anyone here ever expatriated?

[1st bike]

a buddy of mine took an ex-pat deal from his company. he moved (still lives for a while yet) to whales for 3 years. what a GREAT deal for his family. the kids are still young, so not so much worry about uprooting a teenager, and his company paid for EVERYTHING. he has a house, a car, they pay a management company to look after his house here in the states, travel and moving both ways, even if he quits or gets fired, and 3 trips for the family back to the states every year, all on the company dime. i would do it in a heartbeat....not so much call for a sales manager for an eyeglass company in paris though....damn.

[Wildkat]

not so much call for a sales manager for an eyeglass company in paris though...

What? They see perfectly in Paris?
Seems to me it's a good time to talk to the boss about going international... What a great sacrifice it would be for you to make for your company...



and your friend moved to whales? Would that be blue or humpback?
lol

[redbone]

a buddy of mine took an ex-pat deal from his company. he moved (still lives for a while yet) to whales for 3 years. what a GREAT deal for his family. the kids are still young, so not so much worry about uprooting a teenager, and his company paid for EVERYTHING. he has a house, a car, they pay a management company to look after his house here in the states, travel and moving both ways, even if he quits or gets fired, and 3 trips for the family back to the states every year, all on the company dime. i would do it in a heartbeat....not so much call for a sales manager for an eyeglass company in paris though....damn.

hey 1st bike,
so tell me....what company does that buddy of yours work for??
that sounds like an AWFULLY sweet piece of the pie!!
that's what i'm talkin about, not a lifetime as an expat but maybe just 10 yrs. maybe even 5.

redbone

[1st bike]

kat, he did move to whales. it is a little cramped in there, and the only window is a "sky light" but he says it blows....and the noise!!!! all of this moaning all the time, and singing...it is nearly unbearable for the family. but the neighbors are nice. only one leg, and seems to be obsessed with "white" for some reason. and he keeps crying too...some about queequeg or something. i don't know, he doesn't get very good reception on his cell, so i might not have that name right....seems odd.

and he works for Harmon (he is an engineer for car audio)

[fredintoon]

Remittance Man

That's the term for a Brit who gets a monthly payment from his folks to stay in the Colonies because he did something disgraceful back home.
I do the Star-Phoenix crossword each day over lunch. (If I can do it in less than 10 minutes I ain't got Alzheimers yet.)
and Eugene Sheffer has to be exact writing the clues, right?
Anyway, the 27 Across clue was "Banished one" and the answer was "expat".
So an expat is one who had to get out of Dodge? Like I said, a remittance man.

[oseaghdha]

Ting is, I'm always glad to get back home.

I've been all over, and know many dozens of expats. They mostly seem to wear their status like a hair shirt, feeling morose and sorry for themselves about it.


Hanging around a bunch of dysfunctional drunks in a foriegn bar gets tedious after a while. All they have is soccer on TV!

Except in the Czech, they watch hockey mostly.

[Larrym]

Opportunity and Risk?

I've been all over, and know many dozens of expats. They mostly seem to wear their status like a hair shirt, feeling morose and sorry for themselves about it.


Hanging around a bunch of dysfunctional drunks in a foriegn bar gets tedious after a while. All they have is soccer on TV!

Except in the Czech, they watch hockey mostly.

That's exactly what it's like in La Paz. The major pastime is to choose a liquor and then to stick with it. No Zest for life in general or the possibilities a new day brings. (Yuck!!) No wonder expat Hemingway took his own life.

Early on in my career I had the chance to expat for a job with an oil company. Money was great and job was close to my field of robotics. Deal breaker for me was that the country was Saudi Arabia. This was just past the time of the Iran Hostage Incident and I just wasn't into being that close to US flag burning religious fanatics with guns.

Funny thing is that I never heard back from the 2 guys I knew that did go for the deal. Ever.

