🟣 I’m a Personal Finance Writer Who’s Lived in 8 Countries. Here Are My 4 Money Mindset Shifts From Moving Abroad

💥 Money mindset meets culture shock.

📣 Special announcement for paid subscribers: Your No-Buy Challenge is now also available as a Notion template! I'll say it myself: it's easy to use, flexible, designed to keep you on track, and so satisfying (if you're a Notion or digital template lover). But this is the first time I’m doing something like this, and I’d really love your feedback. All the details, as always, in The Paid Corner.

I’m French, born in Paris. I’m 41, but I’ve spent 27 of those years living abroad:

• 3 years in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

• 4 years in The Hague, Netherlands

• 1 year in Copenhagen, Denmark

• 1 year in Luxembourg

• 1 long year in Bruges, Belgium (everything in the movie is true)

• 8 years in London, UK

• …and for the past 9 years, I’ve called Amsterdam home.

This is not a Lonely Planet review of where I’ve lived. Although feel free to ask me in the comments. I love that question.

What I am here to talk about is what all those years taught me about how we think about money, or as LinkedIn likes to call it: “money mindset”.

Quick side note: the word “mindset” gives me the creeps

Almost as much as the words boost, scale, synergy, leverage, and unlock (🚀 Unlock your potential!) 🤦

Here’s why mindset bothers me, especially when it comes to money:

It reduces something deeply complex into one vague, fix-it-all word. As if you could just flick a few mental switches and undo trauma, generational messaging, cultural conditioning, or systemic influence.

It shifts the blame onto you. If you’re not thriving financially, maybe your mindset is wrong? Like your thoughts are broken. Like capitalism, class, gender, or systemic inequality had nothing to do with it.

Last reason: I once worked a year in B2B fintech marketing and hit my lifetime quota of corporate buzzwords. I’m this 🤏 close from Writers’ Jail.

Still, I haven’t found a better word. So here we are.

Just know this: I’m not here to help you become the perfect financial thinker (whatever that means). I’m here to share the psychological and cultural insights I’ve picked up from expatriation, to help if you want to understand where your money beliefs come from, and which ones are worth keeping.

Money mindset meets culture shock. 👇

🟣 It Wasn’t a Truth. It Was Just a Belief.

Living abroad didn’t drastically change my money behaviors.

Like, if you’ve always felt guilty buying the good toilet paper, you’re probably not going to start treating yourself to daily green juices just because you moved.
If you’re risk-averse, you’re not going to wake up a crypto queen just because you changed time zones.
If you’re an impulsive spender who lives for the moment, you won’t suddenly become a spreadsheet-loving investor.

But living abroad did change how I see money because it forced me to question what I thought was “normal”, and “right”.

Of course, I already knew that different cultures approach money differently. But moving taught me that there aren’t just different approaches. There are countlesssssss ways to do money. To talk about it. To spend it. To define success. To calculate risk. To save it. To share it. To fear it. To love it.

A few months ago, I asked in a survey: What’s the biggest money culture clash you’ve experienced while traveling or living abroad? Here are things I learned from some of the contributions:

🇯🇵 Apparently, discussing salaries in Japan is considered deeply inappropriate.
🇪🇺 In Europe, if you constantly pay with a credit card people will think you’re broke or that something’s wrong with you, like you’re addicted to shopping!
🇧🇷 In Brazil, spending on beauty isn’t seen as indulgent or a treat, it’s seen as an essential.
🇳🇱 On a date in the Netherlands, you should expect a link to split the bill as soon as you’ve passed the restaurant door.
🇫🇷 In France, talking openly about your financial ambitions can make people uncomfortable. It’s a bit vulgar, even.
🇳🇬 In Nigeria, you can witness an entire dinner conversation about who earns what, who’s sending money home and everyone’s cool about it, no secrecy.

These culture clash moments are uncomfortable but they’re also incredibly precious learnings. You start to see which parts of your financial life are actually yours... and which ones you just inherited without asking.

And I think the real shift happens when you realize you can not only observe these norms, but adapt to them, live within them, sometimes even thrive in them, and that’s when one thing becomes very clear:

👉 The “right” or “normal” way was just one way. What you thought were truths about money are just beliefs, passed down and reinforced by the systems around you.  

🟣 Looking Outside Helped Me Look In

Moving abroad will force that shift on you. But of course, you don’t need to move to experience it. You can also get there by being curious, reading books, talking to people, and exploring perspectives that feel wildly different from your own.

Recently, I read a piece by the brilliant American money writer Dana Miranda, where she explains why she drained her retirement account and doesn’t plan to create one at all. To fund her later years, she plans to work into her 70s, 80s, and 90s.

This piece blew my mind because it gave me a completely fresh perspective on some topics that are incredibly important in my work:

• Is investing ethical?

• Why do we work?

• What is retirement?

It also made me think about and clarify some personal money beliefs:

→ Despite the instability in Europe right now and all the chats about pensions, I realized I still have, deep down, a lot of trust in my state and pension systems. And that trust is a privilege that not everyone has. But it is not guaranteed forever. So what would I do about my retirement saving/investing approach if I lost this trust? (I don’t know yet!!)

→ For as long as I can remember, I assumed retirement meant stopping work completely. End of the road. Work → Save / Invest → Retire. That’s the version I grew up with. But Dana offered a totally different map. I love so much the creating and contributing parts of my work. I’d love to keep that in the last stages of my life.

