Moving abroad is a little bananas. Sometimes I feel like I just took my savings and set them on fire. Something is missed at every turn with my budgeting.

It began with my visa. I did some research before moving to the UK and looked up all my visa fees but it wasn’t until I actually went to pay for the visa that I saw the words health surcharge anywhere.

To move to the UK, you have to pay a fee to use the NHS.

I have no issue with this really and my healthcare costs are still lower than the US, for pretty good care (though I’ve been here a while now and the NHS certainly has some administrative level issues as well), but it was a surprise to have to pay 4 years of healthcare fees up front. It was like a surprise $5,500 extra fee.

I have no recollection of paying this for my Masters degree – although I would guess I certainly did. Also the cost for one year of fees versus 4 is substantial. It’s breaks down to about £100 a month.

I will also admit I have some feelings about the fact that when I work here, I also still pay taxes into the NHS on top of this but I also could just… go back to my own country if it bothers me enough. But I definitely do give that practice the side eye.

So, unexpected expense #1 – paying the full healthcare surcharge for 4 years of services up front.

My next unexpected expense is the problem with SMS verification texts. For real, if any of my readers know a way around this, I would love to hear it, but I haven’t found a way to turn off 2-step verification texts on some websites.

And I totally understand the safety aspect of it, but I would rather willingly waive some of that safety – or switch SMS to email verifications or an app – because I occasionally get locked out of my American bank accounts and credit card accounts and have to input a verification code that will only text to an American phone number.

Which is ok, because my phone does work in England, but it costs me $10 each time I use it ($10 for each 24 hour period).

So I would say I spend about $100 a year when I get locked out of accounts that are fairly crucial for me to access.

Unexpected Expense #2 – $10 to access my bank account from time to time

My next unexpected expense is my gas bill because it’s impossible to track what on earth is happening with it and they do this mind-bogglingly mad thing where they just sort of guess what you owe.

So all year I’ll just pay like £24.00 a month or £119.00 a month with little explanation of why this debit is occurring the way it is and little power to change it. Then I build up either a credit or debit with the company that has to be settled (if I’ve not paid enough) or sits in a credit account absolutely forever and never gets used up or released back to me unless I make a specific request for them to do so.

Why on earth they can’t just charge me what I owe them every month is like… what is going on? What is this even a thing?

There are so many things about England that genuinely couldn’t be less efficient if they tried and send me into a blind rage. This is probably top of the list though.

So unexpected expense #3 is the roulette game of my gas bill.

Public Bathrooms are unexpected expense #4. To be fair, not all of them, and more and more are free, but some public toilets cost between50 pence and a pound to pee in, usually in actual coins, which is more distressing than the payment itself, though some places have tap to pay too.

Unexpected expense #4 pay to pee public toilets

Traffic congestion charges are also very unexpected to me. From time to time, I rent a car here to go on adventures. In London only there are certain roads that you pay a fee to drive on because they are so congestion – and not like a toll – though it is in essence sort of a toll – it’s like a random charge that they nail you via license plate to pay.

And the best part of this charge, and some of the tunnel and bridge charges, is you just have to track and know you went over them and then go to the website and put in your license plate and then pay the charge rather than paying them in like a normal way.

Also you just have to know to do this. Nowhere does it explain to you this is a thing. So tourists beware, mate.

If I owned a car, I could preload payment for like the DART bridge and I think these congestion zones, but it’s definitely kind of crazy to me.

And then you get extra fines if you don’t pay the fees you may or may not know exists. May the odds be ever in your favor driving in London.

Also, there’s a fee called ULEZ, which is Ultra Low Emission Zone, which is all London boroughs, so if you drive your car on any day other than Christmas Day, you pay £12.50.

Why on earth do people live in this city? It’s crazy.

Unexpected fee #5 – congestion charges and ULEZ (they are £15 or £12.50 a day! Insane)

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An unexpected expense that I dodge is TV licenses. I mean, I don’t dodge it. TV licenses are for live television and I just have Netflix and Prime on my TV. But literally a man shows up to check that my TV is not hooked up to BBC iPlayer or any other live TV options once a year, which is really crazy to me.

Also, what’s the difference really? That I find particularly hilarious. I mean, I’m glad there is a difference since it’s to my benefit at the moment, but it’s super weird.