International Tax Information Sharing
Er, busted? A reader mentioned this news story in the comments last week. Over two years old, but very interesting, and likely to affect some of our readers. Basically 51 countries and counting agreed to automatically share information about bank accounts and financial assets owned by each others’ citizens. The USA does not seem to […]
REVIEW: Invest Like a Pro
The title is misleading… I read Invest Like a Pro last week. It’s a short book written by Jesse Mecham, who started the popular You Need a Budget system. I don’t use YNAB myself, but it seems like a decent system if you are trying to manage your spending. I was especially interested in Invest […]
Moving to the Country
Japan’s villages and towns need you Osato near Sendai (Google maps street view) You may have seen the news stories about Japan’s empty house problem. It’s also no secret that as Tokyo is still booming, towns and villages across Japan are hollowing out as young people leave to find jobs and lives in the cities. […]
Reader Profile: Sean
The English School Owner A new reader profile for you. Like many of our readers, Sean owns an English school and is thinking about the future. He asked some questions over email and then very kindly agreed to write about his background. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Originally from the UK I’ve lived […]
The Economy
What is it good for? Absolutely… I got an interesting question from a reader last week. They asked about what the recent Bank of Japan announcements meant and how we could take advantage of them going forward. What effects will the stimuli have on our lives? I read this article shortly afterwards. And to be […]
Summer Heat
Top Ten Tips It just started getting hot in Sendai (we’re having a great summer weather-wise) so a post on staying cool seems appropriate. Can’t be writing about the stock market all the time 😉 So here are my top ten tips to stay cool in the Japanese summer. Go outside and do some exercise […]
The Exit Tax
You can check in any time you like… This one crept under the radar somewhat. In 2015 the Japanese Diet approved a bill imposing an exit tax on ‘wealthy individuals’. The amount to qualify as ‘wealthy’ is only 100m yen in worldwide assets. Not pocket change, but not the wealth of Croesus either. Many RetireJapan […]
When the Snowball Starts Rolling
Try to keep up! The snowball effect in investing is basically the idea that you start off investing some money (snow) but as you add more money the invested money starts to generate returns (the snowball is picking up snow off the ground as well as having snow added by you). At first the amount […]
Spread the Word
… you’re my only hope The RetireJapan mailing list went over 200 subscribers last week (and the Facebook page has just over 260 likes). This is great progress! The comments on the blog and in the forum are starting to take off. People who know more than I do are popping in to share information and […]
Public Commentary on Investing
Where to start? Here is an article talking about the J401k and upcoming changes from January. Unfortunately the article is not very clear (for a better explanation look no further than our own J401k page), but more than that, the comments are somewhat typical. From the guy that assumes that investing in foreign stocks means […]