How to decide if I should take my money with me or leave it invested in my home country?
I will attempt to answer three separate questions here: The standard answer is that an emergency fund should not be in an investment that can lose value.  The safest course of action is to put it in a savings account or other very low risk investment somewhere. This question becomes: can a reasonable and low risk investment in Sweden be comparable to or better than a low risk investment in Brazil? Inflation in Brazil has averaged a little less than 6% over the last 10 years with a recent spike up above 8%.  A cursory search indicates interest rates on savings accounts in Brazil are outpacing inflation so you might still expect a positive return on money in a savings account there. By contrast, Sweden's inflation rate has been around 1% over the last 10 years and has hovered around 0 or even deflation in recent years.  Swedish interest rates for savings accounts right now are very low, nearly 0%.  Putting money in a savings account in Sweden would likely hold its value or lose a slight amount of value. Based on this, you might be better off leaving your emergency fund invested in BRL in Brazil. The answer to this a little unclear.  The Brazilian stock market has been all over the place in the last 10 years, with a slight downard trend in recent years.  In comparison, Sweden's stock market has shown fairly consistent growth in spite of the big dip in 2008.  Given this, it seems like the fairest comparison would your current 13% ROI investment in Brazil vs. a fund or ETF that tracks the Swedish stock market index. If we assume a consistent 13% ROI on your investment in Brazil and a consistent inflation rate of 6%, your adjusted ROI there would be around 7% per year. The XACT OMS30 ETF that tracks the Swedish OMS 30 Index has a 10 year annualized return of 9.81%.  If you subtract 0.8% inflation, you get an adjusted ROI 9%. Based on this, Sweden may be a safer place for longer term, moderate risk investments right now. The key is whether you plan to stay in Sweden forever, or plan to move back to Brazil after completion of 2 years. If you have not decided, best is stay invested in Brazil. Generally markets factor in currency prices so if you move the money into Krona and try and move it back it would in ideal market be more or less same. In reality it may be more or less and can't be predicted.
"I can only share with you my happened with my wife and I. First, and foremost, if you think you need to protect your assets for some reason then do so. Be open and honest about it. If we get a divorce, X stays with me, and Y stays with you.  This seems silly, even when your doing it, but it's important. You can speak with a lawyer about this stuff as you need to, but get it in writing. Now I know this seems like planning for failure, but if you feel that foo is important to you, and you want to retain ownership of foo no mater what, then you have to do this step. It also works both ways. You can use, with some limitations, this to insulate your new family unit from your personal risks. For example, my business is mine. If we break up it stays mine. The income is shared, but the business is mine. This creates a barrier that if someone from 10 years ago sues my business, then my wife is protected from that. Keep in mind, different countries different rules. Next, and this is my advise. Give up on ""his and hers"" everything. It's just ""ours"". Together you make 5400€ decide how to spend 5400€ together. Pick your goals together. The pot is 5400€. End of line. It doesn't matter how much from one person or how much from another (unless your talking about mitigating losses from sick days or injuries or leave etc.). All that matters is that you make 5400€. Start your budgeting there.  Next setup an equal allowance. That is money, set aside for non-sense reasons. I like to buy video games, my wife likes to buy books. This is not for vacation, or stuff together, but just little, tiny stuff you can do for your self, without asking  ""permission"". The number should be small, and equal. Maybe 50€.  Finally setup a budget. House Stuff 200€, Car stuff 400€. etc. etc. then it doesn't matter who bought the house stuff. You only have to coordinate so that you don't both buy house stuff. After some time (took us around 6 months) you will find out how this works and you can add on some rules. For example, I don't go to Best Buy alone. I will spend too much on ""house stuff"". My wife doesn't like to make the budget, so I handle that, then we go over it. Things like that." Voluntarily assuming a loan is a bad idea, especially for a non-investment purpose. It would be one thing to take on a loan to operate a business or buy a piece of capital equipment, like a machine that would make you money. Borrowing money to have a more luxurious house is foolish. The smart move is to buy a good quality home that will meet your needs for as little as possible. Having $800,000 leaves a quit a bit of leeway in that department. You don't say where you live, but if this occurred in my area (eastern Massachusetts) I would buy a house for $500,000 and then invest the remaining $300,000. If I lived in the California bay area, it might be necessary to spend the whole $800,000. Either way there should be no need to borrow money. Also, if you buy a house for cash, often you can get a substantially better deal than if you have to involve a bank. Not owing anyone money is a huge psychological advantage in business and in life in general. View being debt-free as a springboard to success and happiness. "A good answer to the question really depends on where you want to live, ultimately. Where you want to live pretty much dictates your investment priorities. If you want to invest in ""terrain"" so you can build a house next to all the ""cool,"" people in Guayaquil that should be your first priority. Your new wife may have an opinion on that matter, you should consult her. In real life, most people are less concerned about their absolute level of wealth than with ""keeping up"" with their friends, or other reference group. If you don't buy the ""terrain,"" the danger is that in five years, it may go up three, four, five times and be out of your reach, even if your other investments do well on the absolute standard.  