The Expat Money Playbook is officially out today. In this launch week special, Arielle Tucker steps away from the usual guest format to share her own story and read Chapter One aloud.

She covers her own path to Switzerland, how she landed in US tax compliance during the exact week FATCA hit Swiss banks, and why she wrote this book collaboratively rather than alone. Then she reads Chapter One: starting with why, the Values First Expat Exercise, and the SMART goals framework.

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CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

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00:00 - From bored 24-year-old to trailing spouse in Switzerland

03:17 - Landing in US tax compliance the exact week FATCA hit

06:00 - Why she wrote this book with dozens of contributors, not alone

09:00 - Chapter One: starting with why, not logistics

15:36 - The Values First Expat Exercise

20:38 - SMART goals: turning a dream into an actual plan

24:34 - Where to find the book and the free companion toolkit

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ABOUT THE BOOK

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The Expat Money Playbook, published by Wiley, is Arielle Tucker's first book, written with contributions from dozens of cross-border professionals. Available now wherever books are sold .

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

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Arielle Tucker, CFP® & IRS Enrolled Agent, is a cross-border financial planner based in Switzerland helping Americans living abroad navigate U.S. taxes, international investments, and cross-border financial planning.

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JOIN THE LIVE AMA

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This Tuesday, October 6, 1:00 PM EDT, join Arielle and a panel of cross-border experts live for a full AMA, simulcast on Facebook and YouTube. Bring your questions about the book, moving abroad, or cross-border planning.

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ABOUT PASSPORT TO WEALTH®

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Passport To Wealth® is the platform for current and aspiring US expats. We connect globally mobile Americans with vetted, licensed cross-border financial advisors, tax professionals, and relocation experts who understand the financial and legal complexities of life abroad.

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LINKS & RESOURCES

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• Website: https://www.passporttowealth.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passporttowealthofficial
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passport-to-wealth
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PassportToWealthOfficial

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This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Individual circumstances vary. Consult a qualified cross-border financial professional before making any financial or tax decisions.

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So you know me as the host of Passport Wealth, the creator of the Passport to Wealth community. I love being a champion of anyone working in the cross-border space. And now I'm getting a lot of questions about my journey to authoring my first book, The Expat Money Playbook, Unlocking Your Passport to Wealth, which was published by Wiley and is out on October 6th, 2026. And so I thought I would share a little bit more about my personal journey.

You hear little tidbits about myself when I'm talking with our guests on the podcast, but I want to give you a little bit more background about me. So and how I ended up being an American abroad, as just like so many of you who are listening to the podcast, or maybe you're thinking about wanting to move abroad. So here's my story. I ended up in Switzerland when I was 24. My husband and I had just gotten married. We had moved to Boston after we were married.

We first lived in Cambridge and then we moved out to Newton. And at 24, I very clearly saw the life, our life ahead of us. We both had good jobs. We were gonna buy our first house. then we were probably gonna buy a Cape House and have 2.5 kids and then go on nice European vacations and ski in New Hampshire. I I just felt so bored with our life and where we were headed.

And kind of like that traditional like white picket fence life in the suburbs. And I realized I really wanted something different. And I'm so lucky that my husband thought so too. So he started thinking about his career and what he wanted to do for next steps. And for you d that you don't know my husband, he's a brilliant man. He's a brilliant scientist. and so he decided to go and do his PhD and he ended up getting

Like a grant through the Swiss National Science Foundation. And so we moved to this university that I had never heard of called Ate Ha, which is the technical university in Switzerland. It's one of the top universities in the world. Think of it as like the European equivalent of MIT. So I moved to Switzerland as the trailing spouse of a PhD student. It was not glamorous at all. And I was lucky enough that.

During my undergraduate studies, I had volunteered with low-income individuals doing tax preparation work through the IRS VIDA program. And then I had written my senior thesis on the impacts of the different tax credits in low-income communities. So I had done that, was the extent of my tax knowledge. We moved to Switzerland in 2011.

FACA was blowing up, which means basically all these big Swiss banks were having to tell the US government who their US citizen account holders were and come into compliance. And so I landed in Switzerland right when US compliance was a big deal in Switzerland. So all the banks, all the big four consulting firms.

And I was working with high net worth clients and executives and looking at their tax return and thinking about my financial situation. And the funny thing about tax compliance is it's always backwards looking. But we were going into those conversations and our clients would always have questions like, well, what could we do better? How could we reduce our tax liability going forward? And I realized I had a passion for planning, for more of the big picture thinking and working with our clients and thinking about the planning pieces.

