400 Posts
Actually, Monday’s post was #400 I meant to write this on Monday, but instead had to call the market correction/crash 😉 As a quick follow-up to that post, I’ve read optimistic and pessimistic articles about the stock market. Bear in mind that no-one knows what is going to happen. If they did, they certainly wouldn’t be […]
The State of the World
Things seem to be on a knife-edge Even more so than usual, people are interested in stock markets and speculating about what might happen. We’re seeing more news stories about the markets, like the Dow falling 666 points on Friday (spooky!) or Bitcoin being cut in half. Consider the following: stock markets have been going […]
Book Review: The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Marie Kondo is an eccentric genius Marie Kondo is really odd. She writes about talking to her possessions and is obsessed with tidying up. As a child she tidied up her family’s stuff too, taking it upon herself to rid them of ‘useless’ objects. Now she wants to do the same with your stuff. The […]
Property Tax in Japan
I owe how much now? I received the postcard with my property taxes for this year last week. I paid them for the first time last year after we bought our manshon. Unfortunately I lost the postcard from last year, but the payments seem to be the same as this year. According to this website, […]
Portfolio: Making Changes
When the facts change, I change my mind We ran the Portfolio Series last year. The other day I got to thinking (it happens occasionally), and I realised it might be time to adjust my wife’s portfolio asset allocation. A bit of context: my wife and I have separate accounts. I manage all of them […]
Only in Japan: Wedding Celebrants
Just like a Hollywood wedding 😉 Last week we mentioned part-time work that pays relatively well in a post. If you are experienced you can quite easily make more than 5,000 yen an hour teaching English in urban areas in Japan. However, a few years ago I used to make up to 120,000 yen a […]
Investing in Health: Getting Fit at Forty
Making a Plan A perfect deadlift with 80% of her bodyweight on her first attemptEvery year I decide to get fit. I watch what I eat and do some exercise. This works for a couple of months, then I get derailed and somehow both the eating and the exercising revert to normal. Repeat every year. […]
The Bare Necessities
That’s why a bear can rest at ease I was talking to my wife the other day about our finances. They are looking good at the moment, but I am not expecting that to last. At some point we’ll have a stock market pullback or crash and our numbers will not look as good. Quite […]
Death Tax and Wealth Tax in Japan
Be afraid, be very afraid I was looking for the breakdown of inheritance tax rates in Japan the other day, and stumbled on an interesting news story from 2016.Basically it’s a rumour that the government was considering a couple of new taxes: a ‘death tax’ and a ‘savings tax’. The death tax (死亡消費税) would be […]
Only in Japan: Keeping Up With the Suzukis
New country, same old **** I really really really hate these things Every country has their status symbols. The US and the UK seem to share an obsession with housing and leasing cars they can’t afford. The UK uses holidays as conspicous consumption, while the US seems more into toys: boats, snowmobiles, etc. Japan is […]