Hey All,
Was wondering if anyone could give some insight on managing multiple currencies, a home base, and collecting points as an expat.
My wife (30F) and I (29M) are Canadians that have been living in Germany for ~ 2 years. I don't (can't) work much (here for a Master's degree and on a limited work visa) but she earns enough euros to cover out living wages and travel adventures.
When we first arrived here our asset base was 100% in Canada and we would transfer cash every few months to our German account for the living expenses. Eventually, what little extra income we had built up to a decent sized "float" in our German account and now we don't ever need to touch money back in Canada.
Things will change soon though... my degree is finishing up and I've already got a job lined up in another EU country. This means that we will be seeing a huge boost in income. Having lived quite comfortably off of the low income of the past 2 years, I foresee a rather large savings rate coming our way!
This means we need to start thinking a bit more strategically. It's been easy up till now - we never had much extra money, and if we did, it was used for travel. We're hoping to hit FI in 7-10yrs and have a clean slate to start with (no debt). Will be in the EU for 1-2 more years before moving back to North America.
My initial thought is to keep a minimum amount of cash in the EU bank account (just enough for ~3 months expenses), transferring over to our Canadian account to invest/save, and use our Canadian rewards card wherever possible in order to rack up points to help pay for some of the travel we do.
Is this plan completely out to lunch? Transferring money via a FOREX account every month to pay a CC bill seems a bit "crazy" to me. How do you other expats handle earning/living in one country, with a home base in another??