So I went back to school, I became a certified financial planner, and I worked in fintech, I worked at other wealth management firms, and then about four years ago I launched my own firm, Connected Financial Planning, based in Switzerland. And that grew very fast. And I realized again that I had a passion for marketing, I wanted to become a better speaker, I wanted to do more media, and

Doors just kept opening for me as I grew my social media presence, especially on LinkedIn. And eventually I was asked to to write this book. And when I was asked, I could have done it alone. But I chose to invite so many members of the cross-border community to contribute to this book because it is my passion to elevate the other professionals in this space.

and not just elevate myself. I really believe that cross-border financial planning, cross-border work is a very collaborative space. And the best advisors are doing this with large networks. Because if you just have, you know, that one client who's moving abroad and you don't have a network of people, you need to go and build that network. So I really wanted to kind of create a better way for people to to build those networks. So I wrote this book. I hope that you will enjoy it.

I really wrote it for expats of all kinds. So if you're thinking about moving abroad and you're not even sure what the questions are that you need to be asking, or maybe you're abroad and you're realizing you still don't know what are the questions are that you should be asking, or who you should talk to, or how do you find qualified advice, I wrote it for all types of people. my husband and I are both American. We now live in Switzerland. We've we lived in Germany, we've traveled exp extensively throughout the world.

I plan on being abroad for the rest of my life at this point, and I feel so privileged to be able to have those opportunities. It has been a hard one path. Building a life abroad is not for the faint of heart. It's not easier than building a a life in the US. There's so many days that I am like, my gosh, I could do this all in English, instead I'm choosing to do it all in German. and that's

Like there's a lot of hard days. And but at the end of the day, my husband and I are very clear about our values and we feel way more aligned building our life abroad. and so we we are here and we we continue to plan to continue to be abroad. I hope that you find this book helpful. my goal has always to build a platform for education. And so if you're looking for free resources, we have blog articles, tons of podcasts. We're improving our website every

you know every month to make this accessible to you. And now you can buy this book for like 25 bucks. And again, I think it's like my heart and soul has been poured into this book. It is such a great value if you're just not even sure where to start. It's also for other advisors, right? We cover so many different topics in this book. So it's a great resource for advisors who are thinking about getting into cross border financial planning or

Or they have clients who are thinking, who are asking questions about moving abroad. This is a great resource for those clients as well. Okay, I hope you enjoy listening to chapter one, and feel free to reach out with any questions.

Chapter one, why do you want to move abroad? Our key question here is why do you actually want to live abroad and what are you willing to trade? This may be like kind of a funny start to a what is being touted as a international tax book. but I think this is such an important question. And I think it's really easy to step to skip this this the skip this step. So settle in.

Most people don't start planning an international move with spreadsheets or visa checklists. They start with a daydream. Maybe it's the kind of trip that follows you home, one where the air felt lighter, the days slower, and you caught yourself thinking, I could live like this. Maybe it's a phone you can't stop scrolling past, a friend who casually says, we just moved to Spain, or a quiet, persistent feeling that the life you're living no longer quite fits. At the beginning, moving abroad feels aspirational.

Even romantic. Slower mornings, better work-life balance, a different pace, something more. And then the daydream does what it always does, it always does when it's serious. It turns into research. Suddenly you're Googling Visas at midnight, you're deep into expat Facebook groups, you're scanning rental listings you can't read, comparing schools, reading healthcare threads, and trying to piece together what life might actually look like on the other side.

That's when the logistics get loud. Visas, taxes, healthcare, banking, housing, schools. The checklist is urgent, practical, and overwhelming, and it can make the entire idea feel either very real or very intimidating very fast. But here's what seasoned expats learn, and usually the hard way. The strongest moves abroad don't start with logistics, they start with why.

Simon Sinek popularized this idea in his book, Start with Why's, where lasting decisions are built on purpose, not process. The same is true for moving abroad. Before you decide where you'll live or how you'll get there, you need to understand what you're actually moving for. Not the Instagram version of your why, not the fantasy, the honest one. What are you running toward?

What are you willing to trade? And what kind of life are you trying to build on the other side of the move? Because moving abroad doesn't magically turn you into a new person. It turns the volume up on who you already are. If you're anxious, uncertainty can amplify it. If you avoid conflict, bureaucracy will find you. If you're burned out, a new country might give you breathing room, but it won't do the healing for you.

Moving abroad is not an escape hatch. It doesn't fix everything. It's a life decision. And it's a hard one, just a different hard. So before you run, slow down, before you plan, get honest, start with why.

