We left the US for Switzerland and our apartment cost $2,883 a month

when Mary Brown She met her husband, Sebastian, and they lived in Chicago. But on their second date, Sebastien, a French national, told Brown he didn’t plan to stay in the US much longer – he had been in America for 15 years and wanted to return to Europe soon.

“He actually almost came back, but then he decided to stay a little longer and met me, so it was very serendipitous in that way,” Brown told CNBC Make It.

At the end of 2020, the couple moved into a two-bedroom apartment together on Chicago’s North Side. At the time, Sebastian worked as head of the business unit at ZF Group, a German technology manufacturer, while Marie worked as a social media manager at a hair care company.

They were both working remotely, and eventually the apartment was too small for them, so the couple moved across the street into a 3-bedroom, 2-bath duplex where they paid $2,585 a month in rent.

“I miss it so much. It was a really nice building that still had brick walls and had a Chicago feel, but it was gutted and renovated,” Brown says.

Brown and Sebastian lived in the apartment for about a year, overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic there together. During this period, they began to seriously consider moving to Europe and deciding which country they would soon call home. Switzerland was at the top of their list.

Sebastian enrolled in the Executive MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “He chose it because he was able to do a lot of it remotely from the States,” Brown says. “Since the long-term goal was to return to Europe, it made sense for him to do a European program.”

Another mitigating factor for the couple was that Sebastien was unable to see his family in France for an entire year due to pandemic travel restrictions. He began work actively to be transferred to his company’s European offices.

The ZF Group offered Sebastian a move to an office in Germany, but Braun rejected the idea. She didn’t speak the language and there were no direct flights to and from Chicago. Sebastian was then offered a move to Belgium, but it was not accepted. He had another opportunity to work in a brand new office in Bern, Switzerland, the country’s capital.

Although moving to Bern didn’t appeal to Brown—it also had no direct flights to and from Chicago—she realized that Zurich was close enough that Sebastian could commute to the office every day.

“He really thought it was the best career opportunity for him, and at the time, the company I worked for was willing to let me go and work remotely for them from Switzerland,” Brown says. “The stars align.”

By December 2021, the couple had begun the process of moving to Switzerland — which included obtaining Swiss visas — so they didn’t actually end up moving until September 2022. Brown and Sebastian married in March of that year, and shipped most of their belongings to Switzerland. Switzerland, and moved in with Brown’s parents while waiting for the papers to be cleared.

“We still have a long time to adjust and be with my family,” Brown says. “Which I think helped make the transition easier.”

When Braun and Sebastian finally moved to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing — first in a furnished one-bedroom, one-bathroom house, which they paid 3,880 francs, or $4,253, and then in a two-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom residence that rented for $5,090. francs, or $5,580, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“I remember sitting on the bed in the temporary accommodation with our dog and thinking, ‘How is this real? How are we doing in Switzerland? How did our dog get here? How did everything fall into place?’ says Brown.

“This was our real life now and we had to deal with it. It was just surreal.”

In December of that year, the couple found more sustainable living arrangements. It was a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath apartment in Zurich’s Enge neighborhood where the rent was 4,120 francs, or $4,516.

The couple loved that apartment, but in January 2023, Brown learned she was pregnant. Living on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator has become a major concern. The couple has also been notified that their rent will be raised. They thought it was a good time to find a place with more space.

Five months later, Braun and Sebastian left the old apartment behind and moved into a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Uitikon, a town just outside Zurich, for 3,950 francs, or $4,330, a month. One positive aspect for them is that their taxes are lower because they no longer live in the city, Brown says.

In Switzerland, people pay federal income tax rates ranging from 0 to 11.5%, but this does not include local taxes, according to H&R block. Cantons, which are similar to states in the United States, and municipalities also levy taxes.

Downside? It wasn’t easy to get around their new city without a car. When Brown gave birth to the couple’s daughter and went on maternity leave, she was hired as a social media manager at a Swiss company that wasn’t friendly to remote work. “I started to worry about just finding balance in life,” she says.

There was a possibility that Brown would lose her job if she did not return to her office full time after her leave ended.

“If I were in the United States, I would have asked my mom or someone I knew well to take care of our daughter. We started to think we needed a plan for the worst-case financial scenarios.”

When Brown’s boss confirmed the worst, Sebastian set out to look for a higher-paying job while considering her options. “I appreciated that (my manager) was very honest with me, but it was frustrating because I had to choose between my career or my family,” she says.

“I’ve taken the loss, but there are other rewards to being home with our daughter. Being a stay-at-home mom is just a different job.”

Last year, the couple and their daughter moved to a town outside Freiburg, less than two hours from downtown Zurich, where the family still resides. They pay 2,630 francs, or $2,883, a month for their 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment.

“We were able to save a lot of change and Sebastian was making more money. It didn’t bridge the gap between me losing my income but it definitely helped financially,” says Brown.

Additionally, since French is the primary language in that area, Brown was excited to raise her daughter there, knowing she would learn the language and could improve hers.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, Brown says she really appreciates the feeling of security that comes with living in Switzerland. She frequently hikes in nature alone with her daughter and the family dog.

“The level of safety is completely different here, and honestly, as a woman, I feel safer doing things that I might have thought twice about doing in the States,” Mary says. “It feels safe and secure while still being beautiful at the same time.”

Brown and Sebastian have been living in Switzerland for more than two years, and although they miss the American sense of celebration and having so much readily available to them like Amazon delivery and stores that stay open after 6 p.m., the results of the 2024 presidential election mean for them, going back. What’s off the table: ‘There’s a lot of uncertainty in the US’

“I never want our daughter to feel like she’s not American, and I want her to culturally identify with the United States, at least in the good parts of it,” Brown says. “It is also tempting, because for me, it will be easy to return to the job market with my journalistic background, especially as a freelance journalist, which is not available in Switzerland.”

“I think socially, it doesn’t make sense for us right now,” she adds.

The couple thought they would eventually move again to be closer to Sebastian’s family, but that won’t happen anytime soon. “Being able to get help and have someone to lean on and watch our daughter is amazing,” Brown says. “I think having her grow up in one of her cultures would be great for us.”

Until then, Brown is focusing on learning French to expand her career opportunities if and when they move to Sebastian’s native country and she is ready to return to work.

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