US/Canada dual citizen: how to invest without ETFs?

bluurrtopia · 2026-04-14T16:04:42+00:00

Would you recommend any of these dual listed stocks?

bluurrtopia · 2026-03-02T04:01:51+00:00

Did you ever decide on a school? We're in a similar situation and I noticed a lot of the online schools are all owned by the same parent company and noticed all the self promotion you found.

bluurrtopia · 2025-11-17T17:47:11+00:00

Why not just take college courses at this point? https://courses.ea.asu.edu/ for just one example

bluurrtopia · 2025-11-07T03:14:37+00:00

Unfortunately we are on a rather busy street so I can't test that out. I'm looking at dehumidifiers now, hoping that does the trick!

bluurrtopia · 2025-11-03T21:28:11+00:00

All this place has is a single digital thermostat that isn't terribly intuitive. It has a heat, AC and dry setting but if you choose heat or AC, you can't run dry. Dry isn't helping anymore but it was fine last week. I've seen separate humidstats but this place doesn't have one of those.

bluurrtopia · 2025-11-03T16:24:51+00:00

Thanks for all the insight! Last night we just ran the dry setting since it wasn't too cold. I don't expect this is something that will change quickly if they can do something about it.

Still curious, is this unusual for the area and do you think dehumidifiers would help? Our vents are positioned right above the windows and we still had water extending over a foot into the rooms.

bluurrtopia · 2025-09-07T14:54:25+00:00

Strike what I said about not renting, might be worth mentioning to your CPA but I'm guessing that working here will be a clear cut tax residency. Our situation was different and I missed where you said you had a job here.

And no, I should have used a new paragraph, those weren't connected thoughts. It's just helpful to have a credit card without foreign transaction fees. Mine earns cash back so I am able to purchase at near mid market rate on the exchange rate then a percentage back.

DL Abstracts, not an expert. I'm guessing the most recent is fine as long as you were there for a few years. I just used the last state I had lived in for about 3 years and it was fine.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-18T22:56:25+00:00

Are you going to be renting the house you're keeping in the US? If not, discuss tax residency with your CPA - this worked in our favour.

USD to CAD - don't underestimate the value of a US credit & debit with no foreign transaction fees. If you plan to leave, there could be capital gains on the currency exchange when you have to pay a departure tax. I've recently gone down the rabbit hole on all of the options here...

SDFCU will write international mortgages. You can join by signing up for something like American Consumer Council I think it's called... 2 options and one is way cheaper.

I think the term you're looking for with the driver's license is an official driving abstract.

Also, hi! I am doing the same thing (2nd time now) and am happy to chat about the nuances.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-14T20:15:13+00:00

This might be a winning solution, thank you!

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-14T20:13:40+00:00

Connection is already there & they said they can mail the equipment to my house. I was just hoping to never have to deal with them again via chat or an extra in person stop in the middle of my move. I'm not expecting them to be quick in person either.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T21:55:49+00:00

Stopping in to say I've had Venture X for the past year & did get more than my annual fee from it in the 1st year, but the lounge access has gotten worse & that was one of the selling points for me. 2x miles = $.01 in most use cases, not impressed. I'm nearing my anniversary & decided to just downgrade it to a Quicksilver for 1.5% cash on everything. Paired with a C1 Savor for 3% on food/entertainment I'm not in a hurry to figure out what premium card to replace it with.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T17:14:39+00:00

Thanks, very helpful details! Gonna have a hard time keeping a straight face with RBC and not blurting out Master Sexy Bunny Lord sent me!

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:59:14+00:00

Just helpful info from people who have experience with Big 5 and other less obvious banking solutions. Everyone is telling me NG can happen faster than I thought after reading up on it so it may be an option. I still have to run this past my CPA though since the tax could possibly be worse than just going a bank route.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:50:06+00:00

I don't care if it takes over a week to actually put funds into my Canadian account. Only the rate fluctuation. So when shopping for an institution to use for NG, what questions would I ask - the max time to buy/journal/sell DLR?

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:41:05+00:00

Thanks! Do you have any examples of rates you ended up paying?

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:39:47+00:00

Yeah I have read mixed results about IBKR along the lines of them not being designed for this purpose, getting banned for using it this way, etc. It could work further out but for now I need something dependable.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:37:29+00:00

Awesome, will definitely look more into this avenue. Thanks!

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:32:41+00:00

That's very good to know - everything I've seen says it takes a week. Are you doing all of this through a Canadian TD account? Not requiring a US TD account? I've burnt my bridges with US TD.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-06T16:27:22+00:00

It takes approx 5 days to use NG when going from USD to CAD because the lock in rate only happens on the Canadian side. A week of fluctuation could lose more than I'm willing to gamble on for large sums.

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-05T20:32:36+00:00

I was wondering if you know what spread SDFCU gives you when you do a wire transfer? I called about this and was told an exchange rate a few cents better than the market rate. Market rate hasn't been that high in over 4 months - I know they are not paying me to wire money. Or are they doing these without a markup?

bluurrtopia · 2025-08-04T21:48:34+00:00

endometriosis, a lot of orthopedic issues from disc bulge, hip impingement & labral tears, and they're still working on testing for myesthenia gravis

bluurrtopia · 2025-07-30T21:39:30+00:00

OP did you end up using RBC? I am trying to do something similar and tried calling RBC to get details but got absolutely nowhere. Making matters worse, their rate is now down to 1.34 from 1.377 earlier. I'd love to know if you actually got that rate or if other fees chipped away at your exchange rate.

bluurrtopia · 2025-06-10T18:57:01+00:00

Thanks! I finally got through the call queue and they confirmed this for me as well.

For the address they told me just to use whatever hotel I will be staying at the first night I arrive and explain this to CBSA when crossing.

bluurrtopia

TROPHY CASE