee/cherry garcia)
- wide open spaces completely devoid of people
- large-group events of a boisterous and goofy nature
- certain types of museums/educational facilities (such as good zoos/wildlife rehab open to the public and interactive science museums)
Freeze your credit profiles
This is what I mean:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/credit-freeze/
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/08/why-where-you-should-you-plant-your-flag/
Basically put your electronic identify in a freezing unusable state so that in the off chance you must return, you donβt return to a nightmare. Just donβt forget your passwords and pins.
Get an FBI background check, and get it apostilled. Easy to do from your local post office in the US, difficult and expensive to do outside the us, and you will need it for many things you might want to do in other countries
Why would you need an FBI background check outside of the US?
you need it if you apply for citizenship in some countries. they'll ask for full criminal records of all the countries you've lived in.
Actually the only time I've ever needed one is outside of the country. You need a police report from anywhere you lived for more than six months to apply for residencies, get teaching jobs, etc etc. the only authority in the US that can do this and provide a report acceptable outside the country is the FBI.
This is a pretty important step!
Open as many credit cards as you can and spend all the money and don't worry about paying it back it's all good
Get a few public library cards. Then abroad you can use it to borrow ebooks and audiobooks for free.
I have to renew mine in person every 3 years or so.
Yosemite
Grand Canyon
Yellowstone
Avenue of the Giants
Add to this list any national parks you were thinking about visiting. After this administration, they may not be around anymore.
Take me with you!!
Sorry it came to this. We sane few who remain will miss you; we will undoubtedly be worse for losing the diversity of thought (and snarky humor) expats like you bring.
The best advice in the thread so far was to freeze your credit. And I'd add: don't assume you'll never want to come back just because your current self doesn't forsee it. For your own sake, don't burn bridges out of spite.
Honestly, if you have a chance go to Washington DC the museums are beautiful. If youβre leaving permanently, you probably will never see them again.
Eat some good barbeque.
Currently in the same boat, though I'm a citizen
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Figure out your car and drivers license stuff. Some countries have an agreement that lets you swap a US license for theirs.
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Mail forwarding. Either forward your mail to someone you trust or pay for an international forwarding service. You're still gonna be getting mail afterwards, like credit card renewals.
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You'll likely have to do the same for finances
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Go through everything you own and trim down. Whatever you don't get rid of, you'll have to deal with customs.
And finally, get a lawyer. No seriously. I know they're expensive but you don't want to fuck around with emigrating on your own. You're gonna have pleeeenty of questions for them
First, get a [removed by mod], make sure it's [removed by mod], then [removed by mod] right in the [removed by mod]
Wipe your feet on the way out.