Americans Abroad

Brought over clothes and or bikes. My kitchen knives and some kitchen tools.
Electronics that could work with 50 Hz and 240. The rest not worth it. Transformers are heavy, take up space and draw juice unless they are unplugged.
We bought all our furniture from Ikea. Plus the kitchen we had installed. bought stainless pots and pans at Ikea they are good.
If you are willing to shop around you can get used for less.
We dropped about $6,000 for most of it including install of the kitchen. I assembled the Ikea furniture.

Had we known we would have taken some amount of cash out of my IRA for extra expenses, possibly a down payment on property. You will be taxed in both countries. Europe first then the US if you don't hit the US tax rate. We would have taken the tax bite from the US but now we have to take the European tax bite for IRA withdrawals. So we won't have a lump of cash until we can unload our property in CA.

Research the shipping costs. I was just back there and a half pallet to Munich was ridiculous. And you might get hit with duties unless you file proper paperwork before you ship.

Glad we jumped though.