Where is an Expat’s Money Safest?

Once you physically move offshore and away from home, where is your money safest? Where should expats save their money for safety’s sake?

Speak to one financial adviser and they’ll tell you to stick your money in bonds, speak to another and they might mention a specific investment fund, talk to a precious metals trader and they’ll advise you to buy gold, and ask my dad and he’d say you can’t go wrong with land!  So where is an expat’s money safest?

Onshore you can perhaps rely on the government to bail out a bank if it sinks and takes your money with it…but offshore, well, no one can hear you scream if your investment adviser legs it with your life savings.

In this article we’ll take a look at where perhaps an expat can squirrel away their hard earned cash to make sure that the mice don’t eat it and a fat cat doesn’t steal it…

Stash Your Cash in the Modern Day Alternative to a Mattress

You might think that stashing your cash in a mattress is the best thing to do with it, after all, you can’t trust banks and inflation erodes any interest returns anyway.  However, what would you do if you discovered an infestation of mice had eaten away at your funds and reduced your wealth to dust?  Or how would you drag the weighty mattress to safety in the event of a fire or an earthquake?  You see, stashing the cash in a mattress is not sound advice.  However, the safety deposit box has become the modern day equivalent to a mattress for some people! 

But then of course you’re relying on your bank to have sufficient insurance to cover the contents, and you have to pay a fee for using such a storage mechanism – so this is perhaps only a ‘safe’ place for your money if you don’t want anyone to know about it!!!

Invest Your Wealth in Your Debts

There’s common thinking nowadays that because your debt in the form of overdrafts, credit agreements, credit cards and even mortgages is likely costing you far more in interest each month than you could earn from even some of the riskiest and potentially highest returning investment strategies, that you are safest ‘investing’ any excess cash into your debts and paying them off.

This can make sound and savvy advice for many people…

Spread Your Bets

If you spread your assets between banks and across jurisdictions that have investor protection schemes in place and you ensure you never have more invested than any protection scheme or compensation plan will cover, you are sensibly investing your wealth according to some advisers.  However, you are of course potentially limiting your investment options, and if you do spread your cash too thinly you can restrict returns because compound interest will also be restricted.  So striking a healthy balance is the key here.

Take Advice from Those in the Know

As an expatriate you’re in a unique position in that your taxation status has changed – often for the better – and, depending on where you herald from originally and where you’re now living abroad, you could well benefit from taxation saving investment opportunities.  These don’t have to be high risk, they don’t have to be ‘alternative’ or dodgy, in fact, as an expatriate you would be mad not to explore the range of investment options and alternatives you have. 

Expat financial advisers know about how your changed status can help you get ahead in the savings race, and how best to structure your financial portfolio so that it is a) as safe as it can be and b) best aligned to have access to the highest potentially earning investment opportunities.

The best advisers also have relationships with leading financial institutions to ensure that their clients get the best and most preferential rates on such things as limited edition or limited release products.  So, if you want to know where to stash you wealth safely for strong potential returns, speak to specialist expatriate financial advisers for assistance.