Choose Your Own Finance

I left two pensions behind in a country I no longer lived in.

I taught in Georgia before I moved abroad, and when I left, those accounts just stayed where they were. Not because I'm careless with money. Because there was never a moment where anyone sat me down and said, right, here's what happens to these now.

So they sat. For years. While I got on with a whole new life somewhere else.

When I finally went and looked, they turned out to be completely different animals. One was fine and doing its job. The other was never going to pay me anything unless I stayed 25 years, which I hadn't and was never going to.

I got that money out and put it somewhere it could actually work.

I'm telling you this because even though I do this for a living now, and I still spent years not looking. If you've got something parked in a country you left, you're not behind. You're normal.

Go find one of them this week.

Knowing it's a sale doesn't make it feel like one.

I can explain this to someone, watch them nod, watch it genuinely land, and three weeks later a headline drops and they stop their contributions anyway.

That's not stupidity. Your nervous system doesn't read carousels. It sees a number going down and files it under danger, and it does that at 11pm when there's nobody around to talk you out of it.

So the fix isn't more understanding. It's deciding now, while nothing is happening, what you'll do when it does. Write it somewhere you'll actually find it.

I'm not selling. I'm not stopping the transfer. I'll look again in three months.

Then when the day comes, you're not making a decision. You're following one you already made while you were calm.

That's the whole trick. It's boring, and it works.

Save this for the next red week.

I've worked with clients living in: Azerbaijan, Bosnia, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, USA, UK, China, and Thailand.

I've worked with clients who come from: South Africa, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, Brazil, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, UAE, USA, Canada, India, Pakistan, Italy, France, Germany, UK, Ireland, and probably lots of others I can't remember off the top of my head.

So when I say I'm a FI coach for expats, I mean EVERYONE. Immigrants, migrant workers, global nomads. All.

Each situation is unique. There are cultural pressures, tax issues, and scattered accounts that have to be tracked down.

But the core of what I do is the same. I help you take the scary unknown mess, and turn it into an actionable roadmap to FI.

Why work with so many jurisdictions? Because people who live between countries fall through the traditional safety nets of state pensions and 401Ks.

These are the people that need a financial plan the most, and almost nobody will talk to them until they already have a million dollars saved.

How can I possibly be an expert on finance in every country on earth?

I'm not. I'm an expert on HUMANS.

AND I'm willing to say "I don't know" when I'm outside of my expertise and refer you to country-specific experts who do know.

Unassigned cash is the riskiest asset most expats own.

Why? Because they don't see the risk. 👀

All assets are risk assets: it's just that risk comes in many forms. Cash comes with both inflation risk and opportunity cost.

Notice I said "unassigned" cash. Risk can be an opportunity if it's used wisely. Purposeless cash is a liability, but purposeful cash buys short term stability.

Cash is appropriate for use in the next 12 months or so. If you're holding on to cash for something farther out than that, cash is probably not fit for purpose.

💶 Keep cash for your regular expenses: to fund your life now (These are your MONTHLY EXPENSES)

💵 Keep cash for known upcoming expenses: like holiday, school fees, or a planned medical expense (we call these SINKING FUNDS)

💷 Keep cash for unknown emergencies: like illness, death in the family, job loss (this is your EMERGENCY FUND and you need to define a target amount)

Where a lot of expats fall down, is they keep far too much cash in a vaguely defined “what if” fund without ever working out how much they actually need.

Imagine the worst that could happen. Maybe you need to evacuate your family last minute. Maybe you lose your job and need to relocate to find a new one. How much would you realistically need to get back on your feet? For most people this is somewhere between 3-6 months worth of expenses. You're not looking to fund your life for years (that's what your investments are for!), you're looking to smooth out a difficult moment.

Keeping multiples of your annual income in cash is actually riskier than just biting the bullet and buying an index fund. Cash loses value over time, even if you have the best available interest rate in a fixed deposit or high yield savings account.

FI life skill: Give every Dirham, Dollar, or Euro a clearly defined purpose.

Assign all cash to monthly expenses, sinking funds, or your emergency fund...Anything beyond that? Invest it for the long term. You'll turn a drag on your buying power into a growing asset to fund your future.

Most people avoid thinking about retirement because they assume the number is impossibly large.

It is not.

Your FI number is not a mystery. It is not something only a financial advisor can calculate. It is a straightforward formula that anyone can work out with 12 months of real spending data and a calculator.

No guessing. No estimates. Just your actual numbers.

And once you have it, everything changes.

You stop feeling like financial independence is something that happens to other people. You start seeing it as a destination with a viable pathway to it.

That shift alone is worth more than any financial product someone could sell you.

Swipe through to see exactly how the formula works, and grab my free expense tracker at cyofinance.com/resources to get started today.