[REFFI]

Movin' On

I remember there used to be a guy who appeared on Johnny Carson's show who sold his property to the government for a missile silo and he moved to Costa Rica. He said there were a lot of Americans living there. (I just remembered his name: Sam Blotner)

I don't want to leave the country, but I do believe that California is never going to dig itself out of the mess, financially, that it has gotten itself into. So far we've considered WA and OR, but now we're thinking AZ, Flagstaff specifically. It reminds me of my home town in PA (the train goes through town) and I found spectacular pizza when I was first there. The riding isn't bad and the summer temperature is bearable if you stay in the mountains. I need to know how the state is faring financially. Would I be exchanging spectacular climate in a debt-hole for another debt-hole with a lower cost of living?

Ralph

[Special Ed]

Does being an Ex Tex count?

Born and raised in Texas I left there for Oregon in '66. Since then I moved down here where I am today. I consider myself an expatriate Texan. If I weren't allergic to just about every wild plant that grows there I would consider moving back. Any state that would elect Ron Paul to represent it can't be all bad!
Special Ed

[RS Thornton]

Are you interested in Ontario to Michigan stories?

Not this recession but the one before I moved from Sarnia, Ontario to Midland, Michigan cuz I was kind of attached to a regular paycheck and at the time the options were sparse.

If you do relocate across an international border you should check for books or articles specific to the country you are going to as there a lots and lots of small things that are going to be different. Not just the obivous like taxes, doctors, dentists etc, but some things you might not think about.
How do you open a bank account with the equivalent of a social security number?
What are local car insurance and registration requirements? Western Europe, Australia and Canada are very similar. Want to guess how to hard the written drivers license test might be in Thailand or China as there is no reason to expect they would offer it in English.

I've been pretty lucky and been to many countries on the company tab, including several months in Brazil and China. Regardless of what might be ticking me off with US or Canada politics I have a hard time thinking I could give up the benefits that come with living in a country that has separation of church and state and follows the rule of law.

but that's just my 2 cents,
Scott

[Larrym]

AZ: Copper, Cotton, Criminals.

Would I be exchanging spectacular climate in a debt-hole for another debt-hole with a lower cost of living?
Ralph

I relocated from Illinois to AZ in 1979 and spent my working career there. I still visit dear friends in that state. What stands out to me is this:



The union/non-union thing is not a prime factor. How it affects everything else was a real eye-opener for me. The COL is lower but you'll find that everyone in AZ makes significantly less at their job compared to anywhere else. For example a friend of mine from AZ attended the University of Washington and graduated with a degree in civil engineering. He had job offers from WA companies immediately after graduation. His wife didn't like being so far from her family in AZ so he moved back to AZ where for doing the same job he took a pay cut of over 30K per year. Call it a "sunshine" tax or whatever.

Also in this state I found that most/all the really good jobs are already taken by those who either grew up there or know somebody who knows somebody. These people have a death grip on their positions/jobs. Talk about being treated like a foreigner /immigrant....you'll never find anything closer to being treated like an expat in another country while still within our own USA border.

So if you're gonna consider going there (AZ) then it surely helps matters to have an income already:retired. Also the real estate market has sensed the "boom" coming and responded with obscene prices. If you have kids then you don't wanna know how AZ rates as far as education funding and test results compared to the rest of the nation. A search to reveal just where in our nation the most privatized and government run prisons are and are being planned to be built? Hmmm. Gonna let anyone who moves to AZ find the answer to that question on their own.

Not bashing the place. In fact I quickly learned what was going on there and how to deal with it. Well enough to live a reasonably happy/safe life and then retire from the work force.

I have a Tee-shirt I got there last year: "Arizona- Come Here on Vacation. Leave Here on Probation." Locals don't appreciate it much when I wear it.

HTH.

[REFFI]

If we move to AZ, it would be after retirement. I'm not looking for a job anymore. I need to know that the state's economy is viable, that I'm not supporting huge numbers of illegals for health care and other services. Are the services I need in place? What are the taxes like? Can I grow tomatoes in a shortened growing season? Where is my nearest source of hardwood? Will they grandfather my motorcycle license?, You know, the important stuff. As far as the real estate market, you have to rememeber where I'll be moving from. Nothing I've seen on the internet scares me about housing prices.


Thanks for the information.

Ralph