Expat Women - Helping Expatriate Women Living Overseas - Expat Relocation Abroad

ExpatWomen: Jennifer, congratulations on your book, When Families Cross Borders, A Guide for Internationally Mobile People. For the people who have not read your book, can you please summarize what the book is about?

Jennifer: The interrelatedness of personal relationships, money and international boundaries is an underlying theme explored through the various chapters of my book. The first section tackles the core of financial life planning – your life and the work that goes into the development of a life plan so that your financial planning can be most effective. Section two provides more information in layman’s terms on the technical areas of financial planning with the context that we are focused on estate and succession laws, taxation, risk management, employee benefits and social insurance between two or more countries. I introduce the concepts of residency and domicile and explain how each affect the topic areas I just mentioned. Section three provides information on several important areas affecting the family including what happens in an international divorce and special issues related to the custody and movement of children across country borders as well as some information specifically written for family owned businesses. Expatriation is also discussed in this section. Having set the stage for the strategic work and then provided some guidance on specific financial planning topics, in the last section, I give the reader the tools to take action.

ExpatWomen: What made you write this book about financial issues for expatriates?

Jennifer:   I wanted to create a resource that would fill the void in the marketplace and help internationally mobile people navigate what is in reality a complex combination of international laws and rules that often conflict with one another and to serve as a catalyst for them to take action. I’d like to get the message out that by combining some basic life coaching and financial planning, expatriates can dramatically increase their level of satisfaction with their lives.

ExpatWomen:   Do you think that expatriates are naïve to the topics you mention in your book? And if so, why do you think that?

Jennifer:   While I was naïve when I moved overseas, I’m not sure that all expatriates are naïve, as much as they are less informed or perhaps not as fully prepared as they think they are. Far more, in my experience anyway, view the assignment as too limited in duration to consider it something requiring the level of attention I argue that it deserves. The other problem, as I mention in my book, is a complete lack of unbiased information on the subject and the fact that money and financial planning still seems to be a taboo subject for most people. I believe that each of us as individuals is in charge of our own destiny. While we need to work with our employer and our spouse, women should be clear about their own life choices and be clear about where their current feelings about money have come from.

ExpatWomen:   What do you think are the main challenges for expatriates when it comes to managing their money?

Jennifer: The top challenges for expatriates are (1) holding on to their money and (2) seeing beyond the assignment with any degree of certainty both of which lead to (3) a failure to take control of their cross-border financial plan which leads to many failed assignments and many broken relationships that don’t have to happen. Financial life planning is about working with uncertainty and making informed decisions in the face of it. Ivan Turgenev said “…if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.” I believe this is a quote that every person living a cross-border life needs to look at every day and then take one step forward to break the cycle of uncertainty and stagnation.

ExpatWomen: Jennifer, switching now to your entrepreneurial success. Can you please tell our Expat Women how your business started, where it came from and where it is today (in terms of size, services etc)?

Jennifer: As I state in the Foreword of my book, as a young adult I knew that I enjoyed serving and working with people and also enjoyed strategizing so when I learned that a person could become a professional in personal financial planning, I knew I had found a career that would be more than a job or a career, it would feed into my life purpose. Patterson Partners Ltd. wasn’t launched however until I felt that I could balance my commitments to my own family and to my passion. I sought out a life coach in 2001 when my youngest child turned 1 to help me sort out my vision for serving multinational families and expatriates. I launched the life planning/life coaching aspects of the company while working as a broker and financial planner for another company. In 2005, I left the corporate sector altogether to complete my vision of forming a professional services firm that provides independent, comprehensive cross-border financial planning, investment management and life coaching. We see ourselves as fiduciaries and in this regard are compensated only by fee for service. We do not sell products although we certainly assist in evaluating a number of different products on behalf of our clients. Since we serve an international client base, we use a number of other specialist professionals in a number of countries worldwide.

Jennifer: I am the first to admit that even with my professional training, it took me a few years of experiencing what I now know as “clash of law” to realize that personal financial planning in a cross-border context is not exactly the same as it is in a domestic context. Even though I packed up all of my belongings and moved to another country, somehow, perhaps because this move was a permanent move from the start, I never really thought of myself as an expatriate. Since I was moving because I was marrying my husband of a different passport country than my own and not because I was being posted, I never learned about culture shock or considered all that should be considered – frankly I was totally unprepared and naïve -- and that experience has helped me tremendously in understanding first hand, what cross border living is and how to plan for it to make the most of the one life we have and avoid the financial traps along the way. It also led me to writing this book, which I understand is the first of its kind.

Jennifer: My biggest challenge is also my biggest opportunity to witness change and know that I have made a difference in the world: living and working on the cutting edge of my profession- paving ground where there are no roads, only paths. The financial planning profession has a long way to go in the world to get to the point that it is a respected advisory profession rather than a profession that began in sales and is trying to figure out whether to put the needs of clients ahead of the company or not.

ExpatWomen: Jennifer, what would be your Top 5 Tips for women when it comes to managing their money overseas?

Jennifer:

Take charge of your personal relationship with money.
Set a vision for your longer term goals and focus on creating a written plan on a rolling 3 to 5 year basis.
Create an annual spending plan that also funds important life goals.
Review legal and financial structures given your residency and domicile.
Look for qualified advisors that will put your interests ahead of their own.

ExpatWomen: Jennifer, thank you for giving away a few of your books to our lucky newsletter subscribers!

Jennifer: Thank you ExpatWomen.com for putting together such a fantastic resource for the expat sisterhood.


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