I first want to say that I feel very fortunate to have found this site in the early 2013 because since then we have totally changed our ways and feel like we are on a good financial path. But I'm still a beginner at investing and since I live in Iceland I can‘t employ the strategies you discuss on this board. That‘s why I want too see if anyone here is from Iceland or familiar with the situation here and could give me some advice on investing.
For those who don‘t know in the 2008 crash the Icelandic stock market went down something like 85-90% and inflation got to around 18% so I'm not very comfortable to invest in the stock market here. The government put in place foreign currency restriction so Icelanders are not allowed to buy or hold foreign currency or own money in foreign funds unless they did so before 2008. There is a good chance that the foreign currency restrictions are on the way out in the coming years and from my understanding that would mean some devaluation of the Icelandic Krona.
I think the only way to own money in foreign funds is through our pension system, but as far as I know those are all in Euros. In Iceland we have a mandatory pension system, where employee puts forth 8% and employer 4% and then we have can have a voluntary pension fund where employee can put forth 4% and employer 2%. The mandatory one is bound to at least age 65 and the voluntary is bound to at least 60 years of age.
We currently rent and our rent is well under the current market. Our rent is around $1200/month but similar apartments in the area are going for around $1600-1700/month these days. But the reason I mention this is because we‘re thinking of buying an apartment at some point and for the next 3 years a couple can put as much as ~ $6000 a year from their voluntary pension fund tax free towards their mortage.
We are also just thinking about moving abroad to make things easier :)
Thank you.
