Saving Abroad

I've been living outside of the U.S. for a number of years now, and something I discovered after moving away:

It's tricky to save money as an American living abroad.

Because we're subject to U.S. taxation and our home country's taxation (in my case Germany), we often have to jump through hoops that most other people never even think about. You can get mad about it. I did. Having to do all this extra work and face the extra complication and potential tax penalties and costs from complying felt like persecution. For those of us who are earning a middle class living, it feels punitive.

It's unfair. Full stop. But there's not much to do about it other than:

• Give up.
• Deal with it and figure it out. 

And it's possible that you might have some fun figuring it out! At the very least, there's a lot to learn in the process.

So I'm writing this to help organize my thoughts about dealing with money while living abroad and potentially help anyone who comes across this material.