Choose Your Own Finance

Choose Your Own Finance Personal Finance Educator and Coach based in Abu Dhabi.

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,...
31/08/2026

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...
28/08/2026

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...
24/07/2026

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.

23/07/2026

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.

23/07/2026

Here's the part of today's episode that surprised us most: the exact same rule that blocks Americans from buying U.S. ETFs in Europe is completely fine for everyone else living there.

Non-Americans in the EU can buy low-cost European index funds with no friction at all. It's U.S. tax law, not EU investment law, that turns a routine EU-based fund into a compliance headache the moment an American owns it. Suddenly, there's extra reporting, and sometimes real cost, for every foreign investment on the books.

That's the catch: the EU is trying to protect its retail investors from a disclosure gap. Americans just get caught in the middle of two systems that were never designed to work together.

Austin Davidsen and Blair Hoover joined Arielle Tucker for our full episode today, walking through exactly where that leaves you, and more importantly, what Austin did to keep investing anyway once he understood the rule.

Have you ever gotten stuck between two countries' rules that weren't built to work together?

🎧 Full episode is live now.

https://www.passporttowealth.com/why-americans-in-europe-cant-buy-us-etfs

Most people avoid thinking about retirement because they assume the number is impossibly large.It is not.Your FI number ...
23/07/2026

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.

20/07/2026

You have been thinking about investing the wrong way.

Most people spend their energy trying to find the next big stock. The next Nvidia. The next company that is going to 10x their money.

But here is what the data actually shows.

In any given year, only 2 to 3% of stocks dramatically outperform the market.

The rest? Most make between 0 and 5%. Many eventually go to zero.

So if you are trying to pick winners, the odds are stacked against you before you even start.

The investors who build real long-term wealth are not the ones who picked the right stock.

They are the ones who stopped trying to pick at all.

A single global index fund gives you every winner and every loser. The winners carry the portfolio. The losers barely move the needle.

And the average of all of it has grown roughly 10% per year across history.

Boring? Maybe.

Effective? Completely.

You do not need to be clever to build wealth.
You just need to stop making it complicated.

Follow for more straightforward investing education or book a free 15-min call at cyofinance.com. Link in bio.

17/07/2026

Scared about the market right now? Good. That means the plan is doing its job.

Your financial plan wasn't built for calm markets. It was built specifically for moments like this one.
The risk isn't the news cycle. It's reacting to it.

What's harder for you: staying the course, or avoiding the financial news entirely?

13/07/2026

Your nervous system is not a good investment advisor.

A plan built during clear thinking is. Follow it. Then go help a neighbor, move your body, reach out to your community.

That anxious energy is real. It just belongs somewhere other than your portfolio right now.

What's one way you're redirecting your energy this week?

10/07/2026

We hit financial independence and did not even notice for a month.

No dramatic moment. No confetti. No feeling of arrival.

My husband checked our portfolio and said we should probably start making plans.

That is the thing nobody tells you about reaching FI.

The market does not go up in a straight line. There are years where it drops 20% and stays flat for what feels like forever. You start to adjust your expectations. You push the timeline out. You tell yourself it is probably still a few years away.

And then suddenly, without warning, it is not.

We went from thinking we were five years out to realizing we had already crossed the finish line.

The lesson is not that we were lucky.

The lesson is that this is exactly how long term investing works. Slow, then all at once. Invisible progress, then an unmistakable result.

You do not need to see it happening to trust that it is.

You just need a plan strong enough to survive the uncertain years in between.

If you are in the slow part right now, stay in it.
The finish line has a way of showing up when you least expect it.

Address

Abu Dhabi

Telephone

+971561073206

Website

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