kodokan

Rete

Is something in your life making you feel morose? Mid-life crisis? You are still so young and have lived now in two countries and have been successful in both and yet you are down in the mouth. You made choices in your life and for all intents and purposes, things have worked out beautifully for you. The only thing missing in the equation are children. You are successful in your career, have a wonderful job, have made friends in a foreign country (not easy to do), have a foreign born wife, a new house, moved from the UK to Seattle and then to Tennessee, I believe. From my end of the age spectrum, you seem damn lucky to have all that you have at the moment and a future that is as bright as a sunrise.

Nutmegger

scrubbedexpat091

Good points. To me he has done well and still not even 40.

I am a bit older then the OP and well he has certainly accomplished more by his age then I have.

OP coule it be your a bit home sick and it might be bringing you down a bit?

Harveyspecter

Thank you all so much! I was off the grid today and am away racing this weekend but will respond in detail on Monday. Have a great weekend.

scrubbedexpat097

Thank you nice lady x ( and yes they are hard to find!)

Harvey, hang in there. You are doing fine.

Gordon Barlow

I'm not sure I understand exactly what the OP meant by "starting from scratch"... but when I was 36, living in Bath with a wife and a toddler who had knocked me right off my intended course of life, I put my name down with an accountancy agency in London with a mandate to find me a job in one of five places: Jersey, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Cayman, and Kenya. Two near-misses in Jersey, and one hit in Cayman. We're still here, forty years later.

It's important to have some qualifications appropriate to the places you want to go, and it's necessary to take a bit of a chance. Luck plays a big part in finding jobs overseas, but like the old joke says: if you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket. We don't have pensions, but we're muddling through - and there's always Mexico or Thailand if we run short of money.

I'm Australian born, and was in London (26 and single) when I decided to emigrate to the US and work for a while on the way home to Oz. But the line was too long at the US Consulate, and the the Canadian Consulate didn't have a line at all, so I changed my mind then and there. That was a good-luck decision, too. When you're 26 and single,it doesn't hurt to take a risk; and it doesn't hurt when you're 36 with a wife and child, either. At those ages, it's way, way too soon to worry about your old-age pensions!

vespucci

Yes.

There was an article where someone had asked the dying what they regretted- being behind their colleagues in savings in their 30s was certainly not one of them. Dwelling on such thoughts and not appreciating other things was nearer some of the things that were said.

Rete

Oh my .... but he can take the weekend off to go racing so life with a 3 month old isn't so bad for him, is it. Still think he has the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow (thank you Dean Martin, or was that Frankie) LOL.

Harveyspecter

Good to know it worked out for you, thanks for replying.

Thank you! I suppose the 'stress' of getting here has made me feel like I should be in better shape but you're right, it all evens out. I remember before I got offered this job I was facing the prospect of accepting a job I didn't want in NC that didn't pay well, then this job fell on my lap!

I am indeed. Thank you for your response and of course you're right. I did lie a little. I'm not 100% maxed out on my retirement, I'm putting in about 80% of what I could for company matching, which is still better than most as you point out.I'm lucky that the only debt I have is my our family car and our family home, so my debt to income ratio is great as I was told by a few mortgage brokers haha.

You're right, thank you. As I say it's my being too hard on myself but on reflection I'm doing well and am actually very happy.

Indeed. Thank you and good luck with the move!

Thank you, those words meant a lot to me. Sometimes when you've climbed it's easy to forget how how you;ve climbed if you are too focused on climbing higher. I'm lucky that as I say I have relatively little debt which is good, though I'm thinking of buying my dream car which may change that for a few years

One of my coworkers is like that, spends money like it's gone out of fashion. Has a new truck, a sportscar and other toys but has nothing in savings.

Thank you.

Thanks! Yes to be fair my wife pointed out to me that ok maybe I didn't get this gig right from university but I used to time I was out of work for example to travel so have had adventures many others haven't. I bolded your last line because funnily I'm considering doing that by buying my dream car. Just trying to see if I can get my wifes car paid off first.

No not a mid life crisis. I think it was mostly tiredness, newborns aren't known for letting parents sleep and with no family support nearby it's been rougher than for those who have relatives to babysit occasionally. You're right, things have worked out amazingly and I'm mostly extremely happy, thank you for your reply. I moved to Indiana from Washington State btw,

Oh she sure is,she hates sleep!

Thank you for the compliment. No, Luckily I don't get homesick, certainly nothing more than missing the ability to pop down the road and hang out with my dad or whatever but I've been totally un-homesick in every other way. I overdid it this year, what with buying a house and becoming a parent with lots of family visiting, I was burning the candle at both ends!

