Public Commentary on Investing

Where to start?


Here is an article talking about the J401k and upcoming changes from January. Unfortunately the article is not very clear (for a better explanation look no further than our own J401k page), but more than that, the comments are somewhat typical.

From the guy that assumes that investing in foreign stocks means choosing individual companies (not possible in a J401k account), to people mocking blogs as sources of information (arguably more impartial than commission-compensated ‘professionals’), to others discussing the national pension scheme as though it were optional, and a few advocating for ‘safer’ methods of investing.

My one sentence advice for people who want to get started with saving for retirement:

“First, figure out what you spend your money on and cut unnecessary spending, then save up an emergency fund, then invest in a J401k account, a NISA account, a robo-advisor, or an online broker, in that order.”

My RetireJapan workbook (which expands the above a little, but not much) should be finished by the end of this month. Otanoshimi!

5 Responses

  2. Do the changes is the J401K rules mean that lecturers at private universities will also be able to open an account? Are there any links to Japanese sites explaining this clearly?

    1. Unfortunately, the answers to your questions are ‘I think so’ and ‘no’.
      The problem with J401k is that almost no-one I have spoken to (including people working in banks and in the accounting section of my university) have heard of it, let alone understand it.
      Even the people in charge of running it don’t understand how the rules will work in practice (back when we switched from kyosai nenkin to kosei nenkin last year the pension adminstration told me we’d be able to open accounts -my university produced a memo shortly afterwards that negated this).
      However, this time I am hopeful again. There is a fair amount of information online indicating that public servants and homemakers will be able to open J401k accounts. I can’t see how university staff would be left out of that. However, until I am able to open my own account I can’t guarantee anything 🙂
      Here are some links:
      https://upin.jp/11791
      http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLZO02743060V20C16A5EA2000/
      https://www.kakei.club/401k/kaisei.html
      Unfortunately there is nothing on the official website because the new regulations will not be in effect until January 2017.
      I’ll keep you posted on the blog 🙂

      1. Thanks! I’d be a bit annoyed though if lecturers at public universities could open one but not lecturers at private universities. The tax benefits and investments options (i.e. no options) for the private schools pension plan are not great.

      2. It seems as though the purpose of the next set of reforms is to allow everyone in Japan access to the J401k (presumably because the public pension scheme is not going to be able to provide everyone with adequate payments, although they don’t say this) so I would be very surprised if any working group were left out.
        Fingers crossed!