The life of an “expat” is an experience that comes in varied shades, with light-years between one extreme to the other. Some companies totally fund a relocation abroad for example. An employee might be paid $120,000 a year, given a company car, might have private school for his or her children paid for ($20,000/year value), full transport of furniture and personal items via ocean container might be paid for–add any number of other perks beyond my experience and expectation.
My reality is very different from that portrayed above. My salary is modest, my transport is public, my (toddler) child is schooled by loving parents and paperbacks, and furniture…well…most of our furniture still sits in the US and came from the Swedish pre-fab giant Ikea, a branch of which sits conveniently right down the street from our new apartment. And buying anew and reassembling our apartment turned out to be much cheaper than shipping over our sentimental loot from American storage.