Hello,
I am in a slightly unique situation. I am a Greek living in Athens, Greece. However as a software freelancer I have a large Canadian client that provides most (if not all) my income. They wire a monthly sum in my Greece bank account. I do have a UK bank account as well, from the day I was working and living in London, but it sees little usage these days.
Now I'd like to get on board with investing my little savings. Unfortunately the popular MMM choices of Vanguard index funds is not available. I searched online and most firms require you to be a resident in order to let you deal with shares, including my UK bank.
So it seems I'm stuck with my Greek bank. It's actually a "global" bank, the one that advertises on airports around the world, so their portfolio isn't that bad:
HSBC World Selection mutual fund
HSBC Global Investment Funds
BlackRock
Franklin Templeton
Pimco
Legg Mason
JP Morgan
Schroders
Each of those has a selection of various funds you can pick. If I understand correctly, it's "best" to find a fund that follows an "index", instead of focusing on some "market" (e.g. energy, construction, technology) - by best, I mean a reasonable compromise between risk and yield. And of course be very clear on the related costs of a) actually buying/selling and b) just holding an account.
Would it be worth my while to eventually open a bank account in Canada? Dealing with the CADEUR exchange would be a bit of a headache, and eventually I'm pretty sure I'd spend my savings in EUR so I'm not sure if it's worthwhile. I'm not sure it's even possible.
And some possibly unrelated question: Given my freelance status, I pay taxes in an lump sum every year. This means I need to save away around 1500 EUR/month from October-August, and then give it all to the taxman on September. Does it make sense to invest that as well, and cash out when needed? Additionally, given that my salary looks stable but actually isn't, I like to keep a "rainy day" fund of around 5-7k EUR. Could that live also in shares, or should I keep it in a more easily accessible/stable account?
Anything else I haven't thought?
Many thanks.