In recent years, more Americans have been openly exploring life outside the United States for political reasons, economic pressure, healthcare costs, safety concerns, lifestyle, adventure, or a desire to raise children differently. One 2025 Harris poll found that 44% of Americans have seriously considered retiring abroad. And the interest isn't limited to retirees, Gallup reported.

Has highlighted that women are more likely than men to say they'd like to leave the United States permanently, reflecting a broader pattern of wish versus plan and relocation thinking. But interest and readiness are not the same thing. A meaningful share of people consider the idea without taking steps, because once you get past the highlight reel, international life asks for a level of effort, patience, and adaptability that you can't outsource.

This is why we start here. If your why is clear, you can tolerate the chaos that comes with becoming a beginner again. New systems, new norms, new rules, new language, new trade-offs. If your why is vague, every obstacle starts to feel like evidence that you made the wrong decision. Run towards something not only away. It's human to want to live when you feel exhausted, disillusioned, or unsafe.

But if your only reason to move is to escape, you may arrive abroad and discover you brought the same stress with you, plus immigration paperwork. Politics is a good example. If the only thing holding up your decision is a political moment, remember this: political seasons change, and many countries that look calm from a distance have their own versions of division, bureaucracy, and restrictions, sometimes more intense, not less. A durable why has at least two parts.

What you want more of, time, safety, community, walkability, healthcare, access, family support, slower pace, career freedom, adventure, autonomy. What you're willing to give up. Income growth, convenience, language, comfort, proximity to family, cultural familiarity, certain foods, certain services, the easing of the ease of knowing how things work.

That second part is the part most people want to skip. It's also the part that determines whether you're going to stay. The Values First Expat exercise. To help you get oriented and more deeply understand your personal reasons for wanting to move abroad, this can be a useful exercise to do, either by yourself or with whomever you plan to move. Note that what surfaces during the initial reflections can vary drastically from what surfaces during reflections even a few months later.

So the emphasis should be on getting your thoughts down on paper. There is no right answer. The goal should be just to answer honestly. For example, many Americans have been trained to associate their self-worth with the type of job they do or the number of hours they work. Is this a metric you want to continue abiding by when you move abroad? If not, get real with yourself. Challenge yourself to put pen to paper, even if what you write is, I want to work no more than 20 hours a week.

And will consider myself financially secure if I can comfortably afford my dream lifestyle in the French countryside. Step one, your pull and your push. Write two short lists. Pull. What am I running toward? What would be meaningfully better in my day-to-day life abroad? Push. What am I trying to reduce? What feels unsustainable about my life right now? Now underline anything that's internal. Burnout.

Loneliness, anxiety, lack of boundaries, feeling directionless. Those don't automatically disappear with a new zip code. They deserve their own plan. Step two, your top five values. We're gonna pick these, not rank them. Choose five values that you want your life to reflect for the next three to five years. Examples would be stability, freedom, family health, community, growth, simplicity, adventure, security, belonging, autonomy, service.

Creativity, learning, etc. Now, for each value, finish this sentence. I'll know this value is present when example, value is health. I'll know this value is present when I'm getting seven plus hours of sleep a night, found a spin class I love and attend twice a week, and don't feel chronically on edge. This turns values into something you can actually measure. Step three, the trade-off test.

For each of your five values, answer, what am I willing to trade to protect this value abroad? What am I not willing to trade? Example, I'm willing to trade apartment size for walkability. I'm not willing to trade proximity to medical care. This is where your destination list starts to get real. Step four, your chaos budget. Moving abroad costs money, but it all but it also comes with real, often overlooked costs.

To your emotional energy and mental bandwidth, especially during periods of uncertainty and transition. Rate each category one through ten, ten being very strong right now. Energy and capacity, relationship resilience, partner family alignment, acceptance of uncertainty, administration tolerance, forms, appointments, waiting, social confidence, building community from scratch.

If any category is below a five, your plan may need more runway, more savings, more time, more support, or a slower timeline. Step five, write your why statement, two sentences. So use this template. I am moving abroad to blank because blank. I will know when it's working when blank. Example, I am moving abroad to build a more walkable, community-centered life.

Because my current routine feels expensive and isolating. I will know it's working when I spend more time outside, rely less on my car, and feel connected to people weekly. P. Even in this example, you don't necessarily need to move to another country to accomplish this, so dig deep. Optional. Use AI prompts that you can use. Moving abroad is a very personal process. While some people may prefer to leave their phone in another room, light a candle and curl up on the couch with a pen and paper,

Others may find that working with an interactive tool can facilitate organizing their thoughts. With that, the following AI prompts are designed so you can copy and paste them into ChatGPT or another large language learning model. And here I go through different prompts that you can use, and you can find that in the book. Turning your why into a plan, smart goals for moving abroad. Once you're clear on your why you want to move abroad, the next step is turning that clarity into action.

