Would you move a family to Argentina...?

Hop said:
after five years, i'm leaving for many different reasons but the bottom line is the pesos i earn are worthless. if you're offered a job in pesos, don't bother, because it's very unlikely you'll be able to change them on your way out. Thus, saving money is pointless.

i'll let the others detail the problems with insecurity, poor quality and expensive products, lack of variety of food, the persistent challenges of daily life, etc



EXACTLY. You mentioned you have a STABLE career so why would you risk that coming to Argentina? Your family is happy now. That might not be the case once they come to Argentina, especially if they are accustomed to a lifestyle in the UK where things just work much better than they do in Argentina.

Forget all the restrictions, controls, red tape, crime, can't by dollars/Sterling on the open exchange, poor quality and selection of food in the stores, non-existent customer service in the stores, etc.

Even forgetting those things the most important thing is why in the world would you risk a stable career on a so so job where you said you will mostly make pesos? Stability is the LAST thing you will find in Argentina. The job you take might not even be there in a few months. The company could easily just shut down or decide that it's not worth doing business in Argentina. Things are far from stable here in Argentina.

If you're looking for adventure, there are far better things to do with your family or go on some exciting vacations but I wouldn't consider that kind of "adventure" and risking your career and your family's well being moving to Argentina right now.

Definitely Argentina isn't a place to uproot your kids lives and your spouse's life and friends and possibly family just for some adventure. If things actually worked there and things weren't so corrupt, and there was no red tape, and Argentina had a great leader in place, was pro-business and was going in the right direction then it would be worth considering. But that is far from what is going on today.
 
Absolutely not. Not the right time, not with small kids, no being a Brit...sorry, I rather be blunt but honest...someone before me in this thread mentioned a strong "go gringo home" sentiment, that cant be more true.
 
Thank you to all the replies so far. Certainly plenty of food for thought. Thank you to those who have allayed some of my concerns and thank to those who have been brutally honest.

The problem is t's a very difficult decision as for my career it has the potential to be a very good move and it is only a two year contract. It's not a business so job security is fine.

I'd be earning in the range of 18,000 pesos per month with accommodation , bills, childrens education and excellent holiday time included. As such this is a big motivating factor to go! The chance to travel throughout South America is a tempting one.

Interestingly I asked at our local Post Office whether they accepted Pesos. They said no problems at the going rate. So can you take Pesos out of the country?
 
Are the accommodations furnished and ready for you to move in upon arrival? If you don't have to deal with finding a place to live, getting a lease, and furnishing the dwelling, that is a very big plus.

You wrote have been "offered a very good job in a relatively leafy part of BA with excellent conditions." At least now we know the conditions and the time frame. If you could be more specific about the location you might find unexpected support for the move as well as additional information about the area (need for a car vs. use of public transportation, etc.).

I think it would also be helpful if you posted the age of your children. Others who are currently or have recently been in BA with kids will be able to share their experiences with you. (Do an advanced search for all threads started by BAwithkids.)
 
Moving money in and out is very very difficult, some might even say impossible, you will need to have good connections. (Nearly everything I Argentina is bargained through you “connections”: jobs, converting money, business etc.) You can only take up to US$10k out. You will NOT be able to transfer your money through the Argentina banking system into a uk account, most people here take all of their money out of the banks soon as they are paid, it is safer to hide a wad of cash under your mattress than to have it in the bank. Coming to Argentina at the moment can be an adventure but it is NOT a good investment plan.
 
bugsbunny said:
The way I see it is that there are quite a few embittered people here on the forum who seem to have large amounts of time on their hands to run everything about Argentina down, forgetting that it is a developing country and therefore not like their home country where everything is milk and honey...

Yeah, that's what a lot of people think, still, who even come here every few months to stay and go home, come back again, etc. Argentina has managed, somehow, to get this romantic image internationally, the Paris of South America, the land of Tango, etc. I know I had that attitude when I first came here.

When I came here first, I didn't come as a young person looking for adventure, someone who had no clue as to what living outside of my home country was like - I'd spent more than a decade traveling the world for business and spending a lot of time in various countries. I understood quite well the difference between the US and the rest of the "undeveloped" world. I didn't have on rose-colored glasses.

First, calling Argentina a developing country is kind of off, a bit, and seems to want to put the country on a par with places like Paraguay, Bolivia, etc. Argentina has been on a cycle of boom/bust for decades, might even be able to say a century. Governments from fascist to democratic, from military dictatorships to a queen who thinks she should placed on a par with god. A country with some instances of good education, a much different spirit than many other countries related to how they see the world and their place in it, etc. Not just a country who is still trying to remove the yoke and taints of colonialism (although they like to use that excuse a lot when they expropriate foreign companies and talk about, yet again, taking the Falklands back from Britain).

