The Monday Read

Cooler temperatures prevail?

Well, it is positively pleasant this evening -temperature in the mid-20s. Aaaah.

I’ve had a lot of coaching requests recently. Seems like people are taking advantage of the current situation to get their finances in order.

I’m a bit busy at the moment with a non-RetireJapan publishing project, but after that I think I’ll turn my attention on updating the RJ Guides. Anyone who has bought them will get any new editions for free when they come out. Should happen a bit later in the year.

This week’s links

  1. For us normal people, probably best to ignore macro-economics and just focus on saving and investing as much as is comfortable: Warren Buffett on negative rates and ‘the most important question in the world’
  2. I would love to be able to design my own index and then buy it through a broker. I think some brokers in the US already have this kind of service: Socially Responsible Investing: Is It Also More Profitable?
  3. I think this would be really good for Japan: Out of the city
  4. Someday I will have my life set up like this: 24 Hours with Tim Ferriss, a Sample Schedule
  5. Interesting. My own thoughts are similar: Choosing How to Invest Time and Money
  6. This is good and hopefully will encourage more people to switch to low-cost carriers: Gov’t eyes lower or no fees to switch mobile carrier with same number
  7. The new re-entry requirements might seem like an improvement, but in practice they might be even worse. I certainly wouldn’t gamble by leaving Japan at the moment.

What do you think? Anything good in there? I found 4 and 5 inspiring.

This week’s books

Continued my reading streak this week.

11 Responses

  1. Thank you, Ben, for sending me the The Monday Read.
    I look forward to them!
    Today, I was inspired by your 4. 5. pick.

    I found you 4 weeks ago, bought and read “Millionaire Teacher”. Then, I began buying indexed funds at SBI Securities (shoken). I found moneysensecollege (Japanese) and took their free online classes.

    I am still just learning about “investing”. Opening accounts in Japan for investing, doing the configuration, navigating the sites is still a challenge. But if anyone here would like a help, I am here. I’m a 2nd generation Japanese-Brazilian and Japanese is my third language.

    Namaste,

  2. I don’t follow the Japanese market or companies too closely so does anyone have insight into Buffet’s recent investments into the following Japanese companies: Itochu, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo? He picked up a 5% stake in each and may move to 9.9% in the future.

    #7 is very disappointing and frustrating for me and my family.

    1. I’ve been buying those in my wife’s account this year. No insight, I guess he thought they were a good deal compared to the richly valued US market?

  3. One #1.

    This affects a lot of individual investors though. Fined income, makes up a larger portion of many retirees portfolios. With bond rates being non-existent it means many investors face a riskier retirement, with portfolios weighted more towards stocks.

    1. Yes. I just heard this phrase summarizing the situation “return free risk” instead of “risk free returns” because you can lose a lot of money on bonds particularly if there is inflation. The US fed is trying to make inflation…and make it higher than the 2% they’ve been talking about for years. If you have bonds at 1% and inflation is running 3-4%, you’re losing money. Personally, I feel this is very, very unfair and I think people are getting duped without realizing it. Instead of parking your savings in a CD/bond/treasury, people have to take on additional risk just to retain their current savings.

  4. There’s one more potential catch that complicates changing cellphone providers (#6). A few years ago, I put up with the process and changed to a low-cost provider. I’d like to do the same for my wife, but so many people know her Softbank email address that she doesn’t want to change. I wonder how many other people are in her situation. If only she had used a gmail address.

    The one capability not offered by my provider that I miss is voice mail for missed calls. I don’t know if other low-cost providers have the same limitation.

    1. I believe that the email issue is one of if not the main reason why 90% of people are still using the three main carriers. I was disappointed to learn that I could not keep my email address, even though I was changing to the low-cost provider operated by the main carrier I was contracted to at the time.

      As a solution off the top of my head, can your wife adopt a changeover period? For example, obtain a gmail address now that is the same or similar to the Softbank address. Then, over the next few months, every time someone emails her Softbank address, she should reply from the gmail account and include a PS explaining she will disabling the Softbank address in the future, so the recipient should update their address book.
      Around the middle of March, she can email everyone in her address book to inform them of the change. She will then be ready to take advantage of the back-to-school deals in April, without any worry of losing contact with someone important. (You may want to change the schedule, based on any contract renewal period that may be coming up)

      If someone (a) is not in her address book and (b) has not contacted her in half a year, then is it worth paying 5,000 yen per month on the off chance of receiving an email from them sometime in the future?

  5. I was able to access #7 yesterday, but when I tried to share it with a friend today it seems to have been deleted or moved. A google search for the title of the document returns a link to the dead address above.

    1. Thank for letting me know! Seems they updated the file, and instead of putting it in the same place, they deleted the old one and made a new one.

      I updated the link.