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As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m going to return to Canada next year after living in South Korea for almost 10 years and that in order to do so, I feel like I need to have a giant pool of money so I can sustain myself for at least a couple years while I go back to school and look for full-time work. Those expats who go home without this money pool often…
Money Diet March has been in full force this past week and I’ve discovered that I am not actually the queen of frugal that I thought I was. Perhaps that ship has sailed and since I’ve paid off all my debt, have a fat stack of cash in various bank accounts around the world and significant investments, I’ve gotten out of the hard-core frugal lifestyle that I lived while I still had student loans. I’m…
I’m coming up on my 10th year anniversary of living in Korea and along the way, I’ve learned a lot about myself, life and finances. I’m sure I would have learned these things, eventually while living in my home country just as a result of getting older and wiser, but I think there’s something about leaving everything familiar that can speed this process up. Top 10 Life Lesson I’ve Learned while Living Abroad 1. People…
Of course there are times when insurance is necessary like it you have a car, but other times it’s a lot more ambiguous and really depends on individual circumstances. I’ll talk about 2 kinds of insurance (supplementary health insurance and life insurance) where it really depends on your individual circumstances whether you’d need them or not. Supplementary Health Insurance For the sake of simplicity, I’m going to assume that we’re not talking about the USA,…
This topic is especially relevant to English teachers abroad who seem to be some of the worst offenders when it comes to not having an emergency fund and then when something bad happens, they post all over Facebook asking for donations But, an emergency fund is necessary! I don’t want to be all judgey because some of these people are totally legit; I’ve actually donated a good amount of money to them over the years.…
These past few days, I’ve been working away on my new book about financial freedom for teachers abroad and the following thought has been running through my head. Financial success all comes down to short-term vs. long-term thinking. There are lots of people who don’t think beyond the immediate in front of them-today, this week, this month and next month. These people often struggle to pay their bills each month and live in the land…
Dave Ramsey is all about the emergency fund and I would most definitely agree with him. He advocates having $1000 in the bank until you pay off all your debts, excluding the mortgage. And then once that is done, build it up to 3-6 months of living expenses. These past few years, I’ve been really focused on making and saving my income from the day-job to invest in Dividend Paying Stocks and must admit to…
