by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Published on Feb 20, 2020 | Investing
Since moving to the Caribbean, learning how to sail became part of my bucket list. I’m prone to motion sickness for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I was the only one in my family that’d throw up by simply being in the backseat on a highway. It is quite odd that...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Jan 23, 2020 | Published on Jan 23, 2020 | Americans working abroad, Global Living Basics
Several years back I wrote about why freezing your US credit reports might be a good idea when you live overseas. With data breach a normal occurrence these days, freezing your US credit reports can make you sleep better at night, knowing no one can take out a loan in...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Aug 6, 2020 | Published on Nov 26, 2019 | Globetrotters working in the US
Feel like you need more than studying a blog post? Find out how I may help. I must admit, this title – Investing as a non-resident alien living in the US – seems a bit contradictory. How can you be a non-resident of a country when you actually live there?...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Oct 6, 2019 | Published on Oct 6, 2019 | Global Living Basics, International Transactions
Budgeting and tracking is not a topic I discuss much on this blog. For one thing, I’m not personally a huge budget tracker. Having done it for six months in our first year of marriage, I decided that there are better uses of my time to improve our financial picture...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Published on Aug 22, 2019 | Advanced Global Planning, Americans working abroad
“Should I contribute to social security?” You might think that is an odd question to ask. Afterall, most of the US citizens with earned income have no way to opt out of paying into social security system. This is because US payroll tax, which funds social security...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Published on Jul 30, 2019 | Money and the heart, Work with financial planner
Recently I encountered a situation that allowed me to discover a new approach to financial planning. Normally, clients come to me with some existing “goals.” They might not know clearly about the amount, the timing, or the importance of these goals, but they have...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Jun 28, 2019 | Published on Jun 28, 2019 | Money and the heart
This post is about making the right financial decisions. To get to that, I’m going to start with a real-life basketball story. 2018-2019 NBA season just wrapped up a couple weeks ago. As an NBA enthusiast, I was glad to see the Raptors brought home their first...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Published on Apr 29, 2019 | Global Living Basics, Work with financial planner
If you have moved internationally in the near past, you may have noticed that it is difficult getting straight forward answers about what to do with your cross-border finances. You may have gone to financial advisers in your resident country. As soon as they hear you...
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Jul 30, 2020 | Published on Mar 27, 2019 | Globetrotters working in the US, Investing, Tax Planning
15 years ago, when I came to the US to study, most of the international students I knew wanted to stay in the US and get their green card. As my life brought me to other countries, I came to meet more people for whom the US is only one stop in their global journey....
by Hui-Chin Chen, CFP® | Last updated Feb 23, 2019 | Published on Feb 23, 2019 | Global Living Basics, International Transactions
You may have read my International Transactions 101 series on this blog. While I detailed how money transfers and exchanges actually happen in the back end of each service, I have not actually tried every single method personally. A while ago I’d had the opportunity...
I'm Hui-chin Chen, a globetrotter & certified financial planner helping you manage your finances from afar and on the go.