Welcome to The Monday Read, RetireJapan’s weekly collection of content, musings, and links related to personal finance and life in Japan.
Had a really fun catch up session with graduates of our Your First Ten Million Yen course last weekend. We’ve run two cohorts so far, so it was great to hear everyone’s success stories and setbacks, and to answer questions.
We had questions about investing, exchange rates, taxes, naturalising, NISA, iDeCo, life insurance, moving abroad temporarily, and more.
We’ll be running the next cohort of the course in 2024. If you are interested in taking it, or would like to get more information, you can sign up to the course mailing list here.
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This week’s books
I started reading Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man, by Steve Alpert, this week. It’s his story of working at and with Studio Ghibli for fifteen years. Really interesting so far. Recommend for a look at business practices in the last couple of decades and for the cameos.
This week’s service
I had an old computer I needed to get rid of, so I did a quick search for disposal places online and found ReNet.jp. They will collect your old computer (and appliances, if you send them in together) for free.
You can pay them to delete the data and provide a shipping box, but you don’t need to. I wiped the computer myself and got some old boxes from the supermarket to ship it in.
It was very easy to schedule pickup online (Sagawa collected mine) and it seems to have worked smoothly for me. Free, easy, convenient.
Product of the week
I actually bought this Almond Cream in a supermarket in Miyakojima earlier in the year, but just opened it recently. It is fantastic. Really tasty.
I’ve never seen it in Sendai so had a look online and found it on Amazon. Just a little bit spread on toast is a decadent treat.
This week’s links
- Fortunately I figured this out around the time I started focusing on personal finance: Respect and Admiration
- This is a nice little podcast from a translator in Japan. This episode is about medical insurance: Ohazassu Podcast Episode 21
- Is there one? What’s the perfect investment allocation?
- Great reminder: This Will Not Always Be a Thing
- Great breakdown from Cal Newport (YouTube): Why You Feel Tired, Burn’t Out & Overwhelmed All The Time (How To Fix It)
- Plus ca change (new Kishida cabinet): Nothing a reshuffle can fix
- Which do you choose? The meanings of life
- Cracks showing in the Chinese economy? China’s Growth Prospects, Part I and From Fetish To Fetter: China’s Model Of Investment-Led Growth
- Love the writing in this: The internet is already over
- Well, people selling real estate benefit: Japan Benefits from China Property Market Turmoil
- Enjoyed this manifesto from Mister Money Mustache: Efficiency is the Highest Form of Beauty
- Really interesting discussion with Ziv and Emil (YouTube): What is Japan’s Real Estate Market Like?
- Not sure why Japan gave up on this, they are going to regret it when the big one hits Tokyo: Capital gains
What do you think? Anything interesting in there?
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