Summer-Money-Review: Your Expat Financial Health Check

Okay, I need to tell you about my summer break, no worries… we are getting to finances straight away – in case you think I'm about to bore you with vacation stories and off-topic small talk right now 😀.

I swear: it’s all about reviewing your money and where you stand after the first months of this year, using the warm season to slow down and (!!!)

– what might help you to unhinge the next step with your finances.

So… talking about how these 8 months have been flying by: every year around August 15th, I go to visit my Italian family to see Ferragosto "properly".

This is one day an entire country of roughly 60 million people quietly agrees that pharmacies, banks, my landlord, basically anyone with a phone, will not be reachable for about two weeks.

So far, so good… Aperitivo, a long table outside, three generations arguing about the pasta and if everyone got enough and then actually getting way too much on the plate as granny wants us to be healthy and strong 😂.

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And I'll be honest: somewhere between the fourth course and my uncle explaining exactly why nobody should ever open a shop in August, I had one thought on repeat:

Why don’t we have something like this in Germany?! I mean… it’s not that rare that our temperatures rise to almost 40 degrees, and a little break would be super helpful. I know in some Bundesländer we have Mariä Himmelfahrt (… why do you have to write this with “ä” btw ???!!!)

– but I mean whole Germany of course – just stopping for once, doesn’t sound that tempting 😬?

Well, I am usually on vacation this time, so I’ll take time for myself and yes, also for my financial health. There’s one thing I always do before the shutters come down and everyone disappears to the coast: I sit down with my own finances first.

Paperwork. Payslip. Emergency fund. Pension. Investing. Five minutes, six honest questions, then I can actually switch off.

Yes, I am guilty: I loved this ritual so much I've been doing it every year since 😄.

(Just to mention – nobody exploded from the fourth helping of pasta, I promise. I just teared up again, this time about how much I love this particular chaos 🥹.)

So why do I bring Ferragosto up when we talk about a proper money review?

Well, it’s the break. Even a break that starts with mild main-character-in-a-ghost-town anxiety where you cannot even call your doc in case you getting a heart attack from all this food overload (kidding 😀) – it does what it's supposed to do.

You know what you do? You just simply pause for a second, you take time for your loved ones – but also for yourself.

Ferragosto has always marked a turning point for my family: the height of summer, the hinge between one half of the year and the next. And whether or not the whole country shuts down where you live, that hinge is worth using.

Because – heads up – more than half of the year is already gone. Eight months in, ufff.. already? Wasn’t January just two days ago, right? 🤯

And for those of us navigating a new financial system as expats here, that's exactly the moment to ask: what have I actually sorted out, financially, since the beginning of the year?

What's actually worth celebrating – and if there's something to celebrate – celebrate it properly!

Is there still something sitting in a "I'll deal with it eventually" folder in the back of my brain, right next to my Wohnungsanmeldung confirmation and that one Steuerbescheid I still haven't fully understood? (Omg I am still dreaming about this word “nichtselbstständige Arbeit”)

One thing to note: Even if you haven’t reached all your goals, or you realize that you have been maybe a tiny bit behind with organizing your money… that’s really not a problem. What is important – you are reading this article now, which means you are moving forward with your finance topic 💪!

And that's exactly why I won't just leave you sitting with that feeling. Here are a few questions to ask yourself — and if the honest answer isn't "yes, done," I might have a tip for you afterwards how to get there.

The Summer-Money-Review 🎉: 6 questions you can ask yourself when it’s August and too hot for anything ☀️

I have a list for you – and absolutely no worries – this isn't a list to make you spiral endlessly. No, It's just a list to help you find out, in about five minutes, where you stand. Here's where most people are (or should be) in their summer break:

✔️ Are the paperwork basics done? Anmeldung, Steuer-ID, a German bank account you actually use. If any of these are still open — that's priority one, everything else depends on it.

✔️ Have you looked at your Gehaltsabrechnung at least once, properly? Steuerklasse, Rentenversicherung contributions, what's actually being deducted and why. If your payslip is still a mystery, that's fixable in one afternoon.

✔️ Have you started an emergency fund? (Or if it was there, is it still here 😀?) Three to six months of expenses, sitting somewhere boring and accessible. Not invested, not "I'll get to it." Just there.

✔️ Have you thought about your pension gap – even just briefly? Pension systems were not really designed with international careers in mind, which is why this is very important to look at. Women in Germany retire with noticeably less than men, and "expat" plus "woman" often means two structural gaps stacking on each other, not one. So rather look at what’s waiting for you – if you know, you know 🙂 – and take action.

✔️ Are you investing already or have you made a first move on investing? Doesn't have to be big. But "someday" and "actually opened a depot" are very different states of being; we can make the “someday” to the “opened today!” together if you want ☺️.

If you're behind on some of these — genuinely, that's normal. Nobody arrives in a new country and immediately masters a financial system that took locals their whole childhood to half-understand. The point of a summer-break-check isn't to catch yourself out. It's to catch up, on purpose, while there's still a full half of the year left to do something about it.

