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In my Canadian bank account I recently received CAD 80K in gifts and bequests from relatives, and am looking for options on what to do with it. My situation is as follows:

  • Dual Canadian–EU citizen.
  • 45 years old, married, one young child.
  • Living in Austria but not certain to remain here forever.
  • Past or ongoing state pension contributions in various EU countries since 2003.
  • About five years' worth of private pension contributions in the UK. (No longer possible to contribute as we've moved away.)
  • Employed, debt-free, EUR 10K in the bank, and managing to save several thousand euros per year.
  • Currently renting, but we'd like to buy an apartment here in Austria in a few years if we can save enough for the downpayment. (Probably at least EUR 120K.)
  • Negligible knowledge of investing, and relatively little time/inclination to learn about, monitor, and manage investments.

What would be some good things to do with the money to help achieve our goals? In particular, is it better to leave the money in Canada or to transfer it to Austria? Our primary concern is that if we leave the money in a savings account, it will get eaten away by inflation.

Edelweiß
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1 Answers1

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To me,

  • Living in Austria but not certain to remain here forever.

and

  • Currently renting, but we'd like to buy an apartment here in Austria in a few years if we can save enough for the downpayment. (Probably at least EUR 120K.)

don't match very well. If (1), you should think twice about (2).

You are right that leaving the money in a savings amount would not be too good an idea.

IMO, you have the following options:

  • Forget about buying a home, or postpone it indefinitely. In this case, and if you don't need the money in the next 15 years or so, you can invest it. Pick one ETF which is low cost and covers most of the world. Vanguard has one such product (following the FTSE All World Index) which is definitely available in Europe, but probably also in Canada.

  • Stick to buying a home. In this case, you'll need the money soon. Then investing it in the stock market is not so good an idea. Instead, save it in a way which gives you the most interest. I heard about CDs in USA, maybe Canada has similar things. Austria might call it "Festgeld" as well as Germany does.

    In this case, you might leave it in the currency which has the lower inflation - look how the EUR and the CAD move to each other (but be aware that such movements in the past are no indication to the future).

glglgl
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