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personalfinance·Personal Financebyfrank

US ex pat in Denmark; Roth IRA is poison?

Hi all–

Just had a tax meeting today in Denmark, and the Danish government like a fair few other governments, recognize 401k/trad IRA investments as retirement, but not Roths. This means you have to pay annual tax on the gains for your Roth, that you can't touch until you're 59.5.

This leaves us looking at pulling the money out and eating the tax/penalty. And my questions in case anyone knows are:

  1. is that money income in the US?
  2. is there anything particularly good to do with the money? Beyond the obvious of buying a house (here)
  3. how has no one told us about this in all the posts/threads, financial advisors, etc that Roths are fairly commonly not acknowledged and are absolutely terrible if you plan to leave the US?

Thanks in advance. Sorry for my grumpy tone... I'm certainly grumpy

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espresso·Espressobyfrank

If you got to start all over ....

We're moving to Denmark from the US soon, and are going to be (of course) selling our 120V setup and buying a whole new one. It's pretty exciting to be able to re-shop for things.

We currently have a Profitec GO and a Eureka Mignon Silencio grinder. I'd say my big want that we don't have is having warm water from the espresso machine easier to dispense (without small grounds in it) to pre warm cups, to make Americanos.

Either way, if you had the opportunity to do it all over again, would you change anything?

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formula1·Formula 1byfrank

My experience for the Mexico City GP 2022

Hello all--

I'm already missing reddit for r/GrandPrixTravel, so here's a little write-up of my experience in Mexico City last year for the GP.

I've been to COTA, Montreal, Shanghai, Mexico City, Suzuka, and Silverstone for the GPs. Mexico City was absolutely fantastic and one of the best experiences I've had at an F1 weekend.

We went in large part because we were sticker shocked at the GA prices for COTA last year (and this year at that), and said "surely we can fly to CDMX and see the GP for the costs of flying to Austin for the GP." and we could! let's break that part down:

We were lucky and nailed the timing to get a Scott's Cheap Flights from CLT to MEX directly for $279 per person. Typical prices are $400-500 for that route.

We ended up missing the window for seats booked directly through the circuit (which we usually prefer to do) and ended up buying them through Grand Prix Events. We spend $1065 ($533pp) for 2 tickets in Foro Sol Norte (the stadium!).

Hotel was super cheap, and super nice. Just over $90 per night, and we did Friday - Monday (so 3 nights).

Food was also cheap and fantastic. Both at the stadium and just around the city. There's a weird system at the GP: you buy a card, load it with money, then can only spend that to buy stuff. Water was ~$1.50 and beer was ~$4.

Transport was cheap*, since it was all by train. 5 pesos per direction per person (like $0.30). Trains were of course busy, especially after the GP, but it didn't take much longer than normal.

This gives up $946.5 per person for travel, hotel, and F1 tickets, plus whatever food costs. You can definitely do much cheaper there, but for the $1,000 mark it's hard to have better seats from the US.

We mostly did F1 and Dia de los Muertos stuff, but there was a ton to see nearby. For Dia de los Muertos there was a subway station closed near the plaza (where we stayed), so we had to talk one subway stop away. Like any F1 race, we gave ourselves a few hours of buffer so it wasn't a big deal.

As for the race, we had AMAZING seats, got free Checo shirts (to make the crowd look like the Mexican flag in the stadium), cheered a ton (especially for Checo; when in Rome), got bootleg merch for almost nothing right outside the event.

It's a slightly weird one, in that you can only get in to your section with your ticket and can't freely roam around (even on Friday). So you don't see the whole track.

Of course after the GP, we went onto the track to watch the podium and have a beer on track. We walked down the whole front straight, checked out the pits, take photos, etc. All said, a really cool weekend, not horrifically expensive, and a very fun crowd. If you're on the fence, go to CDMX!

*I did get my phone pick pocketed immediately after the Friday session at the train station. A few people bumped into me in a row and next thing I knew my phone was gone from my front pocket. I spend $180 on a cheap random phone in Mexico and restored my backup and was off to the races again (with bad battery life and a terrible camera). That was a bummer; definitely keep a close eye on your stuff in CDMX.

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