While it's fairly easy to invest the equivalent of $250K in Ecuadorian land, it's hard to invest that much in Ecuadorian stocks. If you want to buy stocks with that kind of money, it will be U.S., European, or maybe other Latin American, e.g., Brazilian stocks. That kind of asset allocation would tell me that you are thinking of leaving your country at some point. If you're ""undecided,"" a sensible allocation might be 50-50. But in any event, first decide how you want to live your life, then adopt the investment strategy that best supports that life." "My advice is to quit worrying about the salesman's tactics.  They are a distraction.  What do you want?  How much are you willing to pay for it.  If you want the instrument, decide how much you want to pay for it.  Round down to the next even hundred.  Take that much in $100 bills.  Put the money in his hand and say, ""This is what I have, take it or leave it"".  You must be prepared to walk out of the store without the instrument." Generally it is advisable to mention what country you're asking about, as tax laws differ. To the best of my knowledge, however, this particular issue is handled consistently in every tax jurisdiction I'm familiar with. You invested X, it appreciated and is now worth X + Y. In your example, X = $10,000 and Y = $40,000. Total X + Y = $50,000. When you withdraw an amount, say A (in your example A = $10,000), it is considered a withdrawal of both the earnings and the original capital, in proportion to the total of your account. Taxable portion of the withdrawal is proportional to the earnings. Lets mark it T. In your example, T = $10,000 - $10,000 * $10,000/$50,000 = $8,000. I.e.: 80% of the withdrawal will be attributed to earnings and would be taxable (short term in your case, if you're in the US), and 20% to the original capital. This will keep the proportion of the remained the same - 20% of the remaining amount will be attributed to the original capital (accidentally, it will be $8,000), and the remaining 80% will be attributed to the earnings. The withdrawn amount attributed to the capital ($2,000), and the remaining amount attributed to the capital ($8,000) will equal exactly to the invested amount. "Unless you are buying a significant value of your goods in USD then the relative strength of USD versus your local currency will have little to no effect on what the value of your investments is worth to you. In fact only (de|in)flation will effect your purchasing power. If your investments are in your local currency and your future expenses (usage of the returns on the investments) will be in your local currency FX has no effect. To answer your question, however, since all investments involve flows of money there can be no investment (other than perhaps gold which is really a form of currency) that isn't bound to at least one currency. In general investments are expected to be valued against the investor's home currency (I tend to call it ""fund currency"" as I work with hedge funds) as the return on the investment will be paid out in the fund currency and returns will be compared on the same basis. If investments are to be made internationally then it is necessary to reduce, or ""hedge"" the exchange rate risk. This is normally done using FX swaps or futures that allow an exchange rate in the future to be locked in today. Far from being unbound from FX moves these derivatives are closely bound to any moves but crucially are bound in the opposite direction to the hoped for FX move. an example of this would be if I'm investing 100GBP (my local currency) in a US company XYZ corp which I expect to do well. Suppose I get 200USD for my 100GBP and so buy 1 * 200USD shares in XYZ. No matter what happens to XYZ stock any move in GBP/USD will affect my P&L so I buy a future that allows me to exchange 200USD for 100GBP in 6 month's time. If GBP rises I can sell the future and make money on both the higher exchange rate and the increase in XYZ corp. If GBP falls I can keep the future until maturity and exchange the 200USD from XYZ corp for 100GBP so I only take the foreign exchange hit on any profits. If I expect my profits to be 10USD I can even buy futures such that I can lock in the exchange rate for 110USD in 6 months so that I will lose even less of my profit from the exchange rate move." "A general principle in finance is that you shouldn't stick with an investment or situation just because it's how you're currently invested. You can ask yourself the following question to help you think it through: If, instead, I had enough GBP to buy 20000 CHF, would I think it was a good idea to do so? (I'm guessing the answer is probably ""no."") This way of thinking assumes you can actually make the exchange without giving someone too big of a cut. With that much money on the line, be sure to shop around for a good exchange rate." Like most other investment decisions - it depends. Specifically in this case it depends upon your view of the FX (Foreign Exchange) market over the next few years, and how sensitive you are to losses. As you correctly note, a hedge has a cost, so it detracts from your overall return. But given that you need to repatriate the investment eventually to US Dollars, you need to be aware of the fluctuations of the dollar versus other currencies. If you believe that over your time horizon, the US dollar will be worth the same as now or less, then you should not buy the hedge.  If the dollar is the same - the choice is/was obvious.  If you believe the US dollar will be weaker in the future, that means that when you repatriate back to US dollars, you will purchase more dollars with your foreign currency. If on the other hand, you believe the US Dollar will get stronger, then you should certainly lock in some kind of hedge.  That way, when your foreign currency would have effectively bought fewer US, you will have made money on the hedge to make up the difference. If you choose not to hedge now, you can likely hedge that exposure at any time in the future, separate from the initial investment purchase buy buying/selling the appropriate FX instrument. Good Luck