Why do we do things?
I was looking at my spreadsheets this week.
It looks like our net worth went up by 16% in 2023.
And then went up another 10% in January.
In 2021 our spreadsheet reached my arbitrary ‘we are financially independent’ number. It’s now 34% above that.
And yet on Friday I spent a couple of very stressful hours dealing with a misunderstanding related to some textbooks I wrote and publish. I tried to do the right thing but it ended up making some people understandably angry.
I then spent several hours doing presentations with my wife to students at her school, and over a dozen parent-teacher-student conferences.
Why?
I could have been snowboarding. I could have been in Miyakojima. I could have been playing a video game, finishing a book, or hanging out with my granddaughter while I still can (she still kind of likes me for some reason).
Why do we do the things we do? Sometimes it is for money. Sometimes it is because they feel meaningful. And sometimes it is just out of habit.
As we grow and change, I think we need to prune our habits, examine our behaviour, be mindful of how and why we spend our time.
As they say, you can always make more money, but tick tick tick…
(on the other hand, not having enough money and not knowing where you are going to get it from is an awful awful feeling I never want to have again)
It’s a tough needle to thread.
Your First Ten Million Yen 2024
Our flagship online course starts today and runs through the end of March.
It’s designed to give you all the information, encouragement, and support to get your finances in order, start investing, and make a personalised plan to get to 10 million yen in liquid net worth and beyond.
If you can afford it comfortably, and you want to make some big changes this year, you might find it worthwhile.
We won’t be running it again until late 2025.
YouTube
Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We are growing quite strongly this year, and it is largely down to your help and support.
This week we published a video about whether to invest a lump sum immediately or break it into chunks and do so over time. Hope you find it useful! What’s your take on investing a windfall?
The Forum
The Forum is doing well (32,203 posts so far). The forum rules are here. In essense, they are:
- Be nice
- Ask any question you like
- Only answer questions when you have relevant knowledge or experience
Here are the latest active threads:
This week’s links
- The stock market is not the economy, and the economy is not the stock market: Stock Rally Does NOT Mean “Japan Is Back”
- I really hope they win and set a precedent: Three Black and Brown Foreigners to Sue Japanese Police for Alleged Racial Profiling
- I’ve always found police in Miyagi to be reasonable: Following Japan quake, ex-police chief warns of false rumors about crimes by foreigners
- This is both worrying and reassuring (customers got their money back): 98.64 million yen stolen from major brokerage via fake accounts
- Is it diversification? I bet it is diversification. Or low fees: The Holy Grail of Portfolio Management
- Argh: The Downsides of Diversification
- Now that is investing for the long term: How I used the 4% rule over the past 29 years
- This is a good little summary: The Seasons of Your Life
- Praise to the heavens. Finally! Hepburn-Style Romaji Likely to Become Standardized
- Some interesting statistics here, but I’m not sure they fit the narrative: How Many Foreigners in Japan Actually Commit Crimes?
- Interesting (optimistic?) article: What Holds Japan Back
- I like the look of these. Might enter the draw! Japanese Government Issues Commemorative Coins for the Centennial of the National Park Network
- Great real estate in Japan highlight reel from Ziv and co. (YouTube): BEST of 2023 – Your Favorite Japan Real Estate Podcast Episodes
- I like seeing the optimistic take on Japan: Capitalism that works
- This was really good. Might go back and reread it tomorrow: My Rule of the 6 Spheres
- I’m almost tempted to do this! Innovative “Venture Innkeeper Program” in Japan Seems Almost Too Good to Be True
What do you think? Anything interesting in there?
The Monday Read, going out to more than 2,874 subscribers each week. Please share this post/email with friends/colleagues who may be interested in it.
If you were forwarded the email you can sign up to our weekly or monthly list here.
Or you can subscribe through WordPress below if you want to get each post the moment it is published:
Check out the RetireJapan website for more information, the Forum for discussions about personal finance and investing in Japan, and our coaching page if you need more help.
I hade a real nice walk in the sun on Saturday listening to this talk by Jesper Koll “Japan: Capitalism that works”. Highly recommended, but of course he talks from a point of very high privilege (his wife apparently coined the terms “womanomics” and he seems to have worked with at least two Japanese PMs).
#3 – I wonder if this was also published in Japanese language newspapers
That’s a good question! Not sure it would do much good in the English language press only…
Jesper Kohl is a great speaker very entertaining but as he acknowledges himself he has been a perma bull on Japan since he arrived in Japan 40 years ago and over these 40 years Japan has not always been doing great! But anyway it is very nice to hear positive things about Japan.
What is amazing about Jesper is that he can deliver the same type of presentation in Japanese as well as German of course which is his native language. An amazing guy.
When thinking of ‘my number’ as it relates to financial independence, I usually subtract 20-33% from whatever my recent broker statement might be. And then consider how I feel about that.
I figure some event or other could have that much impact–even just a decent shift in the exchange rate might have that effect, or a shift in rates combined with something else.
That sounds very practical. I am also finding that the higher we get above our ‘number’ the less I worry about stock market falls affecting our portfolio.
At this rate within a couple of years we should be beyond the worry horizon entirely 😉
Indeed. At the time of the Lehman shock, my portfolio, invested 100% in global stocks, was temporarily down 65% in JPY terms due to the concurrent fall of equity prices and the strong appreciation of the JPY. This means that it needed to increase by 185% to return to the initial level! Fortunately, it did, thanks to the equity bull run that followed and the strong depreciation of the JPY resulting from Abenomics. We just have to hang on when there is a perfect storm!
That sounds horrendous, pretty much my worst case scenario. I would hope such a thing would just be temporary though.
Maybe I need a higher margin of safety!
Yep I also lost heavily with Lehman and also lost my job at the time, I was not able to take advantage of the low prices at the time, that being said I do not think people had much appetite for investing then, they were dark days… Looking at youtube documentaries of the financial crisis can bring it all back…
#10 is a fascination and detailed article filled with lots of good statistics and sound writing. It’s well worth the read! Thanks for sharing this.