We left the United States for Switzerland and our apartment costs $2,883 a month.

When Maria Braun She met her husband Sébastien, they both lived in Chicago. But on their second date, Sébastien, originally from France, told Braun that he didn’t plan to stay in the United States for much longer: He had been in the United States for 15 years and wanted to return to Europe soon.

“He actually almost came back, but then he decided to stay a little bit longer and he met me, so it was very fortuitous in that sense,” Braun tells CNBC Make It.

In late 2020, the couple moved together into a two-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s North Side. At the time, Sébastien was working as the head of the business unit for ZF Group, a German technology manufacturing company, while Mary worked as a social media manager for a hair care company.

They both worked remotely and eventually the apartment proved too small for them, so the couple moved across the street to a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom duplex where they paid $2,585 a month in rent.

“I miss it a lot. It was a really nice building that still had brick walls and the character of Chicago, but it was gutted and renovated,” Braun says.

Braun and Sébastien lived in the apartment for about a year and there they overcame the Covid-19 pandemic together. During that time, they began to seriously consider moving to Europe and which country they would soon call home. Switzerland was at the top of his list.

Sébastien was enrolled in an executive MBA program at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. “He chose it because he could do a lot of things remotely from the United States,” Braun 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 Sébastien had not been able to see his family in France for an entire year due to pandemic travel restrictions. He began actively working to be transferred to his company’s European offices.

The ZF group offered Sébastien a transfer 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. Sébastien was then offered a move to Belgium, but the offer fell through. He was given one more opportunity to work in a new office in Bern, Switzerland, the country’s capital.

Although moving to Bern still didn’t appeal to Braun (he also doesn’t have direct flights in and out of Chicago), he realized that Zurich was close enough that Sébastien 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,” Braun says. “The stars aligned.”

In December 2021, the couple had begun the process of moving to Switzerland, which included obtaining Swiss visas, so they didn’t end up moving until September 2022. Braun and Sébastien got married in March of that year and sent most of your belongings. to Switzerland and moved in with Braun’s parents while they waited for the paperwork to be cleared up.

“We still had a lot of time to adjust and be with my family,” Braun says. “Which I think helped ease the transition.”

When Braun and Sébastien finally moved to Zurich, they lived in temporary housing: first in a furnished 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom house for which they paid 3,880 francs or $4,253, and then in a 2-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom furnished house for which they rented for 5,090. Franks. 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 in Switzerland? How did our dog get here? How did everything fall into place?” says Braun.

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

That December, the couple found a more permanent living arrangement. It was a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom apartment in the Enge neighborhood of Zurich, which cost 4,120 francs or $4,516 to rent.

The couple loved that apartment, but in January 2023, Braun found out she was pregnant. Living on the fourth floor of a building without an elevator became a big concern. The couple was also notified that their rent would be increased. They thought it was the right time to find a place with more space.

Five months later, Braun and Sébastien left the old apartment behind and moved into a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment in Uitikon, a town outside Zurich, for 3,950 francs or $4,330 a month. Braun says one of the advantages for them was that their taxes went down because they no longer lived in the city.

In Switzerland, people pay federal income taxes ranging from 0 to 11.5%, but that doesn’t include local taxes, according to H&R Block. Cantons, which are similar to US states, and municipalities also collect taxes.

A disadvantage? It wasn’t so easy to get around his new city without a car. When Braun gave birth to the couple’s daughter and went on maternity leave, she was working as a social media manager for a Swiss company that was not friendly to remote work. “I was starting to worry about just balancing life,” he says.

There was a possibility that Braun would lose his job if he did not return to his office full time when his leave ended.

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

When Braun’s boss confirmed the worst, Sébastien set out to look for a better-paying job while he considered his options. “I appreciated that (my boss) was very honest with me, but it was a shame because I had to choose between my career or my family,” he says.

“I took the loss, but there are other advantages 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 village outside Freiburg, just under two hours from the city center of Zurich, where the family still resides. They pay 2,630 francs, or $2,883, per month for their 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment.

“We were able to save a lot of change and Sébastien was making more money. It didn’t really close the gap between the loss of my income, but it definitely helped from a financial standpoint,” says Braun.

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

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, Braun says she really appreciates the sense of security that comes with living in Switzerland. She takes many walks in nature alone with her daughter and the family dog.

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

Braun and Sébastien have lived in Switzerland for more than two years and, although they miss the sense of celebration of the United States and having so many things at their disposal like Amazon deliveries and stores that stay open later than 6 p.m., the results of the The 2024 presidential elections mean that, for them, going back is out of the question: “There is too much uncertainty in the US.”

“I never want our daughter to feel like she’s not American, and I want her to identify culturally with America, at least the good parts,” Braun says. “It is also tempting because it would be easy for me to return to the job market with my experience in journalism, especially as a freelancer, something that does not exist in Switzerland.

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

The couple believes they will eventually move again to be closer to Sébastien’s family, but that won’t happen anytime soon. “Having the ability to get help and have someone to trust and take care of our daughter is amazing,” Braun says. “I think it would be great for us if he grew up in one of their cultures.”

Until then, Braun is focused on learning French to expand her career opportunities if they move to Sébastien’s home country and she is ready to return to work.

Do you want to improve your AI skills and be more productive? Take the new CNBC online course How to use AI to be more successful at work. Expert instructors will teach you how to get started, practical uses, tips for writing messages effectively, and mistakes to avoid. Sign up now and use coupon code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off $67 (+taxes & fees) until February 11, 2025.

Further, Subscribe to CNBC’s Make It Newsletter for tips and tricks to succeed at work, with money, and in life.