My package is bigger than yours

Among the expat community there's much talk of your "package" i.e. what the company pays for or doesn't pay for while you're on assignment. For many expats, being abroad is a great financial deal because the companies pay for their housing, car leasing, school fees, language instruction for the whole family and various other goodies (career coaches, per diems, flights home, etc.). So imagine you had no mortgage, no car payments, free schools, no health insurance costs because those are covered by the state anyway, a really nice salary, and possibly a lower tax bracket than your local colleagues because you get the expat tax break. You're just awash in kronor. The joy! I think this is what people imagine when they hear the term "expat" -- visions of flash cars and cash and stay-at-home moms, no?

Then of course there are those of us on local contracts who pay for everything just like the locals and manage to just about break even every month. We got a lot of help with our move, of course, (which cost our friends down the street $30,000 out of pocket when they moved from Arizona), but there's no extras from the company and we're still duking it out with the tax office for the expat tax break. So the benefits of being expats for us are the cultural and personal ones, not the financial ones. And that's just fine. We sure hope Ava and Julian like their public colleges! ;)