Argentina is currently working towards a dictatorship after a few decades of emerging democracy (again), after a brutal military dictatorship that ended in the early 80's and anyone who thinks that this is a well-functioning democracy at this moment doesn't have any problem with the dead voting, the people in power buying votes from the poor and even poor immigrants from even poorer (for the moment) countries with no citizenship here are about to be able to vote in national elections. Permanent residents can already vote in local elections - but there are some 2 million additional votes that can help elect Cristina's favored candidates to congress which may allow her to change the constitution and extend her presidency (kind of like Chavez did in Venezuela). Those additional votes have a constituency that consists of a very high percentage of ignorant immigrants from other MercoSur countries who look at Cristina as another Eva - a fighter for the poor, someone who cares deeply about them and will ensure they get their just rewards.

Cristina, the president, likes to compare herself to Eva, while spouting policies taken right out of Peron's and Chavez's play book. She has a lot of power and is gaining more. A lot of Argentinos who understand what she is doing, who even supported her husband Nestor's policies, are concerned about what's happening here.

Did they show the march a couple of days ago in international news feeds? Tens of thousands of people (I've heard estimates of between 50,000 and 100,000 - the higher end surely being a bit of an exaggeration) showing up to protest the current policies of the government in Buenos Aires alone, with major cities and some smaller around the country doing the same? And yet, those are the more well-off people in Argentina, who are unfortunately a relatively small minority in their own country.

It may seem that a lot of us simply have a lot of time on our hands and are missing home. Ain't the case for most of us ex-pats who have lived here for some time. In fact, we are concerned. We are concerned because we live our lives here and we see what has been happening over the last couple of years.

If you go back and look over time in this forum as to what the general complaints and discussions are, you can see a definite progression.

Yes, we used to complain about some of the things here, like the attitude of Perteños which many of us consider to be rude, inconsiderate and downright ego-centric, the business attitude that seems from many to be "screw unto others when you can or you're an idiot", the labor laws which so extremely favor the workers, the "tenant's rights laws which have caused anyone who actually wants to rent property long term to have access to a second property to be used to guarantee the lease, the often complete lack of customer service (I had to ask a waitress last night three times to bring me the check at TGI Friday's, then twice to bring me my change and we were almost late to see the movie in the same shopping mall where the restaurant was), people who just let their dogs' bowels loose on the sidewalk and don't think even once about picking up the spoor, and so many other things that do indeed belong in the category of frustrations that we are not used to, for the most part, in our home countries.

Absolutely. But for the great majority (myself included), it was merely letting off steam because we understood for the most part what we were getting into, but that doesn't mean we just shut up and keep it bottled up inside.

But lately a lot of us have become quite concerned about the political and economic situation. When "developing" countries start doing things politically and economically that are seen as jumps towards some kind of oppression, one tends to become a bit concerned. As an example, latest rumor I've now heard all over the city (first saw someone else report on this website as a rumor, nothing more, but last night one of my sister-in-law's friends was merely the latest Argentina to tell me this independently of expats) - the government is considering annulling all Argentine passports, making everyone who wishes to travel re-apply for passports, which means they have to prove that they are working and paying taxes legally, etc, etc.

Dollars are impossible to get unless you go to the black market (or find someone who wants to sell dollars privately), directly due to Cristina's policies of currency controls.

import restrictions have caused a lack of things like electro-domestic appliances, difficulty finding spare parts for those, for cars, etc. Inflation has gotten to the point where you have to go out of your way to get money into the country (for those who earn their money outside) so you don't get ripped off by the government's obviously artificial price for dollars (which makes the same problem for all other currencies, like the euro, as well).

One of the biggest questions most of us (and a large number of Argentinos as well) are asking is - will the economy collapse and Cristina lose power before she is able to go as far as she wants? The government just recently expropriated YPF, a Spanish oil company doing business in Argentina, a business who made the most profits for the country, with the excuse that they were not spending enough on exploration, without them mentioning that her policy on oil and gas prices are making it nearly unprofitable for oil companies to do so. Then I read the other day that both Chevron and China are talking to YPF to see about helping them with their exploration and production.

Cristina is taking cues from Chavez in Venezuela (as well as Peron) as to how to fuel her pipe dreams.

Argentina is on the brink of serious economic problems which could be manageable with different policies over the long term, but it seems the policies that are being implemented on a monthly, sometimes weekly, basis seem to be for the short term to desperately keep things going long enough for her to get things like YPF going and turn Argentina into her version of a worker's paradise.

