We spent 2 weeks in Portugal. It was great, but our trip would've been way better if we'd avoided these 6 mistakes. - Business Insider

I'm glad I moved my family from the United States to the Netherlands, but we've run into a few issues and missteps while adjusting to our new lives. The day my son burst into tears at our kitchen table in Utrecht, I realized my meticulous spreadsheets and research hadn't prepared us for everything. "Mom, I'm the only one who doesn't understand anything," he said, pushing away his untouched dinner. "Everyone else is so far ahead, and I can't follow anything. "That moment, hearing him talk about feeling behind in school, crystallized my first major mistake in our move from Atlanta to the Netherlands in May 2024. Although our relocation has transformed our lives in incredible ways — offering everything from better healthcare to true work-life balance — there were several costly missteps I wish someone had warned me about. For one, I hadn't anticipated how challenging it would be for my kids in the first six months as they adjusted to everything in their lives being new. Here's what I learned the hard way, hoping to save other American families from the same expensive and stressful situations. Assuming we didn't need to rush learning Dutch was a mistake

The author found herself shopping on Amazon again after she had her third child. I bought 72 things from Amazon in 2024. The range of items runs the gamut: A replacement basket for the air fryer, dozens of children's books, an XL cone for my dog's post-surgery care, kids' birthday presents, skincare products I gave up on, pacifiers for my newborn twins before I remembered stashing some extras in the diaper bag, and lots of forgettable items in between. I was feeling uncomfortable about my consumption, my carbon footprint, and how second-nature buying on Amazon had become for me. I relied on the site to instantly cross off items on my to-do list. The lack of friction before purchasing became an issueIt felt like the site's "1-Click checkout " feature evolved into its own kind of mechanism in my brain chemistry: I was ordering things without doing any of the logical thinking that usually happens with in-store shopping, and I knew that was all by design. Making a purchase no longer had friction: Free shipping, a stored credit card and address, infinite stock, and a tantalizing algorithm all make shopping anywhere else feel like a chore.

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