This is where many expat dreams quietly saw. A strong why creates motivation, but without structure, it can remain abstract for years. This is where SMART goals come in. SMART goals, an approach to goal setting created by George T. Duran in 1981, with initial application to writing effective management goals, aren't about rigidity or perfection. In the context of planning a move abroad, they're about translating a life vision.

Into steps that can survive real life bureaucracy and uncertainty. They can also they can help you separate what's aspirational from what's actionable. Smart stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Let's break each one down through the lens of moving abroad. S is for specific. What exactly are you trying to do? A vague goal like move abroad someday may feel emotionally resonant.

But it doesn't give you a lot of material with which to actually build yourself a runway to move abroad. Setting specific goals related to your interest in moving will help you define the shape of the life you're imagining. Ask yourself: where are you moving? What are the immigration avenues available to you to move to that particular country? What is the primary purpose of your move? Work, family, lifestyle, education, temporary sabbatical, intent to return.

Temporary sabbatical open to staying long term. Or retirement. Unspecific. I want to live in Europe. Specific. I want to move to Spain on a non lucrative visa and live there for at least two years. I don't feel like I can commit to moving permanently at this point, so I'm approaching this as a temporary sabbatical for my life in the United States. Getting specific can feel challenging or constraining, but it's important to remember that paradoxically,

Asking yourself these questions is how you set yourself up to whether the answers will change over time. Because they will change and you can either be mentally prepared for the changes that will occur in your psychology and value system, or you can be unprepared and wind up feeling even more adrift than you did initially. And that's the feeling we want to avoid. Measurable. How will you know you're making progress?

Moving abroad doesn't happen in one big leap. Rather, doing so requires intentionally executing a series of small steps, sometimes unglamorous steps. Measurable goals help you recognize progress even when the finish line feels far away. The following are examples of measurable expat goals. Speaking to your employer about an expat contract or the ability to work remotely. Saving a defined relocation fund, example $30,000.

Completing language coursework to a specific level, submitting a visa application, spending 90 days in your tar target country on a trials day, reducing US based financial ties. Not measurable. I am preparing financially. Measurable. I have opened a multi currency account and will build a six month emergency fund in Euros before applying for my visa. Measurable goals create momentum, and momentum matters when the process gets frustrating.

A. Achievable. This is the is this possible with your current constraints? Achievable doesn't mean easy, it means honest. An achievable goal considering considers the following citizenship or residency options, income requirements, life stage, family spousal responsibilities, health considerations, career career realities. For example, moving abroad as a single freelancer is very different from moving abroad

With school age children or aging parents. However, one of the cornerstone features one of the cornerstone features of successful expats is their ability, which is to say that if you're finding your first attempt at a move abroad plan is starting to feel a bit square peg, round hole, it may be a matter of reevaluating one of the core components, such as the target country. Not achievable for now.

I'll move to Portugal on the D7 visa and figure out how to manage my US retirement distributions once I'm there. Achievable. I'll confirm that the D7 pathway is the best option for me and connect with my US expat tax and possibly a cross-border advisor specialized in working with Americans in Portugal to evaluate my particular situation and help me to create a plan to move that is tax optimal and ensures the lowest possible lifetime tax bill.

Achievable goals build confidence. Unrealistic ones create burnout before you ever leave. R. Realistic, does this fit the life you actually want? This is the most overlooked part of goal setting and the most important for expats. A goal can be achievable and still wrong for you. Being realistic means accounting for the following. Your tolerance for uncertainty and recognizing that you can increase this tolerance over time, but it will take conscious and sustained effort on your part.

Bureaucracy and language barriers, distance from family, healthcare systems, cultural differences, income volatility, loneliness, and community building. Not realistic. I'll move to a small town in Tuscany and live like a local immediately, even though I don't speak the language and I'm easily frustrated by inefficiency. Realistic. I'll move to Florence, where there's a lively expat community.

which will offset the initial loneliness and sense of displacement that's common for expats in the first year or two. I will budget for private healthcare, language classes, and support services during my first year to reduce stress and take trips into the surrounding countryside to explore potential villages to move to once I've adjusted to the initial change of living in Italy. In essence, a realistic goal supports the life you're trying to build, not the version of yourself you wish you could just will yourself.

