kiwigal wrote:The general consensus of people who have some knowledge of expats is that one day they will be able to return home in a much better off position financially.
this statement maybe partly true – the good old days of ‘expat’ are gone) 18 years back I’ve seen most of my client (Royal Shell) working in Sarawak and Brunei truly enjoy their life financially as an expat
I understand that off-shore acocunts are open to expats, therefore interest gets paid gross, and that companies pay housing and car allowance.
Yes there are Financial Company offer this service to expat. Generally the return is much higher than in Singapore and also tax free. There are few of them (don’t want to mention their name here for free advertisement) such as offshore account & investment. But these NOT provided by the company.
But am I missing something ? How do people expect to go back to the UK in a much better off position ? As far as I can see, unless we don't go out, and don;t travel, we can save money and put it in the piggy bank. But if we want a decent life in singapore, we may end up saving very little .
This is hard to say, in general depending what kind of life style we choose to live with our expat income. First 2 years as an expat is just like a long holiday. (especially for the wife
)
We will better off back home (not UK) IF we still have this on – back home holiday once a year, accommodation, utilities, transport , school fees + mobile phone bill + medical & travel insurance + income tax paid by the company and we received NETT income S$0000. Unfortunately after 2 years the company cut down the benefits bit by bit or as much as they can.
Are there some tricks we don;t know about ? Do people live in under budget accommodation and save the rest ? How do people do it ?
maybe you can negotiate something like this?
I envy one of our friend (married no kid) still enjoying his Expat income – S$8500k monthly allowance (mean for his hse,car, utilities) but he’s clever enough to rent a-$2k
condo, no car but a BIKE, no maid and his salary is paid in Euro in his home country. Basically he never tough his real income and pay less tax!
If we can't make ths expat stint financially viable, it just goimg to be one long expensive holiday .
It viable. if you are an expat that means you’ll earn reasonably good salary. The big question here his (1)How much you SAVE – NOT how much you earn? Coz when we earn so much our spending likely to grow too
Your views /coments would be most appreciated.
