Income from Brazil + Canadian Loan... Now what?

[internation]

I discovered MMM just recently and it has really opened my eyes. Opened my eyes to see how I are "special" finance situation might not be ideal. Anyone with international investing experience feel free to share your thoughts!

We have been living in Brazil on local contracts for 3 years.
•   Me- Canadian (with Brazilian perm. Residency) – learning the MMM ways
•   Husband – Brazilian (with Canadian perm. Residency) – good at MMM savings principles but useless in the investment department
•   Total monthly income = R$10000 (received in local bank accounts).
•   Total monthly expenses = R$6000 (anything saved goes into a regular brazilian bank account). Seriously we are rockstars without even trying. We don’t even have a maid or a dishwaher… which is UNHEAR OF in Brazil. We can improve though, thanks to MMM.
•   Total debt = CAD$15000 (student loan in Canadian at 3.5% interest). Making minimum monthly payment until we figure out how to get our money cheaply into Canada).
•   Total Stash today liquid = R$40000 (R$20000 in Brazil + CAD$10000 in Canada)
•   Other Stash = R$20000 (car value- cars in Brazil have very high re-sell value)
•   Retirement stash = 0!
•   We rent an apt. in a safe neighbourhood (our rent R$1800 monthly, average apt in the area is RS500,000). Im no MMM master but I think its wisest to keep renting.
•   Average inflation rate in Brazil +7% and rising (cost of tomatoes have risen 300% in 2 months)

Two issues we have in this situation:

1 - We have not found a cheap way to get our Reais to Canada. Wiretransfer btw banks are costly and banks are charging high fees on exchange rate. How do we LEGALLY get our money from Brazil to Canada?

2 – how to invest in a foreign country? Is it even worth it with such high inflation rates and an unstable economy? Is our best solution getting our cash to Canada and invest there? Are we missing out on some advantage of being locals? Our rockstar savings are not making us money!

MMM has given me some direction but I feel like our international situation is hard to apply with MMM investing. I tried looking to Vanguard (Brazil only deals with corporate investors).

I even tried going to my Canadian bank in Brazil but they run as if they are separate banks (no advantage of having another account opened here).

HELP MMM! My dream of being an international woman of mystery has back-fired (financially speaking).

Clueless International Woman of Mystery

[aclarridge]

Where are you going to settle down and live permanently? If Brazil, I think you need to ask around some Brazilian investing forums and for the time being, probably just use savings accounts at the Brazilian banks.

If Canada, then yeah it's probably a good idea to start getting your cash into CAD or USD and investing as if you were already living in Canada (unless there are tax reasons for not doing this, maybe somebody else can comment on that). If you are trying to avoid FX conversion fees, one potential way to do it is find a company that is listed on both the bovespa and the NYSE, or the bovespa and the TSX, and do a Norbert's gambit: http://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert's_Gambit

However it only makes sense if you're converting more than about 10k at a time.

EDIT: On second thought, the Norbert's gambit may only work between Canadian and US exchanges...I'm not sure. Sorry.

[Fabio]

Internation,

I am brazilian, and Brazil has the highest Liquid real Interest rates in the world, that means if you buy treasure bonds it's gonna pay you 11% a year which is close to 4% after inflation and taxes. Thats great considering it's the most safe investment in the country.Let me know if you are interested in further informations on how to invest your Reais.

Our stockmarket has some opportunities as good dividend payers as well but much more volatile and unstable than US Stockmarket.