The Monday Read
Has Now Left the Building Edition I’ve been working at a national university in Sendai for the last thirteen years, but my contract is up at the end of this month. In a few days time I will no longer be a well-paid public servant ๐ It was a very mixed experience, but I am […]
Another Nenkin Case Study Reloaded
Mostly Kokumin Nenkin Today we have another riveting nenkin case study for you. This time it is an example of someone who has mainly paid into kokumin nenkin (the basic pension) rather than kosei nenkin (the ‘salaryman’ pension). The person kindly shared their nenkin annual statement (ๅนด้ๅฎๆไพฟ) with me, so we’ll just go through the […]
The Monday Read
Some FIRE Otaku from Sendai Edition This post on reddit tickled me and this is now my Twitter handle for the rest of time ๐ New Podcast I was on a podcast this week! The Deep in Japan podcast, by Jeff Krueger. Actually we recorded it a few weeks ago, but it was published this […]
The Monday Read
Exhausted but Happy Edition I’m getting used to my new schedule as an eikaiwa teacher and enjoying getting a good overview of my wife’s school. Very tired but it’s fulfilling and I even lost some weight (3kg). Maybe I could repackage this experience as a weight loss course. The Forum The Forum is doing well […]
The Monday Read
Yet Another Unexpected Event Edition Aaand once again my life is flipped-turned upside down. Instead of retiring it seems I’ll be going back to full-time work next month, working for a boss I can’t get away from (they live with me) as an eikaiwa teacher with a full schedule. I’m going to be quite a […]
The Monday Read
Turn off the News Edition Sometimes it’s okay to take a break from social media and turn the TV off. For me, this is one of those weeks. I hope things get better. Take care of yourselves. The Forum The Forum is doing well (19,610 posts to date). Here are the latest active threads: Charity […]
The Monday Read
Busier than ever Edition Coming up to being unemployed, my wife’s school is (for the third year in a row) getting a lot fewer trial bookings/enquiries than usual, and yet I find myself busier than ever. Methinks this might be an internal problem. You will mainly notice it in the lack of blog posts and […]
The Monday Read
Boosted Edition I received my voucher for the third (booster) vaccination at the start of this month. I kind of assumed I would need to wait for my employer to organise the vaccinations, but last Wednesday a friend mentioned they had gotten their shot a few days before so I went back and actually read […]
The Monday Read
Snowboarding Edition I went snowboarding last weekend with my wife and granddaughter, for the first time in two years (the last time was in Feb 2020, just as Covid was getting started). We stayed at Appi again (the main hotel there was just bought by IHG, so I was able to use some of my […]
The Easy Portfolio
Easy rules for accumulation and spending Last week I wrote about my portfolio, and how I discovered it isn’t fit for purpose. This week I’m going to write about what a super-easy portfolio might look like. We’ll also go into how you could use it to save for retirement and spend once you get there. […]