FINANCE WITHOUT THE NONSENSE
If you have decided that you need some help with your expat financial planning, knowing where to begin to find a good expat adviser can be a daunting task. There is no shortage of information available online, but the difficulty is, sometimes there’s just too damn much information. Filtering through it all can be a tedious and time-consuming task to say the least. And more often than not, you’ll come …
Building an emergency fund is a crucial part of financial planning regardless of whether or not you’re an expat. It is one of the foundations of the ‘Financial Planning Pyramid’ that need to be in place before you even begin to look at investing and retirement planning. You can read about the ‘Financial Planning Pyramid’ in this post. What is an emergency fund? An emergency fund is basically a bank …
How much do you know about personal finance? Not sure? Then have a crack at this short financial literacy quiz and find out right now! Financial literacy or even basic finance is not really taught in most schools generally, so it’s not really any surprise that many people leave the education system with barely even a basic understanding of simple investing and financial planning concepts, such as inflation, risk and …
Or “Why Financial Advisers Wear Three-Piece, Pinstripe Suits” I’m sure you have heard the expression, “Fake it Till You Make It”. It’s a kind of a belief that if you imitate confidence, competence and success, you will realise those qualities in real life. Not a bad philosophy per se and I am a big believer in visualisation and the power of the mind. But the problem is, many offshore “Independent …
If you don’t track your monthly income and expenditure, you’re not alone – it is estimated that less than half of all working people in the Western world ever bother to budget. (Asia is a different case.) But if you’re currently living as an expat and you’re in a position where you could potentially get ahead financially, it makes sense to set up a budget and track your finances in …
The issue of debt is not something from which expats are excluded. There is a common belief that all expats are earning great money and are very secure financially, so it might surprise some people to hear that I have met many expats on a professional level over the years with quite alarming amounts of debt. And this is debt racked up both before and after becoming an expat and …
Can you time the markets? Some people think you can. And some people think you can’t. Critics of the market timing strategy claim that in trying to time the markets, then really, you are trying to predict the future. And if you can predict the future, you might as well predict the next lottery ticket numbers and stay clear of the markets, right? Those in support of market timing believe …
Anyone can make mistakes that cost them financially and we, as expats, are not immune either. In fact, there are often more pitfalls to negotiate when you are living as an expat than when you are back home. As with so many things in life, a lot of potential issues can be avoided with some preparation, so I have compiled my Top 7 Financial Expat Mistakes in order to help …