Thank you

Agreed and thank you. My eldest brother only recently moved out of my parents home (because they divorced and sold it) and my mother always enables him, but the fact is he's never taken a gamble in his life whereas I;ve taken several. Sure it;s given me sleepless nights and more then a few occasions where I had no income and not much money but I'm not much better off for it. As I've replied to other posters, I really want to treat myself to a 'you've gotten through all of it and come out on top' present to myself, and at present top of the list is a new Ford Mustang, I just have to justify the payments lol

Very true, i'll bear it in mind.

Thanks. Yes my main hobby is racing go karts. I did a race locally (10 mins down the road) this weekend and was the first time I've raced since my daughter was born and my wife wanted me to do it and unwind, it was fun!

In summary, thank you all for replying. It really helped and I feel much better this week. You guys and gals all rock

BenK91

I know people will say I'm young and it doesn't count bla bla bla but I have had similar feelings.

Moved here when I was 25 to be with my wife. In the UK I had a fantastic job, significant salary, great benefits and a lifestyle I really loved. I had two cars, a nice place to live and pretty much went out every weekend fishing. It was really hard to leave that behind, including friends (from childhood) and my family who I'm pretty close with.

Then moving here, it was a struggle to get a job initially, very very hard to make friends and all the rest of it etc. Fast-forward to now and things are pretty damn good. I work for a good company with a very good salary and I've made a few friends. Wife is finishing up her Masters and all our bills get paid on time and we have a little extra at the end of each paycheck.

Having BE as well has been a massive help. Even though there is a few episodes of butting-heads between everyone, people here have been fantastic in giving advice and it's just also nice to know you're not the only Brit living out here etc.

Steerpike

Others have pretty much covered what I would say in general, but one think you mention did puzzle me a bit ...
I understand being bullied at school, but I'm not sure I know anyone who was bullied at University; I was a 'nerd' at University, and certainly didn't fit in with the 'in crowd', but I never felt 'bullied' (maybe intimidated). Curious to understand how that worked for you. And then, you mention 'harassment from coworkers'; curious to understand that too, in what sounds like a fairly 'professional' environment. People resenting your success to the point of really bothering you?

Gordon Barlow

Further to my earlier post (#22)... As an expat, and reasonably well paid, we used to "retire" every few years, explaining that we couldn't afford to wait till we were rich enough to retire. Well, it seemed to make sense at the time, taking chunks of retirement as we went along, rather than waiting till we were old. I remember vividly a news story from Miami about a chap who retired aged 65, having worked the whole of his life for the one company. They gave him a send-off party and a gold watch, and he was mugged and killed on the way home. I vowed then and there, to get my retirement(s) in ahead of time.

Of course one has to give up some things along the way, and for us it was new cars. Aged 28 and newly married (in Canada), and lucking into good jobs in Nassau (Bahamas), we spent something like 75% of our entire capital on a new car - a Triumph TR-3; those were called "chicks' cars" in later years, but we thought it was pretty cool in 1967. We've never had the spare cash to invest in a new car since, though I once had a new company car, in another place and several years later. These days, we can only afford a 1997 Toyota each. Sigh. One can't have it all, all the time.

Steerpike

I've always felt that new cars are one of the biggest wastes of money around. I bought a new car back in '92 when Anti-Lock Brakes were new and you couldn't get them on used cars; I kept that car for about 15 years (it was a boring-but-reliable Acura), then bought another new car when backup cameras were new, and again bought a very reliable Acura. I was making silly money back then also. Nowadays, I'm enjoying early retirement (late 50s) for similar reasons you give, and I most recently bought a used Lexus. My 'new car' experience has been that the novelty quickly wears off (about as quick as the 'new car' smell), and then you get to worry about 'door dings', rattles, etc. I stashed as much as I could from day 1 in retirement plans, and took quite a few risks with home-buying, which paid off well. real-estate is no walk in the park, but it does have the potential to appreciate, which is more than you can say for a car!

mrken30

There is so much luck involved in life. The year I moved here , my house lost 30% in value, the exchange rate dived by 30%. I ended up with half of what I was expecting. I got laid off from my job in the UK while I was waiting for my visa. However I moved to the US, I had a good job within a few weeks. I was expecting to have to search for several months and was prepared to work in retail or whatever it took. I moved to the West coast where house prices are crazy, so I am now able to move back to the UK and buy a house with money left over.
There are still issues with living in the US, one is that I don't really get much of a match on 401k, however I invested in property which seems to have paid off. I moved to the US in my late thirties and have been stressing about retirement, but I have the option to move back to the UK, colleagues in the US do not have that option. I think I should be able to retire by 67 and compared to other people, not have too much of a financial struggle.

Just play life as it comes, there will be good and bad, but you always have your family.