The Monday Read

Glorious Summer

Well, the rain broke here in Sendai. It’s weird how I seem to have gotten used to the climate here. Summers killed me when I first arrived in Japan, but now I am pretty much used to them and don’t really mind unless I have to do something stupid like walk around in a suit 😉

If you’re feeling the heat check out this old blog post: Summer Heat.

Here are this week’s links

  1. I think we might have to buy one more car, but hopefully not more than that: Why you have (probably) already bought your last car
  2. Another interesting read from Morgan Housel: The Psychology of Prediction
  3. Are you really diversified? Smoke and Mirrors
  4. This is interesting: Learn like an athlete
  5. I am also guilty of living too much in the future: Lets learn to live well before we live forever
  6. Sounds like RetireJapan! The Dynamite Circle: A Long Tail Social Media Case Study
  7. Can’t really argue with this: FIRE is for the Few, not the Many
  8. There are similar products in Japan: How Australians And Canadians Can Invest Like Jedi Knights
  9. Start to save earlier, work longer. Amen. You May Have Longer Than You Think to Invest For Retirement
  10. Really humbling. I can’t actually explain any of the things he mentions: How the Brexit debate was flushed down the drain
  11. Internalise all of these and you will be just fine: Thinking Out Loud

What do you think? Anything good in there? Number ten really made me think.

Forum posts and discussions

Well, the forum is back. A clever reader got in touch and suggested asking my web hosting company to help. Now why didn’t I think of that? I knew enough to diagnose the problem, but not enough to fix it.

I got in touch with Bluehost and they fixed it in about 3 minutes. Could have saved us all a lot of trouble by doing that on Thursday!

So there aren’t any new discussions this week but if you head over to the Forum now maybe we can get some started 🙂

2 Responses

  1. I liked number 8, the article about balanced funds. Actually, I unusually found time to read several of the articles this week 😉

    You mention that Japan has similar options for “Jedi” funds. The Emaxis balanced fund from MUFG seems to match that description fairly well.
    三菱ＵＦＪ国際－ｅＭＡＸＩＳ Ｓｌｉｍ バランス（８資産均等型）
    This includes a balance of Japan and international stocks and bonds, and also REIT for both international and Japan. I think there is also an emaxis balanced fund with only four items.

    Any other suggestions for similar funds that are readily available in Japan and have a reasonable expense ratio?

    All the best,
    Brian

  2. I liked #7, not only for what it said and how it picked apart some of the FIRE suppositions, but for getting me to google & explore the concept of a ‘Yield Shield’. Here are two related links from that googling that I thought were good:
    https://earlyretirementnow.com/2019/02/13/yield-illusion-swr-series-part-29/
    https://earlyretirementnow.com/2019/03/06/yield-delusion-swr-series-part-31/

    Both contain enough data and charts that I go into overflow mode, but they really seem to explore the issue of whether one should (or shouldn’t) invest for dividends—to purposely try to set up and achieve your own yield shield.

    ***

    As for #4, Learn like an Athlete, I prefer the approach and attitude in this model: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/opinion/sunday/swimming-happiness.html