We’ve said it before and I’m afraid we’re going to say it again – us expats are usually in a better position financially speaking than our peers back home. We often have access to superior savings products, we may have the ability to save or defer taxation on money saved, sometimes we’re being paid a premium for working abroad and often we’re living in a lower cost country.
All of these bonuses and benefits add up to one thing – more disposable income! But expats – you need to take note – the majority of you are failing to profit significantly from your time abroad because you’re not putting enough away!
In this article we’ll look at why expats need to save money today – and how starting small is better than not starting at all, because the sooner you start saving the sooner you’ll start building up interest and making your money work harder for you.
Depending on where in the world you live and work as an expatriate, there is a chance that you can profit more from saving your hard earned cash because you can bank it all offshore and/or defer the tax owed on any interest earned. You will have to take personalised financial advice to see whether you can benefit in this way…but even if you can’t, the bottom line is that you need to start putting money away today for that rainy day or retirement because the longer you put off banking your spare cash out of reach, the longer it will be before you can relax and not have to work so hard!
If you need a real incentive you can think of it like this – the more days you delay your saving plan, the more days you will have to work for – and so if you put off saving anything for a year, you will have to work for another year beyond when you want to retire! Financial advisers out there will actually tell you that the reality is more scary than that because of something called compound interest – but at least we’re all in agreement that the sooner you start the better!
If you’re living abroad and benefiting from a lower cost of living or a higher salary, cheaper rental rates or an improved employment package, you can take massive advantage of the fact and not only save a little each month, but you could consider placing the maximum you can afford each month into a secure interest returning account. You could invest that money for the long term into fixed term bonds for example, you could gamble with it for potentially higher returns with equity based products, you could pay into an attractive offshore pension scheme – or you could simply choose to bank your excess salary into an instant access savings account.
Whichever path you choose has to be right for you and your personal and financial circumstances. We’d recommend you speak to an expat financial adviser who will not only appreciate and understand your situation as an expatriate living abroad, but who will be able to advise you about the range of products you can have access to depending on where you live in the world now, where you herald from originally, and where you might ultimately want to live or retire at some point in the future.