→ But I don’t want to do it in a place where I’m financially dependent. Because the idea of working until the end of my life feels like just another face of capitalism. It’s still based on the belief that my worth is tied to my productivity. That I’m stuck in a labor-for-survival loop. It feels like still playing the capitalist game but stuck with the worst hand.

👉 All of this to say: The more you explore different views on money, the more you refine your own.

🟣 Not Everything I Carry Is Mine

There’s another mindset shift that comes right after you realize your beliefs aren’t universal truths: maybe the way you behave around money isn’t entirely your doing either.

Let’s say you’re someone who spends too much, too often, on clothes, accessories, or beauty products. Society will tell you it’s because you’re shallow. Because you have no impulse control. Because you have bad money habits. Because you’re addicted. Because you’re irresponsible.

But what if parts of your behavior were shaped by the culture you live in? A culture that promotes overconsumption at every turn. That forces women to constantly upgrade their appearance just to be seen as "enough." That profits off your inability to disconnect. That designs apps, platforms, and systems meant to keep you spending without thinking.

Recognizing that matters because it lets you:

• See other causes of your behaviors.

• Take off some of the guilt and, even better, some of the shame. (Guilt is about what you’ve done. Shame is about who you think you are. Guilt can sometimes help you change. Shame tends to keep you stuck.)

Here are a few personal examples.

🟣 I used to think I sucked at math and money stuff. That I wasn’t “numbers” smart. That it wasn’t where my strengths were, and I should hand that topic off to someone else (usually my dad, my husband, etc.). That’s why I didn’t have my money sh*t together for way too long.

→ But those weren’t facts. Those were beliefs I picked up growing up in a society, like France, and many others, that tells girls and women finance isn’t for them. A society that still designs financial products, platforms, and advice like we’re not in the room.

→ And if you think this is just how the whole world works, it’s not. Just moving to Denmark showed me how different the message can be. I’m not saying it’s perfect there, but compared to France, the difference is immense.

🟣 I also used to think investing was too risky. That if I invested, I’d lose everything. It’s one of the reasons I kept postponing it.

→ Now I understand that fear didn’t come from nowhere. In France, the cultural message is to keep your money safe. We love secure savings accounts, even if they don’t grow our money at all and get eaten away by inflation. Less than 20% of French adults hold shares of listed companies, in the US, it’s more than 60%. It’s not only because of our fear of risk, but that’s a big factor. According to France’s Financial Market Authority, 42% of French individuals are risk-averse, excluding all risks from their investments.

→ And just to be clear: I’m not saying you should invest if you don’t want to. I’m saying, confront the belief. Why don’t you want to invest? Where does that belief come from for you?

👉 There are cultural forces that shape your money behavior. Realizing that helps you let go of guilt and shame that was never yours to carry. 

🟣 I Can Edit the Script

Once you realize your money beliefs come from your culture, or your family, your religion, your gender, your class, the media you grew up on etc. you can ask the question that matters:

Do I actually want to keep this?

And if something’s not working for you anymore, maybe it’s time to let it go. Maybe it doesn’t belong to you. Maybe it never did.

Maybe it’s time for a new belief like:

• I absolutely can take care of my money

• I’m allowed to earn more

• I’m allowed to spend on things that bring me joy

• I don’t want to hustle forever

• I want to build generational wealth

• I don’t want to feel ashamed about being ambitious

• I don’t need to prove my worth with stuff

• I want a savings plan that actually supports my values

• I don’t want to feel clueless when people talk about investing

• I don’t want to live paycheck to paycheck if I don’t have to

What is it going to be for you?

👉 You don’t have to carry your culture’s money rules like a family curse. You get to write your own version. 

🧠 Want to do a little audit yourself? Here’s a 5-minute exercise

You’re creating your own country!
What money values do you want that country to be built on?

1. Set a timer for 2 minutes.
   Write down as many money beliefs as you can. Don’t overthink. Just go.

2. Make two columns:
   Stuff you’re ditching / stuff you’re keeping for your new country’s manifesto.

If you feel like sharing your manifesto with me, I’d love to read it.

🎟️ Want to go deeper? Here are 3 options from the Paid Corner

1. Take the Money Feelings Guided Reflection on Culture. It’s a 15-minute exercise designed to help you find out how your country's culture has influenced your money beliefs, emotions, and habits. And decide which ones you want to keep and which ones you want to ditch. Best enjoyed printed, with a pen and paper, and ready for download in the Paid Corner.

2. Enroll in the best program I know on this topic (and many others): The Trauma of Money Method™. This psychoeducational program (I’m currently enrolled in!) teaches trauma-sensitive tools to understand how scarcity, trauma, and dominant systems shape financial behaviors. It’s designed for professionals, but individuals are welcome too for personal healing. Money Feelings paid subscribers get 18% off enrollment. The code is in the Paid Corner.

3. If you feel burned out by overconsumption, try the Money Feelings No-Buy Challenge. It’s not just another No-Buy Challenge. It’s a 4-week program packed with tools from financial psychology and coaching practices to help you reset your spending habits and your dopamine. You can use either the printable PDF or the Notion template, both available from the Paid Corner.

👏 Well done for dedicating the past minutes to your financial self.

If you want to share this piece with others, or support my work, you can:

• 💌 Forward the email

• 💜 Tap the heart

• 🔁 Hit the restack button (the recycle symbol that lets you share this session with your followers)

• 🌐 Or join our global community of readers in 78 countries!

See you in two weeks, or sooner on Notes.

Pauline 💜