And look: catching up doesn't have to feel like homework. There's a gentler way to approach it – one the solstice, of all things, already pointed me toward ☀️.

What Ferragosto actually gets right about your Money Check-In

Here's a detail from Ferragosto that Annalisa told me, and I genuinely love:

before her family sits down for that big lunch, the women in her family always take a walk together first, just the two of them, no men, no kids allowed – mostly to talk, sometimes to actually plan the next months of the household out loud, away from the table.

Whatever you make of it, the message is clear: step away, reflect together, set an intention for what comes next – also for your money.

Now …who's quietly ranking their emergency fund status on a pre-lunch walk? #notme

But, yeah, doesn’t that ring a bell when we think about how money works? 🔔

💡 Financial introspection works the same way:

Take stock of the months, be honest about the gaps, and use that clarity to decide what the next months actually need from you. That's not "woo" — that's just how good planning works. Pause, look back, adjust, move forward.

And also – and this is the part I actually want to sit on for a second – the tradition is NOT a SOLO ACTIVITY.

It's women doing it together – like in a community.

And exactly THIS is always the philosophy behind fin:marie, we prefer to work in a community rather than sticking to the super normalized gate-keeping in the financial sector.

Learning from other women, taking the first steps into money and investing together, empowering each other and understanding that everyone starts somewhere.

Why the fin:marie Academy exists: women gathering, not to take a walk and contemplate but to build financial health

That there is for everyone another “somewhere” and probably one that matches yours, we want to show every woman at fin:marie.

After your summer-break-recap: If you've got a bit more clarity now on where your own finances stand – even just from reading that checklist – that's genuinely good fuel.

The temptation is to file it away and move on… Maybe we gonna have another approach this year? 🙂

What if you used that powerful sun energy instead? Maybe you go a little deeper this time to figure out what you can do next after you saw that you have this and that amount saved up?

– with other women who are dealing with the exact same layer of complexity you are – the "figuring out an entire financial system in a second language, with none of the childhood context locals grew up with" layer?

That's the whole premise behind fin:marie's EN Academy: we want to see a community of expat women in Germany, learning the system together – pensions, investing, insurance, the works.

How does community for financial health look practically?

Like eight weeks of short videos and tasks you work through at your own pace, plus a monthly live Q&A with Karolina and her team (maybe me 😋).

So, the question you've had in your mind on for weeks finally gets asked out loud – and please keep in mind: There are no stupid questions, just people who are not informed enough to answer them… and then they get uncomfortable.

Especially in a delicate topic like money, you should be really allowed to answer everything you want – I mean, it’s about your life and what kind of options you have, how your financial health looks like, right? 😊

Also, no, you don't need five figures lying around before you start. The first real step is usually something as small as €25 into a Sparplan, not some dramatic leap of faith.

So we're gonna keep in mind, the goal is…

We really want to get more women out there with a stable and healthy relationship to their money – yes!

People who decided to move to another country just need – as I really know by myself – a bit of extra care and info in this. That’s why we had a different approach on our fin:marie Academy for English speakers, as we do for our German one.

So, we don’t want you to be scared of the Finanzamt, even tho I think everyone is to a certain extent 😂. Or miss out on small details your very German friends, Theresa and Jenny, may already know from their mother,

– Things like setting a Freistellungsauftrag with their bank before their first investment even makes a Euro. 🙇‍♀️

That's the actual gap the Academy closes: not just cheering you on

(but also, that – yes we do 🎉),

but replacing the vague "I should really sort my finances out" feeling with an actual, step-by-step system – from understanding your pension gap, to building an emergency fund that holds like Schloss Neuschwanstein.

To finally knowing which asset classes make sense for you and how to put together a first portfolio.

So I hope it makes sense to you why I brought up my solstice experience – to show you how to transform this intrusive energy into our financial achievements of the last year and our goals.

No need to trade your fourth plate of pasta for incense and call it a financial awakening 😀.

This is much more practical than that: a group of women, a system that finally makes sense, and a few months of the year left to actually use what you learn.

(Stocks, ETFs, bonds, a peek at real estate and crypto too, if you're curious — the point isn't to master all of it, just to finally know what you're looking at 👀.)

So what’s our take today?

✗ 8 months in, over half the year's paperwork, payslips, and pension questions deserve a real look — not a spiral.

✗ Emergency fund, pension gap, first investing step: these are the three that actually change something if you tackle them now.

✗ You don't have to figure any of it out alone – least of all as a woman navigating a system that wasn't built with you in mind.

✗ The EN fin:marie Academy exists exactly for this: real steps, real community, zero judgment for wherever you're starting from.

CTA

Half of the summer is behind you. Here's where you actually are – and here's how to catch up, together, before the year is out.

👉 [Join the fin:marie EN Academy]