# Ex-pat looking to come home



## oldexpat (7 Apr 2009)

Not sure this is the right forum but here goes:

Age: 31
Spouse’s/Partner's age: None

Income from employment or profession: ~70,000 Euro 

Type of employment: Procurement

In general are you:
Saving but not as much as I should

Rough estimate of value of home: Zero
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: Zero
What interest rate are you paying? N/A

Other borrowings: Zero

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Yes

Savings and investments: Savings - Offshore bank account - 120,000 Euro

Do you have a pension scheme? None

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: None

Life insurance: None

What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
I have been working abroad for the better part of 4 years and I'm looking for a change of lifestyle and to possibly come home. I have no roots at all, only a bag of clothes, a laptop and my savings. (Earning less than 1%)

If I come home my salary will be a lot less and my out goings a lot more. How do I maximize what I have saved to compensate for the potential drop in Salary? What are the tax implications of bring the money earned abroad home?


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## Mommah (7 Apr 2009)

Firstly you are not old!
Secondly you are in good financial shape.
You could make your savings sweat considerably more.
Check out the best buy threads on this site. Anglo Irish I think offers the best interest rate on deposits.

Have you got a job lined up?
If not the is a risk you might not get one.
Can you hold onto the one you have until you have one to come to?
Might require some expense in terms of return flights etc...but might be worth it. My Dad told me 500 people applied for a job in a new McDonald's including 3 architects.

I am living abroad to and planning on heading home in the autumn.
I have done this twice before and found that it takes me 2 years to settle back in. At the moment I have a job lined up...but  could go belly up too!


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## Bronte (7 Apr 2009)

I live abroad as well.  They are all telling me to stay where I am as there are no jobs currently in Ireland and it's all doom and gloom.  If you have a good job (and 70k is very good) why would you come back right now?  I will eventually go back when I have enough saved in order to be able to afford living comfortably in Ireland.


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## Pope John 11 (7 Apr 2009)

Sorry for hijacking the thread. but does anyone know the best place to live & work at the moment


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## so-crates (8 Apr 2009)

under the duvet I reckon


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## Mommah (8 Apr 2009)

Pope John 11 said:


> but does anyone know the best place to live & work at the moment


 
That's too subjective a question PJ
If you are single in your 20s you'd probably wither and die where I live, but 30 something with family...it can't be beat...but the wages are about 50% those in Ireland and property is expensive.
Personally I don't think you are going to escape the crisis anywhere.
So answer is very dependant on your skill set and marketability.


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## mainasia (14 Apr 2009)

I'm thinking of coming home too so in the same boat. There is a tonne of negativity out there, it's ironic as for years friends and family were on at me to come home and now when I want to I feel they are not very welcoming.
It's not a great feeling  . It's the herd mentality and it's really a pain in the ass. 

I don't think Ireland will recover quickly which is one of the reasons anyway so if you are thinking of waiting until it gets better you could be waiting a long time. I'm not going to play that game which is just delaying your own life.

If you can get a job in Ireland it actually pays better than most countries around the world, it's getting the job part that's tricky. It really depends on which industry or how much experience you have.


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## Strathspey (14 Apr 2009)

Pope John 11 said:


> Sorry for hijacking the thread. but does anyone know the best place to live & work at the moment


 
I have two friends living overseas who question this recession. One lives in Malaysia working for Petronas and has lived in Malaysia for the last 8 years and absolutely loves it - constant 25 degrees all year round. The other lives in Cape Town and wouldn't dream of ever coming back to Ireland. Both countries are not in a recession.


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## Complainer (14 Apr 2009)

Start your job-hunting online from abroad, so you'll get a good feel for the market before you make any serious decisions. Procurement is a fairly narrow category, so the opportunities there may be few and far between.


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## Mommah (14 Apr 2009)

mainasia said:


> I'm thinking of coming home too so in the same boat. There is a tonne of negativity out there, it's ironic as for years friends and family were on at me to come home and now when I want to I feel they are not very welcoming.


 
I have exactly the same experience.
everyone saying we are NUTS to be coming home.
Everyone in Ireland seems to be totally caught up in the doom and gloom.
I think they are only trying to warn and protect us.
So don't take it personally!


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## lightswitch (27 Apr 2009)

Mommah,  You're right they are just trying to protect you!  Ireland in a recession is not a pleasant place, before I get beaten up I do acknowledge that there are worse places!

Personally I am hoping to move to either Spain or Portugal in the next while (could be months but could be years) for the lifestyle and climate, plus the easy access back to Ireland for visits.  Where are you guys all based?  LS.


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## mosstown (27 Apr 2009)

having lived in London for 22 years, we are moving back end of July 2010 recession or not to the Midlands area.  our self build house in ireland is well on the way to completion.  my eldest daughter will finish primary school in July 2010 and then do a year in primary in Ireland and then off to the local convent secondary school.  our main reasons for moving back are secondary schools, quality of life, s p a c e, family and lots of other stuff we like too.  we wont be loaded but we will be ok and my husband will probably continue to work in London and pop over every 2 weeks and school hols.  kids are well adjusted to the idea of moving there as we spend all our school hols there anyway and they have lots of friends there.


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## spursfan1234 (27 Apr 2009)

OP - how on earth did you save 120k so young? 

lightswitch - unemployment in spain is 18%, no jobs there AT ALL

mosstown - what kind of a life do you expect if you will only see your husband every two weeks ? surely staying in the UK and seeing your partner every day is a better life

jobs are scarce in ireland but there are a few out there, i would bombard the companies with my cv and call them up. dont waste your time with crappy recruitment agencies who will only lie to you anyway


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## amgd28 (27 Apr 2009)

so-crates said:


> under the duvet I reckon



I think that profession is still illegal........