Hell, no one outside of Argentina really wants to the peso, either. When I first came here, the peso was worth about 3000 Guarani (Paraguay's currency) and now is worth around 600. Paraguayans consider their smallest money to be 1000 guarani and now consider that their currency is more valuable than the Peso.

My wife (who's Paraguayan) and I brought her (then 11 year old) sister to Buenos Aires to go to school here, looking for better opportunities than where she came from in Paraguay. Be careful raising kids here - there are some pretty loose thoughts about what kids are allowed to do, particularly in a large city like this. Be prepared for pressure starting around 12-13 to go to all-night parties sponsored by parents, with copious amounts of alcohol and drunk teenagers tearing houses apart and leaving afterwards with said teenagers roaming the streets int he wee hours of the morning. Partying is taught here more strongly than studying and work ethics are taught. But that's ok - that's just a quirk of the culture which can be overcome - but be aware of what you will need to deal with.

Is it all terrible, all the time? No, certainly not. Are things getting worse and those of us who live here and have for quite some time are concerned about it? Yeah, sure, who wouldn't be with at least one eye open on the possibilities that may arise from a third-world country in turmoil?

I wouldn't bring a family here, now. I don't think that it's a horrible thing to do, I just don't think it's the right time unless you want to add a bunch of additional worries to the other things that normally come with expat life that everyone has to deal with anyway when moving to another country.
 
steveinbsas said:
Are the accommodations furnished and ready for you to move in upon arrival? If you don't have to deal with finding a place to live, getting a lease, and furnishing the dwelling, that is a very big plus.

You wrote have been "offered a very good job in a relatively leafy part of BA with excellent conditions." At least now we know the conditions and the time frame. If you could be more specific about the location you might find unexpected support for the move as well as additional information about the area (need for a car vs. use of public transportation, etc.).

I think it would also be helpful if you posted the age of your children. Others who are currently or have recently been in BA with kids will be able to share their experiences with you. (Do an advanced search for all threads started by BAwithkids.)

Thank you Steve. Our kids will be 2 and 4 respectively. Yes all the accommodation will be fitted out for us. We'll be in Palomar. There's also a strong possibility my wife will be able to work too.

I have a campervan in the UK so may investigate the idea of getting one in BA too although if Public transport is good enough then we'll stick with that initially. However we'll need something to spend all the pesos on methinks!
 
bugsbunny said:
The way I see it is that there are quite a few embittered people here on the forum who seem to have large amounts of time on their hands to run everything about Argentina down, forgetting that it is a developing country and therefore not like their home country where everything is milk and honey...

There must be plenty of positives of life in Argentina.. and it would be great to hear from those who have made the leap and not regretted it

Any levelled reasoned response would be great.

Many thanks!

i don't regret moving here two years ago since i knew what i was in for after spending 18 months in bs as in 2004-6, but times have changed my dear sir, and it can be complicated here in many aspects not just the dollar peso thing... thats just one inconvenience on a laundry list. if you have money you're golden, (bring it in cash) overstay your visa, not give a shit about anything its great, but with a family and all the bureaucracy to do things right and legally with work and everything? i would rather kill myself. ps. you mentioned argentina as a developing country, the thing is it was developed in the past, and its experiencing a reverse development.
 
bugsbunny said:
If you were a family of 4 with a stable career and a happy family (2 young children) life in the UK but also looking for adventure, would you move to Argentina?

Having been offered a very good job in a relatively leafy part of BA with excellent conditions but almost all in pesos we've started to research the lifestyle of BA and found this excellent forum. However when I read the posts here it's a bit like researching a medical condition on the Internet. Before you know it you've got six months to live and everything is futile!!

Will my wife be able to go out on her own with the children, as she does here, without fear of being robbed or worse?

The way I see it is that there are quite a few embittered people here on the forum who seem to have large amounts of time on their hands to run everything about Argentina down, forgetting that it is a developing country and therefore not like their home country where everything is milk and honey...

There must be plenty of positives of life in Argentina.. and it would be great to hear from those who have made the leap and not regretted it

Any levelled reasoned response would be great.

Many thanks!


Did it, got the t-shirt although my eldest was only 4 months at the time we moved. Paradoxically It may actually be easier with small kids (than teens say) as they're with you or in kindergarten/nanny so you feel more in control of them and their safety. Kindergartens are wonderful in bsas and Argentines truly adore kids. If you are planning on putting the elder in kinder he/she will get a fabulous 2 yr Spanish immersion. Add that to the positives and search the threads on things I love about bsas where you will get long laundry lists of many other great things about bsas living...
 
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