The Complicated Financial Life of a US to NZ Expat

I recently gathered the information needed to file my New Zealand taxes. This was a multi-week task that required downloading documents from family financial accounts spanning three different continents. It was as exciting as it sounds, and if it were the only tax experience I had to endure each year, it would be bearable. However, as an expatriate (expat) US citizen, I must also file US taxes annually because the US is one of a handful of countries that taxes its citizens no matter where they live. An additional complication is that the New Zealand and US tax years do not match up. Hence, the information I gather for one regime is not complete for the other. All of this leads me to the conclusion that as an expat US military retiree family, we lead a complicated financial life.

Suppose you’re considering becoming an expat, expat retiree, or expat military retiree (like me). In that case, your financial life need not be as complicated as mine. Don’t get me wrong, if you want to be an expat, you are accepting a significant amount of financial friction in your life. However, I’ve logged below several engaging lessons learned from my complicated financial life that should help you navigate that process more efficiently. Those lessons include the importance of paying for expert tax advice, as well as finding a money tracking program that can access all your accounts in their various currencies. There are several more, all of which are worth considering before making that move. Continue reading

Guest Post: Worth vs. “Worth It” Meets Value Purchasing

A Grumpus Introduction

Chris Pascale is back with another guest post. For those of you who don’t remember, Chris wrote both the Golden Albatrosses Killed Your Golden Goose and the Cut the Cord, Drop the Albatross  posts. Those articles continue to earn comments and clicks, which for anyone running a blog (like yours truly) is a good thing. In today’s article, Chris takes time to explain the concept of Value Purchasing, as well as reveal some of the purchases he and his wife either make, or don’t, based on their values.

Chris placed his short biography at the end of this article, and I’m sure he’d appreciate it if you checked out his other work. I personally recommend his poetry book called War Poems: A Marine’s Tour 2003-2008. It addresses many of the same issues I touched on in my pre-retirement and mental health article. With all of that out of the way, I’m turning the remainder of this article over to Chris. My inputs from here on out are limited to the pictures and captions. Enjoy! Continue reading

Cut the Cord, Drop the Albatross 

Chris is Back with Another Guest Post

Greetings again everyone. I’m in the final throws of editing my book, and as such, I haven’t found time to write any new posts. However, I’m close to what I hope is a final product, which means I’ll return to blogging at regular intervals soon!

In the meantime, Chris Pascale threw me (another) solid and wrote (another) awesome guest post. This one chronicles his and his wife’s efforts to teach their kids useful life and financial lessons. All I managed to do was to add pictures and (somewhat) funny captions. Continue reading