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## mosstown (27 Apr 2009)

spursfan1234, we dont have any problem with this option.  we would probably only do it for a year or two just till we settle in and get the house and gardens completely finished.  we will still have to visit London from time to time anyway as we will still be keeping our house in London.  flights are so cheap we can move between ireland and london very easily.  only an hour and fifteen minutes from our house in the midlands to knock airport so dead handy and our house in London is only 35 mins from Stansted airport.  all will be good in the end and we both put the kids as top priority.  the state of the secondary schools here is enough to make anyone move to the other end of the world !


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## Mommah (27 Apr 2009)

Mosstown I want to congratulate you for doing so much for your kids.
But I do want to reiterate some concerns about the perils of a long distance marriage.

I worked in the middle east with alot of men who commuted to families back home (I know alot further than IRL/UK) but the risks to a marriage are great. All I can say is good luck with it.

I have other friends whose husbands go away for 3 or 4 months at a time...or month on month off. Somehow these don't seem so risky.

Maybe cos the guys are on oil rigs or in central africa in a military compound !


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## mosstown (27 Apr 2009)

Hi Mommah, to be honest, i am not really worried about these type of issues.  life is too short for that and i want to get on with the next stage rather than using all sorts of excuses not to.  my husband is just a bit anxious about the work situation in ireland and finds it harder to deal with change more so than me so we have agreed that if he still feels the same come July next year then he can stay on for a year or two in London and then i guess what will be will be but i am not ever returning to London once i move back home.  live begins at 40 and all that stuff !


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## lightswitch (27 Apr 2009)

Spursfan, I'm multi-talented, breathtakingly beautiful and filthy rich.  

18% unemployment is just another way of saying 82% employment. Sounds better my way 

Just kidding, still if things get really bad and I have to be poor I'd rather be poor in the Sun than freezing here.


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## spursfan1234 (28 Apr 2009)

lightswitch - fair enough. i am just back from holidays myself (usa) and i cant believe the doom and gloom here in ireland. there is nothing llike it going on in the USA and that is supposed to be the centre of the subprime mess and house price declines etc. 

the mood here and the media is just so negative, if you factor in the weather then this small island of ours is becoming a terrible place to live in my opinion. i have a house and g/friend but we are starting to think about at least a year away some where in the future (she is a teacher so we have to wait two yrs so we can milk the system i.e. her job to be kept for her if she takes time off).


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## KevinDub (1 May 2009)

i moved back to Ireland last year.  Great to get back and see people but its in terrible shape and you're dreaming in your head that you will enjoy it. Making a very good salary but cant afford anything other than eating, buying jumpers, heating the house and watching the Late Late show.
A couple of beers and a taxi will give your wallet a big hangover. Wages are going to drop, taxes are going up.


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## mainasia (1 May 2009)

Nice to see all your stories here. I've been in East Asia for best part of a decade, looking at making the move back for a while now. It's true that there is no real recession in many countries or cities at the moment, they didn't have the credit bubble so their property market and banks have had very little problems, just stock markets went down (now recovering) and some layoffs but even then not so much like Ireland/UK/US. They are pulling out of the downturn already in much of Asia, once the US stabilises and starts to recover the world should be mostly out of this by end of this year (keep your chins up, the signs are there already in many countries..this will put a bottom on Ireland's recession).

I have head that if you go to any mall in the US they are still busy shopping away and recession is not so obvious..well in most areas anyway.

I hear people saying high taxes but isn't Ireland's tax regime still pretty lax compared to most western countries? I have seen that doctor's only get taxed 33% on wages of 120,000 euro..that sounds low to me. There is a tax now on the lowest income earners but still not much. I think it feels worse for many Irish because of high debt levels. It's also true that Irish wages are significantly higher than almost all European countries, the take home pay is higher if you have a job than almost any European country! The southern European countries pay salaries that are equivalent or less than developing countries in Asia.


Stuff in Ireland costs a lot but even that is starting to come down with deflation. To be honest I'd be more concerned with crime after the issue of getting a job! I like the advice of firing CVs off to the companies directly, I will start to take this route now!


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## spursfan1234 (1 May 2009)

agreed - its hurting at the moment with taxes being raised but we were a low tax economy. that dosent make it any easier though. i was in the US a few weeks ago and to be honest found very very little signs of a recession.


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## drivetown (11 May 2009)

spursfan1234 said:


> i was in the US a few weeks ago and to be honest found very very little signs of a recession.


Were you only over on a holiday?

I live in New Jersey which is one of the wealthiest states in the US and considered one of the least affected by the recession.

Believe me there are signs of the recession everywhere. So many people have lost their jobs, houses being repossesed, businesses closing left, right and centre, no new cars being bought - dealers are doing everything but give them away free etc. The property market is stagnant and down between 20% - 40% in this area since peak (maybe not as bad as Dublin or other parts of the US but still well down). And if you watch certain TV channels you will see wall to wall recession talk 24/7.

You will still see plenty of people out shopping. This is for a number of reasons - in general taxes have not increased here recently so people with jobs have the same income and the stores have massive sales. Also, the average American has 10 credit cards! 

Another over 500,000 jobs were lost in April. Much was made of this in the media because it's down from the 700,000 the previous month but the government created 100,000 jobs with the launch of the 2010 census. So while it's a bit better, it's nothing to write home about.

I have friends in Dublin who tell me it's still hard to get bookings in the restaurants around Grafton Street and that BTs is still mobbed at the weekends!!!!


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