Review: The New Good Life
A lot like the old old good life A reader recommended The New Good Life, by John Robbins, so I got a copy and read it last week. The first surprise was the author’s life story. It’s so incredible it almost seems implausible. The first chapter is riveting. The rest of the book is solid. […]
RetireJapan Workshops
Morioka and Akita, are you ready to rock? There will be two RetireJapan workshops this month, one in Morioka on June 19th and one in Akita on June 25th. We’ll be talking about personal finance, investing, and investing in Japan. Should be a lot of fun 🙂 Bring your questions and comments!
Exchange Rates
More powerful than you could possibly imagine A friend of mine keeps obsessing about exchange rates, and how they impact his portfolio. At first I didn’t really pay attention to him, but he’s right. Even if you are not playing in the forex sandpit (I’m not), as long as you have assets denominated in foreign […]
Guest Post: Andrew Hallam
RetireJapan x Millionaire Teacher = Sweet As Just a quick post today to announce that I have written a guest post for Andrew Hallam’s blog. Andrew Hallam is the bestselling author of Millionaire Teacher and The Global Expatriate’s Guide to Investing. He’s a great guy who has done a lot to help people all over […]
If you didn’t have to do anything…
… what would you do? I’m nowhere near being in a position where I don’t have to do anything, but I think about it sometimes. It’s one of the deepest philosophical questions, after all: “what are we here for?” Right now I work too much. I’ve been doing 2-3 jobs at the same time for […]
Why does it take so long?
How many more corners? Personal finance, done well, is incredibly boring. Learn some simple concepts, establish good financial habits, and wait for twenty years. Nothing seems to happen for ages, then you look around and everything has changed. It’s kind of like watching a child grow up. You don’t notice as they gradually change each […]
8 Securities and 8 Now!
Cheap but a little clunky 8 Securities is a share dealing platform originally from Hong Kong. It is cheaper than similar platforms in Japan but not as slick or easy to use. I was most interested in their robo-advisor service 8 Now! but they also have a normal share-dealing platform offering Chinese and US shares. […]
Some Shocking Numbers
I thought Japanese people were good at saving Desmond P. sent me a link to an interesting article this week. As well as saying that older Japanese people are more isolated than their peers in other countries as measured by number of friends, whether they have non-family members who would help them in an emergency, or […]
Reader Profile: Stockbeard
Nearly Retired In our second reader profile, Stockbeard tells us about his personal finance journey. SB is one of our most prolific commenters, and also runs his own personal finance blog here. Tell us a little bit about yourself I’m a thirty-something French engineer. I lived for ten years in Tokyo and am currently in […]
How to Save
Not exactly rocket science I was never able to save money, not until a few years ago. ​The main problem was not really having a goal or a plan. Randomly saving in a bank account is not interesting enough to sustain. So what changed? A few things. Learning. Mainly about the possibility of financial independence, […]