I am not from India but am an Asian immigrant to Canada. When I first cane here, I loved my home country and always planned to return - until I met my husband and he convinced me to stay.
I have a giant family network in my home country and on a recent 2 month trip back (after 9 years of not returning for a visit due to various factors) - it really hit me that the embrace of a large, loving family is something I can never get here in Canada. It really is special. I also do still have a small friend network that I have maintained relationships with through the years.
But by the end of 2 months, I was homesick for Canada. I missed my very close friend network here. I also have two young adult children firmly established here.
More than anything, I was in culture shock. Which really surprised me. In past trips, my mother had always hosted my family, which insulated me a lot. This time, my mother had moved to Canada to live with me and she had stayed behind in Canada. So I was navigating life in my home country mostly independently, staying solo in an apartment.
At the end of it, I was more than ready to return to Canada where I knew how to handle every social/life situation. The giant tropical bugs were also really getting to me. The systemic political, corruption and petty crime issues were also very uncomfortable. I also recognized that since I had never lived as an adult there, I was clueless about basic life admin stuff like interacting with the govt, getting things repaired, etc.
I’ll stick to lengthy, regular visits during my FIREd life (heading back in a month). Most people (in both countries) were thinking I might move back and were surprised by my decisiveness in choosing to stay in Canada.
Also, one word of warning that few ever discuss. If you die in a foreign country with your assets in the US, your foreign heirs may have significant difficulties inheriting. Technically, it is allowed and should just require some level of paperwork.
But when my dual citizen husband died in Canada, it has been a very very lengthy journey for me to inherit his US-based IRA in Chase. A lot of extra paperwork was triggered when I submitted his Canadian death certificate. I talked with a lot of lawyers and did a ton of research after the bank insisted I had to provide a tax clearance certificate from the IRS (which requires an intense array of forms and 18-24 months to process). I finally found a lawyer with enough experience to insist that since he was a US citizen, the bank should not require that.
The bank wavered a bit when I tossed the lawyer’s name around. And I ended up finding a loophole that did the trick. I did have a lot of documents that needed to be notarized and I have travelled to the bank branch in the US maybe a half dozen or more times in the past year to deal with this. I am still wrangling with the bank 1.5 years later but at least the IRA is in my name now.
Maybe the answer is not to bank with Chase
But be warned that if you don’t maintain a US residential address, very few banks will let you manage your investments. I am moving the US investments to RBC where I have to pay a dual licensed financial advisor a fee to manage the IRA. He has continually reassured me my kids won’t have so much trouble inheriting. Still - my plan is to spend all this money before I die.
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