Moving abroad wasn’t a foreign concept to Ahnika White.
Her husband is from the Netherlands, and her oldest daughter — now in kindergarten — lived there for the first few years of her life before the family moved back to Minnesota.
Around the time her daughter was approaching school age,White said medical bills and other expenses were piling up. She and her husband decided it made the most financial sense for them to go back to Europe. After her husband secured a job in Belgium, the family of four officially made the move in September 2024.
“Financially, it’s been life-changing,” White, 32, told Business Insider. “I’m a stay-at-home mom right now, versus in the US, I was the six-figure earner, and even then, we just couldn’t seem to put enough into savings, or there were months we were shifting money around, and it was so stressful. And here we haven’t even had one of those moments.”
White said she can see her family staying in Belgium until her two kids graduate from high school, and she has no regrets leaving the US, despite the challenges a big move with young children can bring. It’s a decision that White said will pay off for her and her kids’ futures due to the financial and educational opportunities that have opened up.
“A lot of people are so worried about moving their kids and uprooting their kids, which is such a valid concern,” White said. “But we’ve taken my daughter from continent to continent now, and they’re so resilient and they adapt. And so I wouldn’t let that be a reason why you don’t make the move.”
Opportunity and safety for her kids outside the US
When White was considering leaving the US, the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, weighed heavily on her mind. The devastation of school shootings across the country wasn’t the primary reason her family chose to move, but White said it was a strong factor in allowing her to feel OK removing her kids from the US public school system.
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“We were just increasingly more uncomfortable with her going to public school in the US,” White said. She added that she was even considering homeschooling before she and her husband made the decision to go to Belgium. Private schools in the US aren’t immune to tragedy either, and would be a significant cost burden on the family.
Families across the country — especially those in rural and low-income areas — rely on the public school system not only for education, but for a range of resources, including aid for students with special needs, meal and aftercare programs, and support for English language learners.
Over the past few years, though, the growth of the school voucher movement has led more parents to consider options outside public school for their kids, including private school, microschools, and homeschooling. While some critics have said that directing public funds to private or minimally regulated school options takes funding away from the public school system, some parents have said it allows them to pick an option that best suits their kids’ needs.
White enrolled her daughter in a Belgian public school, and she credited the Minnesota preschool where her daughter was previously enrolled for giving her a leg up in basic skills like learning letters and beginning to form words, which she said put her ahead of what the students of the same age in Belgium were learning.
When moving abroad, a typical challenge most families would face is the language barrier. The mom of two said that luckily, that wasn’t a major problem — her oldest daughter already had a background speaking Dutch, and while the schools in Belgium use a different dialect, the transition was fairly easy for her.
The financial freedom in Belgium is also enabling White to put money aside each month for her two kids to use for whatever route they choose to take after graduating from high school, whether it be college or for a down payment on a house.
With her children having already lived in Europe and having family there, White acknowledged that she had an easier time than most with moving abroad. She recommended that those looking to make a similar move out of the US ensure they’re familiar with the culture and financial structure to help ease the adjustment.
“Financially, we’re way better off here,” White said. “It was taking a toll on us in the US, between mortgages, and kids are really expensive. Those bills rack up really quickly.”
Did you move with your kids outside the US? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
