I don’t remember writing that
Last year we ran Roundup posts: for Jan-Apr 2016, May-Aug 2016, and Sep-Dec 2016. The idea is just to highlight the better or more perennial posts that new readers may have missed and old-timers may want to re-read.
It’s also an easy post for us to write 😉
Earlier this year we also started reblogging RetireJapan posts on the Steemit platform. Same idea, except that we also did some light editing and skipped all the dated posts. If you want to read RetireJapan from the start this might be a good way to do it.
So what were we writing about at the start of 2017?
We started off with a couple of posts about the start of the year: my financial plan for 2017 and a report on my furusato nozei goodies.
The main thing was our Portfolio series. This was written as an introduction to various facets of investing:
We had a Reader Profile from RJC and a few guest posts: on private health insurance, on reducing insurance costs, on investing in physical gold, and on investing in insulating your home.
I took the Financial Planner test and got my results.
Wrote about jobs:
And persions:
- Pensions Mercer report (about pension systems worldwide)
- UK state pensions 2
- Japanese state pension
And government policies:
And teaching personal finance in university:
We had a bunch of random posts:
- Angel investing (did not end well)
- Mobile phones 2 (triumphant)
- Success of the master plan
- Big wins, small losses
- Living in the present vs. living in the future
- Home improvements: windows
And a whole bunch of review posts:
- UK robo-advisor Nutmeg
- Dominion (card game)
- theflyingpig.com (Costco delivery service)
- Fire TV stick
- Amazon Prime
- The strategic review (website/mailing list)
- A very long hill (short book on investing)
- Shoe Dog (Nike founder autobiography -really good)
- Millionaire Teacher 2nd ed. (seminal)
- Becoming Warren Buffett (great film)
- A man for all markets (really interesting biography)
- Loan shark Ushijima (manga/film/tv show)
- MYDC by THEO (overpriced automated iDeCo service)
Phew. Putting all those links together is actually more work than writing a normal post!
Anything good in there? What do you remember? Best post?
One bit of ominous news regarding that juicy furusato nozei system which appeared on Japan Times recently.
It seems that the bureaucrats in Tokyo were presumably not happy with the unsustainability of the program, and had instructed the various municipalities to cease and desist.
http://bit.ly/2B1yBIY
Chances are that the range of choices to choose from this year will be much reduced compared to previous years 😉
This was bound to happen at some point. The system as it was was a huge net tax negative for Japan.
If this year is the last gasp of the furusato nozei free swag, we’ve all got about a month to get our orders in 😉
It’s too bad if they shut it down. With Rakuten offering it you can get all of their standard point promotions when you order a bribe (I mean gift). If you game the system you can get an addition 10% in Rakuten points when you make your donation. It is basically free money. The Eyeswideshut household are hardcore users.
Nice one! I wasn’t aware of that particular permutation 🙂
That’s what I did, too. You can also use Rakuten points to buy mutual funds.
It’s my first time and I was wondering how it works if you donate to multiple places. Do you get the total of your donations back minus 2,000yen, or do have to pay 2,000 yen for each place?
Seems like it is ‘total – 2000 yen’. You can do up to five different sources per year.