The Monday Read

Dude, where’s my pension? edition

I just realised I don’t remember getting my nenkin teikibin this year. The pension update should arrive by postcard around your birthday every year. If you are not receiving them, best to contact the pension office and make sure your details are correct.

Logging into the nenkin website I see that they are pushing people to go paperless, so that may be why I didn’t get a postcard. Or I may just have lost it. Looking at my account online everything seems in order. It appears right now my estimated pension is 958,724 yen a year, although that should go up if I continue contributing for the next 22 years.

The forum has been on a bit of a roll recently. Here are the most recent topics:

Possibly the best place to ask questions online about personal finance in Japan in English 😉

Here are this week’s links

  1. The mother of all economic stimuli? Putting Japan’s coming inheritance windfall to good use
  2. As a follow-up to the battery article, seems like Tesla are finally shipping PowerWalls in Japan (but they are still a bit too expensive/underpowered for me): テスラの家庭用蓄電池『パワーウォール』〜日本でも本格展開始動を発表
  3. I’d rather they just paid them out of general taxes instead of dance around like this. NHK already considers smartphones, computers, and car navi systems liable to pay the fee, which is basically every household in Japan: Japanese gov’t seeks to make NHK fee legal responsibility for everyone with TV
  4. Plan for the best and prepare for the worst? Lots of Overnight Tragedies, No Overnight Miracles
  5. Shinsei Bank continues its campaign to get rid of all its pesky customers: Revision to Shinsei Step Up Program Preferential Services
  6. This is still good: 1000 True Fans
  7. Very interesting. I am a terrible manager so this was all new to me: What Shape Are You?
  8. Useful to flip this: how can you get people to recommend you? The Only Way to Grow Huge
  9. Good news for retirement? What If The 4% Rule For Retirement Withdrawals is Now the 5% Rule?
  10. New rules for old manshons: New Laws for Old Buildings
  11. Let’s take care of each other. I almost didn’t make it to 17, but things definitely get better: Japan’s Death Wish Resurges Like A Plague
  12. This might be a good thing, if it means schools are recognising and dealing with it: Japan had record 610,000 school bullying cases in FY2019
  13. I’m sure this is fine: Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record
  14. I don’t think this works as well in Japan, but a good example of mindset: The Man Who Retired at 27: Why You Should Consider House-Hacking
  15. Do we have these in Japan? They are very common in Europe: Tilt & Turn: Ingenious Three-in-One Window for Security, Breezes & Egress

Another eclectic mix for you this week. Anything good in there? I really enjoyed #7.

This week’s books

10 Responses

  1. Gee, you’re early today, eh?

    #10 – I hope nobody decides to develop anything similar for houses (single family dwellings)!

    #14 – Back in my uni town and uni days (long time ago, and far, far away), there were house hackers aplenty. I lived in various large houses that had been divided into apartments. And kind of similar to some websites for jobs, the student center kept a blacklist of landlords that were known to keep deposits, charge excess end of contract fees, and so on. (And loan rates were much higher then.)

    1. Only the best for you, RetireJapan readers!

      For #10, new rules are necessary because the group-owning of the buildings mean it’s easy for them to be neglected. Single family houses don’t have that problem 🙂

      1. My pension numbers don’t move anymore even I pay premiums. Looks like the estimated pension is assuming you keep paying till the end at current rate.

        1. I have to admit I don’t understand the online pension calculator at all! I suspect it may be ignoring my kyosai nenkin contributions. The nenkin teikibin estimates went up every year for me…

  2. “House Hacking” definitely depends on where you live. Where I am renting out my apartment, city rates and land tax are VERY high, making it a negligible proposition.

    It also cannot avoid what I think should be a more important issue: focusing on being a landlord doesn’t really “create” anything of value. Any increased “profits” you see are directly taken from someone else who could potentially be using that money constructively.

    The problem with this mindset can be seen in places like Australia where investment properties are seen as viable investment/retirement strategies, and there is now a housing affordability and rental crisis, and a system that is basically beholden to a generation of mum and dad “investors” who are opened to be wiped out by any increase in interest rates or something like a global pandemic.

    As I get older I feel this is increasingly more of an issue. Unless you are providing rentals for reasonable prices, your financial freedom is potentially coming at a cost to the community in general.

    1. That is very true, but probably depends where you live. In Germany, for example, most people rent and renters have fairly good legal rights. In the UK, tenants have a much weaker position and predatory landlords are more of a thing. Japan seems to be more on the renter’s side, so less profitable perhaps?

  3. Re #10, I could write a book on the tragedy/comedy that is the management committee of my building. The five-member committee rotates annually and this year we have hit the gold mine with two absent landlords and two unwilling owner/occupants amongst the cohort.

  4. #12 – I wish they had additional metrics; specifically how many cases were the victim half-Japanese or a foreigner. Even basic girls and boys %s would be beneficial for parents.