Choose Your Own Finance

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Choose Your Own Finance Personal Finance Educator and Coach based in Abu Dhabi.

21/10/2026

Someone asked me if they should buy a house back home before they start investing. 🏡

It's one of the most common questions I get from people living abroad, and I get why. A house is the thing our parents told us to aim for. It's solid. You can stand in it.

But here's the part nobody says out loud: the house back home usually gets bought with money that should have been your retirement. And it doesn't come with a plan attached. It comes with a roof that leaks while you're living in another country.

I'm not anti house. I've been evicted twice, I know what stability is worth. I'm anti skipping the step that keeps you fed when you stop working.

So the order I'd use: get on track first, then buy the thing you can stand in.

It’s very easy to build a financial life around someone else’s definition of success.The bigger house. The better title....
19/10/2026

It’s very easy to build a financial life around someone else’s definition of success.

The bigger house. The better title. The salary you think you should be earning by now. The retirement number someone on the internet told you to aim for.

But none of those things tell you what you actually value.

Maybe you want more time with your kids. A year off. Work you enjoy even if it pays less. The freedom to leave a job that stopped fitting a long time ago.

Your financial goals should come from that life, not the other way around.

Before you ask, “Am I doing well enough?”

Try asking:

Am I building enough for the life I actually want?

You can lose growth potential without actually losing money.Cash sitting inside an investment account. A pension left be...
16/10/2026

You can lose growth potential without actually losing money.

Cash sitting inside an investment account. A pension left behind in a country you moved away from. Contributions you paused when the market got uncomfortable and never restarted.

The money is still there, so nothing feels wrong.

But money that was meant to be invested and isn't has a cost too. It just doesn't show up as a loss on your statement.

This isn't about what you should have done five years ago. It's about knowing what your money is doing today.

If you have an old pension fund you haven't checked in a while, take a look.

Is the money actually invested?

You don't need the perfect savings system to start saving.A separate account is good. An automatic transfer is good. Mov...
12/10/2026

You don't need the perfect savings system to start saving.

A separate account is good. An automatic transfer is good. Moving money manually on payday is good. Starting with an amount that feels almost too small is still good.

People can spend so much time figuring out the best way to save that they don't actually save anything.

The system can get better later.

What matters first is building the habit of keeping some of what you earn instead of spending all of it.

Start with what works now.

You can optimize once there's something to optimize.

09/10/2026

Your passport changes how you should invest.

If you're American, live in the US, or have a green card, US-domiciled funds make sense because of the tax obligations you already have there.

If you're not American, the answer generally flips. Irish-domiciled funds have a more favorable tax structure for non-American investors.

The confusing part is that the investments inside can look almost identical. Same market. Same companies. Completely different tax consequences depending on where the fund itself is registered.

So this isn't really an investment decision.

It's a tax decision that happens to sit inside your investment account.

What life do you want to build? How much would that cost?Most people can't tell you what the life they want costs, becau...
07/10/2026

What life do you want to build?

How much would that cost?

Most people can't tell you what the life they want costs, because they've never actually defined it. They just carry a vague sense that it's out of reach. And the vague sense never gets tested, so it never gets any more concrete.

When you sit down with a vision board and a calculator you may find that half the things quietly filed under "someday" turn out to be closer than you assumed. You don't find out until you look.

Money's only a useful tool if you've decided what you're building. Otherwise it's just a pile of numbers you feel anxious about.

What does your ideal life look like?

05/10/2026

Cash feels safe because the number doesn't move.

That's useful for money you need soon. It's less useful over the long term.

Because leaving that money sitting there has a cost too. You just don't see it on a statement. It's the growth that didn't happen while you were waiting for a better time to invest.

And the problem with waiting is that nobody knows when the best days in the market are coming until they're already gone.

If the money is meant to be invested, the goal isn't to find the perfect day.

It's to give it as many days in the market as possible.

Give a purpose to every dirham, dollar, euro, pound, rupee or dinar you own.Not a feeling, not a just in case. A defined...
28/09/2026

Give a purpose to every dirham, dollar, euro, pound, rupee or dinar you own.

Not a feeling, not a just in case. A defined purpose with a defined target amount for that purpose.

Set some aside for your monthly expenses. Some of it might be needed for an upcoming large outlay like a holiday. Some should be in your ‘emergency fund’ to create a cash buffer for unexpected expenses. These are all ‘now’ money. But most of your money should be going towards building your long term financial security—and that’s the part you invest. This is your ‘future’ money.

The now money (expenses, short term savings, and emergency fund) needs to be kept in cash savings. But the future money—the money that will make you job optional at some point. That money needs to be invested.

So open up your accounts. Assign each dirham/dollar/euro a purpose and cross check the amount you need for that specific purpose. Then the rest? invest it, and don’t worry if the price fluctuates wildly. You don’t need that money now, you need it in 20 years when you’re lounging on a beach watching the sunset.

Short term price fluctuations don’t matter if you know your portfolio’s job is to grow for the long term and you have cash savings set aside for the short term.

25/09/2026

You might not need more money. You might need to look at what you have.

An old pension from a job in a country you left. A rollover that never got finished. An account you opened once and never picked a fund inside.

None of that is a discipline problem. Those are steps nobody walks you through.

Before you go looking for more to invest, check that what you already set aside is actually doing something.

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