I'm an American expat living overseas, AMA

[Anonymous]

Do you vote?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you working? If not, how do you spend your free time?
What do the trailing spouses typically do while kids are in school?

No. I am very much the trailing spouse. I'm the CEO of the family in my free time I volunteer with an animal rescue group, play tennis, swim, plan our vacations and weekend events and manage a lot of our finances and rental property in the US remotely. This is pretty typical of the trailing spouse.

I do know other families where both parents work. It's easier in Dubai than it was in HK or the UK. I could probably find work but it wouldn't pay very much. Some of the spouses take low level school administration roles at the international schools to keep themselves busy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you vote?

Yes.

[Anonymous]

OP you don’t qualify for this kind of AMA. You are taken care of before you even arrive to your new destination. You don’t have to figure anything out, you don’t need to worry about how things work, utilities, rental agreements, work permits, schools for your kids, nothing. You don’t even have to pack up your things. I admire people that leave everything behind taking huge risks just for the sake of a life changing experience.

And by the way, I lived in 3 different counties, and I was very excited when I read the title.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you don’t qualify for this kind of AMA. You are taken care of before you even arrive to your new destination. You don’t have to figure anything out, you don’t need to worry about how things work, utilities, rental agreements, work permits, schools for your kids, nothing. You don’t even have to pack up your things. I admire people that leave everything behind taking huge risks just for the sake of a life changing experience.

And by the way, I lived in 3 different counties, and I was very excited when I read the title.

Perhaps you should do your own AMA. I would like to hear of your experiences living in 3 different countries. Maybe one of them is among the 17 countries in which I grew up or worked as an adult. Cheers.

[Anonymous]

What is your HHI, what did you pay in taxes last year, and how does your tax exclusion work?

[Anonymous]

Do you worry about not having your own career or even a working history to put on your resume? What if you divorce and then have to come back to the US and get a job? What would you plan be?

[Anonymous]

Are you the OP of a thread how you are living in Britain and are miserable there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you don’t qualify for this kind of AMA. You are taken care of before you even arrive to your new destination. You don’t have to figure anything out, you don’t need to worry about how things work, utilities, rental agreements, work permits, schools for your kids, nothing. You don’t even have to pack up your things. I admire people that leave everything behind taking huge risks just for the sake of a life changing experience.

And by the way, I lived in 3 different counties, and I was very excited when I read the title.

New poster, former expat. Different companies have very different definitions of “taken care of” — we were expats on a comparatively modest package, so the work permit wasn’t an issue, but we had to figure out everything else on our own. It wasn’t terrible or traumatizing, but it was often frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you don’t qualify for this kind of AMA. You are taken care of before you even arrive to your new destination. You don’t have to figure anything out, you don’t need to worry about how things work, utilities, rental agreements, work permits, schools for your kids, nothing. You don’t even have to pack up your things. I admire people that leave everything behind taking huge risks just for the sake of a life changing experience.

And by the way, I lived in 3 different counties, and I was very excited when I read the title.

OP here.

I do see where you come from. My expat experience is a different kind of expat experience than, say, the people teaching English overseas for low pay, or working for NGOs. But what you may not realize is that your expat experience is just different, and not the standard expat experience either. I'd argue people who go through the Peace Corps/NGO experience aren't really expats but a different kind of working abroad existence because they live very closely with the local communities. I base this on the idea that "expats" are people who live and work overseas but whose existence remained removed from the local everyday context, which I think was historically the understanding of expats. I'm sure you reject this view but I'd be intrigued by your AMA, so go ahead and start one and I'll read it with interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your HHI, what did you pay in taxes last year, and how does your tax exclusion work?

HHI is sufficiently comfortable and we paid plenty in taxes. Tax exclusion is basically 100k of the income exempt from taxes (the sum goes up every year) plus a bit more for housing expenses. The rest of the income is taxable at the tax rate applicable to the entire income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you worry about not having your own career or even a working history to put on your resume? What if you divorce and then have to come back to the US and get a job? What would you plan be?

If that ever happened I'd worry about it at that point. Splitting up the marital assets will give me plenty to work worth. I could probably find some kind of administrative job and get on with life not too shabbily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you the OP of a thread how you are living in Britain and are miserable there?

No, not at all. I know that thread and I read it with interest because I loved living in Britain but at the same time I could understand where the thread's OP was coming from and why she was frustrated.

[Anonymous]

Do you find yourself being friends with people because they are expats and you'd not otherwise be friend with them?

I lived in a country with very few expats (like < 100 Americans in the entire country) so you ended up being friends with Americans that I'd normally not be friends with at home. Good and bad to that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you don’t qualify for this kind of AMA. You are taken care of before you even arrive to your new destination. You don’t have to figure anything out, you don’t need to worry about how things work, utilities, rental agreements, work permits, schools for your kids, nothing. You don’t even have to pack up your things. I admire people that leave everything behind taking huge risks just for the sake of a life changing experience.

And by the way, I lived in 3 different counties, and I was very excited when I read the title.

New poster, former expat. Different companies have very different definitions of “taken care of” — we were expats on a comparatively modest package, so the work permit wasn’t an issue, but we had to figure out everything else on our own. It wasn’t terrible or traumatizing, but it was often frustrating.

Frustration is a key element of expatdom. Everyone gets frustrated at some point. Even on a generous package that paid for housing and schools we still had to find the housing and school places ourselves. We were initially put up in hotel apartments till we found our place. The company wrote the checks but I still had to jump through a lot of bureaucratic hoops. I had to deal with getting the utilities hooked up and the internet connected even if it was all reimbursed back to the company. I had help with the bureaucracy in HK, but in Dubai and UK we were pretty much on our own. In Dubai the company PRO arranged the visas and sponsorship (my visa proudly declares me to be a housewife ) but other than that we did everything on our own.

There were some people we knew where EVERYTHING was taken care of. Those were very, very, VERY senior roles for the most part. C-level. Or in O&G.