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

Moving Abroad: How to Maintain (or Restore) a Feeling of Balance and Control in Your Life and Finances

Whether you are moving abroad to pursue a new international career posting, retiring abroad or repatriating, there are several major issues that affect your pocket book and your heart and soul that deserve contemplation and (ideally) action before you begin filling any moving boxes. By taking time before you move to take inventory of your life and your financial matters, you will be better prepared emotionally and financially.

Relocation typically focuses on basic level needs. Some of those needs may include, depending on what is driving the relocation: housing, schooling, where to buy groceries, obtaining new language skills if necessary and tax equalization policy. For corporate related relocation some cultural training takes place, but this is typically for the employee only. Unfortunately, the internal challenges are often ignored or minimized. The same can be said for an individual’s or couple’s financial planning. Feelings of isolation and dependence, culture or re-entry shock, and “flying money” have led to failed marriages or relationships and failed corporate assignments as well, not to forget true financial stress and unnecessary exposure to potentially catastrophic financial risks for the accompanying spouse and/or family.

Relocation is a major transition point in life, as is marriage, the birth of a child, the purchase of a home, retirement, etc. Staying balanced in the personal, social and financial dimensions of life during transition is tough for anyone, moving or not. International relocation adds another level of complexity.

William Bridges, author of Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, writes “however you learn to deal with them, endings are the first phase of transition. The second phase is a time of lostness and emptiness before life resumes an intelligible pattern and direction, while the third phase is that of beginning anew.”

Understand that transitioning to a new home or going home consists of a three step process that Bridges described above. “Endings”, as Bridges describes it, also known as closure, is usually skipped over in favor of jumping into the new adventure. In addition, Robin Pascoe, author of A Moveable Marriage: Relocate Your Relationship without Breaking It, suggests that “[closure allows] your mind to move on to the next chapter in your life without constantly feeling the urge to flip back to refer to earlier pages. She continues, “When you set up the means which provide closure to an experience, you are allowing yourself the capacity to allow yourself to grow as a result of the life you are leaving. Without closure, you will continue to live in one part of your life while trying to get on with the next.”

The emotions that often get mixed in with culture and reverse culture shock can sometimes be attributed to your stage of life. For example, Robin Pascoe offers the following insight: “If you move home at the age of 40 and suddenly question the meaning of your life, are you confused because you are 40 and life half the human race, experiencing a mid-life crisis right on schedule? Or are you mixed up because you are 40, just returned from living in foreign countries for 15 years or more, and have to figure out a new life in a new town? There is no correct answer to those questions because the truth overlaps, usually against the physically, emotionally shaky and often unrecognizable person you have temporarily become. To cope and eventually get over your shock, it’s necessary to separate the life issues from the culture shock issues as best you can.”

As with any other world traveler, you need a map and a compass. Although the Life & Wealth Map is of great value in viewing your life at 30,000 feet, it is the Life & Wealth Compass© that will help you maintain or restore balance as you transition from your current home/career/lifestyle to your new one. It also serves to evaluate the degree of balance and level of life satisfaction you are experiencing in a given area.

For individuals and families considering or facing a transition to life in another country or re-entry to their passport country, it is important to follow a process of analysis, reflection, vision, action and review for each Facet of Daily Living.

Community and Causes includes activities that you participate in or support that have an impact on groups, causes or society.

Social Relationships includes formal and informal networks, social circles, associations and affiliations that provide a sense of belonging and opportunities for social interaction and contribution. For internationally mobile people, this can go a long way toward combating a feeling of isolation. Are you moving to where you will have to build a new network of social relationships or one that already exists in some form?

Home and Location includes the type of housing, the stability of your geographic location, weather and ambience.

Personal Growth includes emotional health, character development, personal insight and spiritual growth.

Financial Well-Being explores the roots of personal money attitudes and beliefs, understanding the basic principles and terminology, the expansion of financial knowledge and the exhibition of positive money behavior.

Financial Planning explores the following eight technical areas and helps bring the values and vision expressed in components of the Life & Wealth Map to reality:

Customs: This area addresses any specific issues with regard to the physical movement of your personal belongings. Items like the transportation of pets, artwork or a wine collection have unique issues that need advance preparation.

Immigration/Citizenship: Specific details in this area will vary depending on whether the move is temporary or permanent. It is also a key factor for other areas of your financial planning including taxation and benefits.

Cash and Asset Management: Create a consolidated listing of assets and liabilities; analyze the ownership of your assets between spouses and by location; determine lifestyle expectations in new location and devise spending plan taking credit and currency into consideration. Determine what employee benefits will transfer and how and which will come to an end.

Taxation: Analysis of your current and projected tax situation across the spectrum of your life and financial goals and the different types of taxes that apply or may apply in the given situation.

Capital Needs Analysis for financial independence and other goals requiring capital outlay: Preparation of a capital needs analysis to determine feasibility in meeting planned future liabilities.

Risk Management: Analysis of current risk exposure in given border crossing; gaps are identified and decisions made given the information provided

Wealth Transfer and Estate Planning: Analysis is dependent on information from other areas already mentioned; analysis is conducted to determine how assets and benefits will be distributed due to sudden death in the current year and compared to wishes expressed to determine gaps and level of efficiency. Typically the primary focus is on control, followed by savings provided.

Investments: Analysis of current assets is typically conducted when the list of assets is prepared. This analysis is reviewed again in terms of taxation as well as appropriateness going forward to meet the financial goals articulated and stress tested in the capital needs analysis. In most situations a change in residency will change the level of appropriateness of many investments. For example, while your citizenship and residency status may not subject your assets to taxation, the source country of the investment may apply a withholding tax. How different types of investments are affected, depends on the specific circumstances of the internationally mobile individual or family.

The Life & Wealth Compass© helps determine the amount of equilibrium or “balance” in our life. To be “in balance”, all of the eleven Facets of Daily Living must be provided equal attention.

The bonus offered by mobility is the positive enrichment of personal or family life through travel and shared cultural experiences. More than anything else, the challenges of moving to a new destination or going home are to ensure that your family continues to enjoy each other’s company, to learn from each other, to support one another, to become active members of your new communities and to continue to seek out and appreciate al that life has to offer.

If an international move is looming, set aside some time to assess each area of the Life & Wealth Compass©. Set individual, and if you are moving your marriage, joint goals. By utilizing the Life & Wealth Compass©, you will be able to reduce the feelings of chaos during the second phase of transition and the financial impact on your life goals, restoring both balance and control to your life and finances.

Jennifer A. Patterson, CFP®(US), CIMC, CIMA® is an American expatriate married to a Bermudian, living in Bermuda.. She combines 15 years of cross-border financial planning and 6 years of life coaching in her new book When Families Cross Borders: A Guide for Internationally Mobile People. For more information, and to subscribe to the Cross Border Living E-zine, visit


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