Taking My Money Power Back

For most of my adult life, my finances have felt like they belonged to someone else, conversations happened around me or decisions just seemed to happen all without much active participation from me.

Throughout my marriage, every time Todd and I had our regular financial advisor meeting I felt like I was a fly on the wall in the room. Our advisor never really spoke to me, he spoke to Todd. If something came up between meetings he emailed Todd and never included me.

In 2020, I had done enough spiritual work to know that my relationship with money needed to change. I received a good recommendation from a friend that I trusted who was very good with her own money and I met with the potential new advisor. During that call I let her know how I had been treated in the past, the fact that I wanted to be an active participant, that I wanted to understand what was going on and be active in the decisions that were made with my money. Additionally, I wanted to know that I was paying a reasonable fee that was transparent to me and was invoiced to me. I also wanted to know that she wasn’t making money based on the products that she sold me but just from my fee. I wanted someone who had a fiduciary responsibility to me and not to a slew of unseen other hands that could be in the pot.

She agreed, she said she could work in that way. I remember feeling relieved after the call, finally this was going to change. Then she sent me a 105 page fee agreement. I read the first few pages and figured that if I really wanted to understand it that I would need a lawyer, I had felt good about the conversation we had had, I had made my intentions for the relationship known so I trusted and signed the agreement. A few months later when I didn’t receive an invoice I sent an email and was told, that the fee was taken from my account and I could find it on the statement. Again, I thought that my intentions were clear so I didn’t look at the statement. I ceded my power and assumed that my requests were being respected.

When I made the decision to move to France I made an appointment, I wanted to understand if she could still manage my account, what were the implications of me moving abroad. I was trying to get informed and make informed decisions. During that conversation, I was told to go spend my year abroad but not to make any long term decisions; wait and see if I liked it. Even though I already knew and expressed as much, I went along with the instructions.

A year later, renewed visa in hand and the knowledge that France was indeed my forever home. I made an appointment with the advisor. I had noticed that in our email communications she always referred to my travels as temporary, it was clear that she didn’t want the brokerage to know that I was resident in France. I also knew by this time that my situation was entirely different. I was now tax resident in France, I owned a French company I needed to navigate both the US and France in my day to day financial life and I knew that if I didn’t do that with my eyes wide open, a well informed team of advisors who were familiar with both countries requirements that I could easily make a mistake and mistakes like these could be costly.

Coming into this year when I chose the word “Powerful” as my focus for the year, it was with the intention of living in my power in all areas of my life. With this choice I knew that it was time to address my relationship to my money.

First I needed to assess my relationship with my current advisor and determine if it was the right relationship to be a part of my team moving forward. I pulled out my statements, I found the fees and came to realize that I was paying a fee that is twice as much as any typical brokerage and this was costing me a significant amount of my earnings every year. I then recalled that in my last meeting I had made it clear that I was staying in France so I needed my financial plan updated, the cost of living changed, Medicare removed, etc., etc. I logged into my account to grab a copy of my current plan and it was easy to see that none of the changes that I had requested had been made. Frankly, I think they weren’t made because it would have been a red flag to the brokerage that I was not living in the US and if they flagged that then new transactions on my account could be stopped or limited. I was in a situation where I was paying excessive fees, not being listened to (again) and having my actual situation kept hidden so the account wouldn’t be flagged rather than having my account with a fiduciary with a reasonable fee, an understanding of France and the particular situation for investing as an American living in France. It was time to take my power back.

Over the past two months, I have gotten educated, developed criteria and assessed two financial advisor firms against that criteria. I have also developed criteria for the custodian (the company who would physically hold my money). I found a few firms that specialize in people who live abroad. I have had meetings, risk assessments, proposals and fee agreements but this time everything has been read and if I had questions I have taken them to my advisory team, my accountant, tax advisors, etc. When it came down to it, I chose a firm that has an office in France, has their company in France set up as the same type of corporate structure as mine because they are living my structure in practical experience. They could speak to the particulars of my situation specifically in France. The other firm would have worked but they are managing accounts for people in lots of countries and when it came down to it I just didn’t feel like they were as close to my situation as the firm I selected.

During this process I noticed that according to the evaluations by these firms, I had very little tolerance for risk but as I sat with that information I realized that it wasn’t the risk or the volatility that I couldn’t tolerate, it was the powerlessness. It was volatility that I couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, had no voice in that was intolerable. Volatility that I understand and have a voice in feels much differently. It was the current advisor relationship that was impacting my risk tolerance and thus the performance of my money overall.

Just the other day, I confirmed that I will move forward with the new advisory firm in France once I receive an updated proposal with some changes that I wanted addressed in writing. For the first time I feel like I am taking an active powerful part in my financial wellbeing. The next step is an updated US and a French will since as a French resident I will need both. The feeling of taking back my power with my money is incredible and feeling like I have the best advisory team around me to navigate my particular situation is what serves me powerfully.

These are the questions that I am currently sitting with in my journal, they are my current healing work, perhaps they may be the same for you.

• Where in your life are you a passenger rather than a driver? Not just financially, look at your life as a whole.
• What keeps you from putting yourself in the drivers seat in those areas of your life?
• Is there anything about the relationships in your life that feel like there is an imbalance of power? How can that be shifted to come into balance?

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In love,
Renee