Moving back to Europe

[Accidental Retiree]

Sounds like great progress, and good for you to have taken 3 more large trash bags to the curb.

Anyway, we're all cheering you on, from the sidelines! All of this is a HUGE step toward your new life and future happiness.

+1.

 

[ivinsfan]

Have you rented a place for now. Sorry if you already answered that,but I was thinking you already had a condo picked out...good luck!

 

[FIREd]

Have you rented a place for now. Sorry if you already answered that,but I was thinking you already had a condo picked out...good luck!

I have some temporary housing lined up. But I am still looking for a permanent pad.

 

[FIREd]

I actually think $3.50/lb seems reasonable for the distance involved and the psychic relief you will feel at being able to start the next chapter in the FIREd book.

Yes, now that the sticker shock wore off, I think that I am not getting such a bad deal after all.

 

[FIREd]

Update:

This is it, only one week left before the movers come packing and hauling my stuff away. I have further reduced the amount of stuff to be moved and I have split it into 3 piles: the stuff that I will take in my luggage on my flight to Geneva (winter clothes, valuables, and electronics mostly), the stuff that will be moved by container (the bulk of my belongings), and the stuff that will be mailed to my new address via Fedex (important records and paperwork).

Except for my real estate holdings, I am now 100% cash. The euro/dollar exchange rate has been relatively favorable over the past few weeks and I converted half of my savings to Euros already (including all fees, I have been averaging $1.1511 per euro - better than the $1.20 I had planned for). HSBC and Transferwise have worked perfectly to convert my savings at a reasonable cost - between the two I have averaged about 1% in fees. Thanks Alan for suggesting both. I feel better now that I have taken some of the currency risk off the table.

 

[REWahoo]

Sounds like the plan is coming together nicely.

 

[rodi]

Continued best wishes on a hassle free move.

 

[tulak]

I’m glad to hear things are progressing nicely. I hope the next week goes smoothly for you.

 

[ivinsfan]

It's happening... I hope it goes smoothly and Happy Holidays as you begin the next stage of your life.

 

[Alan]

Good luck with the actual move, it looks like everything is going very well indeed.

 

[Huston55]

Excellent!

Hoping to hear about how great your new life is so, keep us posted. Of course, you have to post pics of your Arrival/Christmas/New Years parties!

 

[Bestwifeever]

Bon voyage! I hope your future is happier than you ever dreamed it might be!

 

[kgtest]

I think we were very fortunate in the cost of our move, must have just hit it right with Atlas needing to fill their order book or something.

Yes you were, in 2014 I direct shipped via Matson Long Beach, CA over to Inner Island Maui. Stopped at Oahu first.



Shipped a 1/2 tone truck, cost me $1200. Didn't ship a single piece of furniture, just the truck from West coast through the Pacific and it was $1200. So yeah if you got an entire container for $3000 to UK from Mainland US you got a steal.

 

[FIREd]

Thanks all!

I may have praised HSBC a bit too quickly! This afternoon they put a security lock on my accounts and I can’t reach their security department on the phone to remove the lock. My checking, savings, and credit card accounts are all frozen and inaccessible online.

 

[braumeister]

Sounds crazy but maybe try complaining on Twitter. It works for a lot of companies.

 

[W2R]

Update:

This is it, only one week left before the movers come packing and hauling my stuff away.

Hot dog!!! This is terrific. Once you get settled in Europe, and get internet access established, I hope you continue to post here.

Thanks all!

I may have praised HSBC a bit too quickly! This afternoon they put a security lock on my accounts and I can’t reach their security department on the phone to remove the lock. My checking, savings, and credit card accounts are all frozen and inaccessible online.

Perhaps you can call them tomorrow morning? I hope this last glitch gets straightened out easily.

 

[FIREd]

Hot dog!!! This is terrific. Once you get settled in Europe, and get internet access established, I hope you continue to post here.



Perhaps you can call them tomorrow morning? I hope this last glitch gets straightened out easily.

Yes, I will call them again first thing in the morning (I didn’t think about it but they might have been closed today for the national day of mourning). I made a biggish transfer from my US account to my French account yesterday and their system might have flagged it (it has not cleared yet).

And I will definitely continue to post here.

 

[FIREd]

Sounds crazy but maybe try complaining on Twitter. It works for a lot of companies.

Hopefully I won’t have to create a Twitter account just to complain about them.

 

[Alan]

Yes, I will call them again first thing in the morning (I didn’t think about it but they might have been closed today for the national day of mourning). I made a biggish transfer from my US account to my French account yesterday and their system might have flagged it (it has not cleared yet).

And I will definitely continue to post here.

Maybe it is the large transfer that has caused the lock, you being a new customer, but I would have thought they would have contacted you by phone. This has happened with me, not HSBC US to HSBC UK, but large payments to lawyers etc. They didn't lock my account but they did block the transactions until they had called me to confirm that I had made the proper checks to ensure the money was going to who I thought, and not to a thief.

When they do call me it is an interesting initial exchange to confirm our identities. They will share part of my information such as the month and year I was born and ask me to supply the day, and also to supply part of the address of where I was born. "You were born in the County of Cleveland, could you tell me the name of town?"

 

[FIREd]

Well, it is confirmed, my accounts have been suspended until I can "answer some questions" but I still cannot talk to someone who can do something about it (I have been waiting on the phone 2 hours this morning already and there is no end in sight).

 

[REWahoo]

Wait 'em out!

 

[NW-Bound]

On the positive side, congrats on being 100% in cash.

Back when I read that you needed to transfer everything back home in cash, I thought that it would be such a fortuitous move for FIREd, as I felt the market was going down.

I could have done the same for myself, i.e. raising cash, even though I was not going anywhere. But of course I did not. Bummer.

 

[Bamaman]

Congratulations on you well executing your plan.

Funny thing happening as I read over this posting. The right side of my page has an advertisement about 2 savings accounts that pay 10x what your bank pays. And an advertisement popped up from a moving company.
I guess we'll never get away from cookies controlling some of what we see on the internet.

 

[FIREd]

Wait 'em out!

I could not. Those suckers can stonewall you like nobody's business. I get transferred from one department to another and no one is able to answer any question. They all end up directing me to the same department and the wait times have been upward of 2 hours each time! While you wait on the line, they play some obnoxious elevator music on a short loop, which makes you want to gouge your eardrums. Not impressed at all.

But I finally went around their useless phone system. When I had to appear in person at one of their branches in Virginia to open my checking account in France, I met one of the managers there. I kept his business card and I called him while I was waiting on the line with customer service. He remembered me and took it upon himself to contact the right person. Apparently, my large transfer triggered a warning and they wanted to double check my identity. The branch manager had kept a copy of my passport and provided it to the fraud department. The suspension should be lifted before the end of the day. Fingers crossed.

 

[REWahoo]

I could not. Those suckers can stonewall you like nobody's business. I get transferred from one department to another and no one is able to answer any question. They all end up directing me to the same department and the wait times have been upward of 2 hours each time! While you wait on the line, they play some obnoxious elevator music on a short loop, which makes you want to gouge your eardrums. Not impressed at all.

But I finally went around their useless phone system. When I had to appear in person at one of their branches in Virginia to open my checking account in France, I met one of the managers there. I kept his business card and I called him while I was waiting on the line with customer service. He remembered me and took it upon himself to contact the right person. Apparently, my large transfer triggered a warning and they wanted to double check my identity. The branch manager had kept a copy of my passport and provided it to the fraud department. The suspension should be lifted before the end of the day. Fingers crossed.

Excellent move to keep his business card!