We plan to re-relocate within 24 to 36 months depending on visa approval. Timelines force prioritization. They also make it easier to say no to things that don't align with your bigger plan. Putting it all together. A smart expat goal example. Goal. In the next 24 months, we will relocate to Portugal on a D7 visa by building a 40,000 euro relocation reserve, maintaining qualifying passive income.

Completing a 90-day trial stay and securing international healthcare coverage while keeping one U.S. account active for re-entry flexibility. We will explore relocation services and decide whether we feel more comfortable moving with professional support or whether we are comfortable in our ability to DIY the process. We will maintain the contact information for expert handholders in case we get overwhelmed and require professional support in the end.

That's not a dream, that's a plan. Why SMART goals matter for expats? I mentioned earlier that one of the key markers of a successful expat is their ability to adapt. Setting SMART goals is one way to recognize your current capacity to handle change and challenge while providing a framework to revisit as you evolve once you've moved. Make no mistake, there will be trying moments when you move abroad.

A major example that comes to mind here is the end of Portugal's non-habitual residence regime, which allowed qualifying foreigners to move to Portugal and benefit from an incredibly incredible tax benefit. However, this regime is over and many people who are moving to Portugal or even currently in Portugal are unaware of the massive differences in preparation that are now needed on the financial side of the move. Again, smarkles don't eliminate uncertainty.

They give you a framework sturdy enough to adapt when things don't go exactly as planned. Once your why is clear and your goals are grounded, everything else in this book, tax planning, healthcare, housing, budgeting, and long-term strategy has something solid to attach to. Next, we'll build from these goals into concrete financial and logistical planning so that your move isn't just intentional, but sustainable. If you skip this chapter hoping to get to the practical stuff, that urge will come back later.

Usually when something feels harder than expected. Return here when the following happens. You feel stuck, you're second guessing a destination, you and your partner feel misaligned, the process feels heavier than it should. Your why readiness checklist. Before you want move on to visas, taxes, and logistics, pause here. You don't need certainty, you just need clarity. Use this checklist as a gut check, not as a test you have to pass. If you can answer most of these honestly, you're ready to move forward.

If several feel unclear, that's a sign you may want to revisit those parts of the exercise, or perhaps have an open dialogue with a trusted family member or friend. Pro tip: Sometimes having a discussion with someone who is fur fully certain they would never move abroad can be useful in helping you get clear on certain questions that feel difficult to answer without external opinions. For example, maybe your friend who could never see herself leaving the United States.

mentions that she could never uproot her children and you realize with sudden cherness that you don't see moving abroad as destabilizing. You see it as an opportunity to expand your and your family's horizons. Now that would fit into the SMART framework well.

Your why. I can clearly articulate what I'm running toward, not just what I'm leaving. I understand which of my motivations are internal versus external. I'm considered I've considered whether my goals require a move abroad or something else entirely. Your values. I've identified my top five values for the next three to five years. I can describe what those values look like in daily life, not just in theory.

I know which values are non-negotiable and which are flexible. Your trade-offs. I've named what I'm willing to give up to protect my values. I've named what I'm not willing to sacrifice even for the move. I understand that every destination is a bundle of trade-offs, not a solution. Your capacity. I've assessed my current energy, flexibility, and administrative tolerance honestly. I've built or plan to build enough runway, time saving support, and

For my capacity level. I accept that needing help or more time is part of a sustainable plan. Your direction. I can write a one-to-two sentence why statement without overexplaining. I've translated that why into at least one SMART goal. I have enough, I have a rough timeline, even if it's flexible. If this checklist feels grounding rather than overwhelming, you're ready to take the next step.

Thank you so much for joining me today as I read aloud chapter one. I'm so excited to share this with you. Don't forget, if you do purchase the book, it's available internationally. it's available as a physical book or as an ebook. Go to our website, the expatmoney, passport to wealth.com, expatmoney playbook, and you can find our 15 page companion toolkit.

And this is meant to go right along with the book as you work through these different checklists and questions so that you have a workbook to fill out. I really want this book to be beat up and highlighted, and I want your notes all over it as you build your life abroad, either because you're thinking about moving abroad or you've been abroad for 20 years and you realize I have a lot to think about still around estate planning and thinking about.

my family and my life that I've now built abroad. This book is is is a is supposed to be for everyone in their journey as an expat. And I'm so excited to get it into your hands and send me your pictures with you in the book. Share your reviews with me. I'm so excited to hear from you. Thank you so much for being part of this community.