We Are Extending Our Assignment 6 More Months

We were asked at the beginning of this month to extend our assignment for an additional 6 months. We had a number of issues to resolve when we were asked to extend, but somehow everything came together. I was able to negotiate a trip for us back to the US for a couple weeks that helps us deal with some of the loose ends we needed to address to stay.

Finances - We think we come out at least neutral by extending versus going back. Too many variables regarding job income, expenses, timing, etc. but as long as we are spending at or our below our current levels we should come out even/ahead. The biggest variable is my my wife returning to work by going home in June vs going home in Dec and we won't know what the affect is until we get back.
Wife's Career - It will be more challenging for my wife to find the type of position she is looking for when we get back. However, after talking it over we think it will be managable. We will send my wife home early so she can go to a job fair that we think will help her land on her feet. Worst Case: she will substitute teach until the next school year. Best Case: she will find a desired teacing position in a school located close by. Most Likely Case: she will find some not-so-desired teaching position in a school further away. Plus depending on when/if we start a family her career would likely be put on hold anyway.
Rental Properties - We need to rerent both rental properties in the next month. We have signed up some family to handle one of the properties and we will be visiting the US and handling the 2nd property on our own. Kudos to our supportive family.
Petcare - As fate would have it we are having family move back to the area and they are willing to take care of our pet for the duration of our assignment.
Spending Time With Family - We are planning a trip home for a couple weeks to catch up on spending a little time with family. We will still be way behind for the duration of the extension, but that comes with the territory when you are overseas.
Life Planning - After we talked about it, this extension didn't seem to derail anything for us, but gave us a delay on the realities of returning home. It potentially allows us to save additional money for our new home, and we are going to take a trip to Australia during the extension so we will hit an important long term goal to my wife with the trip.

It was kind of weird have everything seemed to come together to stay. While we didn't see a major benefit in extending (other than potentially extra savings), the obstacles to extending seemed to figure themselves out so we decided to extend. It does ensure us we will be able to save at a similar savings rate to the past 6 months and we will hopefully hit a long term goal of ours to visit Australia so I think we come out ahead.

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Comments (1)

Are you able to set up a Chinese online brokerage account locally so that you have access to purchase A-shares in the Shanghai exchange?

In your opinion, are Chinese shares attractively priced after the recent correction? Do you think they will be if they correct 20-30% further after the olympics and the US presidential election?

Cheers,
ETF

Posted by ETFnerd | July 1, 2008 1:41 PM