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Abena Appiah

A word from London

remittance

n. Money sent home to family, often every month; a line in a household budget that is spent far away

  • A pen and a monthly page
  • Your bank or app statements
  • A call with family

rih-MIT-ns

Abena walking a brick canal towpath in late afternoon light.
Fig. 1. Abena walking a brick canal towpath in late afternoon light

I’m Abena. I send money home to my family in Ghana every month, and I teach how to fit that into a household budget. I make planners, sheets and two video courses.

What it means to learn

Three things to practise with, in the order I would take them.

  1. n. (download, PDF)

    Remittance Budget Planner

    A monthly budget with a line for the money you send home.

    • PDF
    • 18 pages

    I gave my remittance its own line, and the month stopped shrinking.

    $12Get the download: Remittance Budget Planner
    Planner pages, pens and coins on a teal board

  2. n. (download, PDF)

    Transfer Fee Comparison Sheet

    A sheet that sets the fee, the rate and the arrival day side by side.

    • Spreadsheet
    • 2 tabs

    She checked the fee sheet before each remittance, and sent on the same day.

    $6Get the download: Transfer Fee Comparison Sheet
    Phone showing five rows of coloured bars on a bus

  3. n. (video course)

    Budget for Home and Away

    A video course on fitting a remittance into the budget of two homes.

    • Video course
    • 8 lessons

    By lesson three, the remittance was a line, not a worry.

    $59Start the course: Budget for Home and Away
    Woman in a camel coat walking a canal towpath

  4. n. (merch)

    Merch with my drawings

    Printed to order and shipped by Printful.

  5. n. (free letter)

    The Remittance Line

    A short letter every other Sunday, with one conversation to try.

    This letter was about the month after a big remittance.

Downloads and courses

Shop

Download as soon as you pay. Yours to keep.

Abena at her kitchen table with an open household binder.

Origin

Etymology

I live in London, and my mother and my brother’s children live in Ghana. Every month I send money home, and for years it came out of whatever was left. Then I made it a line in my budget, the same as rent, and the month got calmer. I make short videos about how I did it, from a corner of my spare room.

My videos take one part of the line at a time: how to compare ways of sending money, how to keep a household binder for two homes, how to put a little aside for a family event, and how to talk about money with relatives without a quarrel. I film at the kitchen table, in the recording corner and sometimes on the bus.

I am not an adviser, and I do not tell you what to send or where. I show how I budget for it, so that you can plan your own. What I sell are the planners, sheets and binder pages I use myself, and two video courses.