2018

2018 started with a warm, sunny day in Sendai. Hopefully that sets the tone for the rest of the year 🙂

We ended last year with an annual review as usual, and today we’ll talk about plans for this year.

RETIREJAPAN

Every New Year’s Day my family write our kanji for the year. This year I chose 「深」, to deepen, partly inspired by this blog post. I also read this post late last year, and it lodged in my head somewhat.

So what does 2018 have in store for RetireJapan? In a nutshell, more of the same. We’ll continue posting regularly, we’re hoping to write at least a couple of new RetireJapan guides, we’ll work on improving the website and exploring options for providing more in-depth or personalized content.
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INVESTING

My financial plan seems to be working, so boring though it may be, I am just going to carry on doing the same things.

1. NISA

I will invest the maximum 1.2m yen in my NISA account this year, focusing on dividend-paying equities (Japanese- and US-listed).

2. THEO

I’ll continue doing automatic bank withdrawals to THEO every month, upping the payment to 50,000 yen a month. This is about as much as I want to put in so will look at other options if I am lucky enough to have extra money in the future.

3. iDeCo

I’ll continue paying the maximum 12,000 yen a month into my iDeCo account, all the while hoping desperately that they will increase the amount we can pay in in the future!

4. House renovation

My wife wants to help her parents renovate their house so that it is more comfortable for them and provides us with space if we have to go and stay with them in the future. We’re going to split the cost of this with my in-laws, but it seems like our half is going to cost us around 10m yen. I imagine we will have a series of posts talking about this, as well as funding, etc.

5. Cryptocurrency

I have done exactly what I said I would not do, ie start buying cryptocurrency. I wouldn’t call it ‘investing’, and I have already made several mistakes, but it’s been interesting and will certainly provide some blog post fodder. My provisional plan is to put 10,000 yen a month into this going forward.

So some new activities, but the important thing is that the base habits are consistent. NISA, THEO, iDeCo maxed out should provide us with a solid base for the future, and playing with house renovations and crypto should keep me interested (successful personal finance can be incredibly boring).

OTHER

It seems I find work and money goals fairly easy to hit, but struggle much more with health/fitness ones. Last year I had some specific health goals, and completely failed to get anywhere near any of them.

This must change.

After all, it’s no use having solid finances if you are too dead to enjoy them. So this year I’m going to have another go at my health goals. Specifically:

1. Get more sleep, which for me involves going to bed earlier. I get home late most days (after 22:00), and have to get up early (6:00). I tend to decompress a bit at home, so have only been getting about six hours of sleep a night, which is not enough for me (I need seven or so)
2. Eat less. I eat fairly healthy, don’t drink alcohol most days, and don’t drink any calories (stick to water and black coffee). The problem is that I eat too much, and also snack on things after dinner. Need to cut down.
3. Exercise more. I am somewhat active day to day, but need to put in more weight training, some running and cycling, and stretching.

We’ll see if I can do better this year.

What about you? Any work, money, or health goals?