Disaster Preparation: Diseases

Not much has happened and already people are freaking out My wife went to buy hand soap yesterday and the shop was restricting purchases to one per person. It seems the panic over the yet-to-arrive Covid-19 pandemic is spreading. Yesterday saw a flurry of announcements: first death in Japan, several new domestic cases. We wrote […]

The Monday Read

The Monday Read from RetireJapan

Fukuoka calling Finally (with a little help from our friends) we have the Fukuoka events nailed down. There will be a JALT workshop in Kitakyushu on March 21st, and a RetireJapan Seminar in Fukuoka on March 22nd. After the seminar, we’ll probably hang out a bit and go to lunch. That afternoon we may have […]

Guest Post: To Buy or Not to Buy

We have a treat for you today: a guest post from Jon detailing his thought process leading up to buying a home here in Japan. Here at RetireJapan we’ve always maintained that buying a home is essentially an emotional decision, and most people will probably choose the option that they think will make them and […]

The Monday Read

The Monday Read from RetireJapan

Spring edition Well, it’s a super pleasant 14 degrees today in Sendai… which is insane for February. I hope next year winter goes back to normal, or we won’t be doing any more skiing or snowboarding, at least not locally. This week’s links I approve this message: Advocating a Four Day Work Week for Japan […]

PSA: The Dark Side of Financial Advice

Let us count the ways Long-term readers will know that I despise a certain type of financial ‘advisor’ operating in Japan and elsewhere. In fact, that visceral hatred is what made me start RetireJapan in the first place. A recent coaching session reminded me of this, and gave me the idea to write this public […]

The Monday Read

The Monday Read from RetireJapan

Bubonic plague edition Well, not only is winter very much not coming, we also have all the fun of a new potential pandemic. I go from thinking it is probably nothing to thinking it might be quite serious to thinking it is probably nothing again. I think we don’t have enough information to know if […]

Online Personal Finance Coaching

Can we help you? We’ve been gettting lot more enquiries about our online coaching service recently, so it might be useful to go over what it is and what kind of help we can provide -as well as what we can’t. This post will also be useful to refer people to if they are interested […]

The Monday Read

The Monday Read from RetireJapan

Going snowboarding edition Well, it’s snow season but there isn’t any snow. Hoping to go to Appi next week with my granddaughter, so hopefully we’ll get a bit more by then. I’m sure it’s completely fine that it isn’t cold in January in Sendai. This week’s links This seems a bit harsh, although it seems […]

Levels of Wealth

How are you doing? We’ve written about wealth before, but it’s an important conceptual part of personal finance, so it might be worth another look 🙂 Today we’re going to look at levels of wealth. An opportunity for some introspection and goal setting perhaps? Measuring Wealth Obviously there are many ways to do this. Let’s […]

The Monday Read

The Monday Read from RetireJapan

Kind of mild this year edition What happened to January? There is no snow here in Miyagi and I am recklessly strolling around with no hat, gloves, or even coat at times. This would not be possible under normal circumstances. Oh, well. I’m sure everything is completely fine. Here are this week’s links Of course […]