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Personal Finance Educator and Coach based in Abu Dhabi.

28/10/2026

Parents abroad carry a particular kind of money guilt. 💚

The school fees. The flights home. The university fund that never feels big enough. It's easy to put everyone else's needs first and your own financial security last.

But kids don't need a perfect fund. They need a parent who's okay. Emotionally okay, financially okay.

That's not selfish. It's the most useful thing you can give them.

Send this to a parent who needs to hear it today.

26/10/2026

Investing as an expat: wanting to earn more isn't greedy.

So much money advice talks about spending as if it's the only thing you control. Skip this, cancel that. It quietly suggests that if you're struggling, you're doing something wrong.

Sometimes the honest answer is that the pay is too low. That's not a personal failing, and retraining, asking for more or moving for a better salary isn't greed. It's arithmetic.

It was never the lattes.

Free 15-minute call if you want to talk about your own levers.
https://cyofinance.com/booking-calendar/free-15-minute-call?

23/10/2026

Leaving the UAE takes a lot of lists. Your brokerage account should be on one of them. 🧳

Movers, school places, the car, the visa cancellation. It's easy for the account holding your investments to be the last thing you think about, when it's one of the few decisions that can save real money if you make it before you go.

The biggest one: talk to a tax planner who knows your next country, while you're still a UAE resident. Not after you land. Some of the most useful moves only work before you leave.

Then be patient on the other side. Updating your tax residency with a broker can take months, and that's normal.

Send this to the friend who just told you they're moving.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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?

Address

Abu Dhabi

Telephone

+971561073206

Website

http://www.cyofinance.com/

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