Another Country to Call Home & Your Assets

 I was in a bit of a pickle and wanted to share my situation with you to prevent you from being stuck in a pickle too. 

Situation:

I left Canada (with Canadian assets) to live in Australia for a few years. It’s been over a year now living in Australia and me being a good responsible adult filed my taxes in Canada, which got super stressful. 

After getting settled in Melbourne…I had some free time while I figured out how to continue running my personal finance business from afar. So that extra time was used to consolidate my Canadian banking and investment accounts to preferred institutions in Canada. It was something I wanted to do for a long time but was too busy before.

Consolidating to my preferred institutions saves me in fees, plus I earn more in interest. So, I closed all my accounts at the old institutions. 

Problem: 

My accountant emails me requesting balances to investment accounts on the day I left the country (not happy face).  

Today, if you don’t get a physical statement mailed the financial institutions keep all the statements online unless you save them to your computer. I didn’t save any statements as I transferred assets so didn’t need the statements (so I thought).

Here I am with no statement for June 2018 and no account opened to go and look myself.

I ended up calling in to the institution that I left.  It took a good hour to get to the right person and go through all the security clearance a few times, however, I the good news is I got the June 2018 statement I needed (happy and relieved face).

Lesson Learned:

Print out or copy to your computer the monthly statement for your investment accounts for the month you leave a country to live elsewhere (winkie face).

There you have it. A lesson I hope you don’t have to go through. 

XO$,

Dollar Dame