The Monday Read

March 5th, 2018

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I had a really busy/intense weekend, so here are the best of the things I read this week. More from me when my brain recovers.

Derek Sivers tell us to get specific. I like this a lot.

Cake now or cake tomorrow? The crux of personal finance.

This ‘starve and stack’ idea is pretty interesting. The limited time frame makes it bearable, and the intensity allows you to accomplish significant things.

Ten reasons to invest in index funds.

These twelve rules for life are pretty good. I like #3 and #8 😉

A fairly down-to-earth millionaire interview from ESI.

A more nuanced take on savings rates. Ours is comfortably over 50% now, but it was much lower when our three girls were at home.

Tim Ferriss interviewing Naval Ravikant: podcast and transcript. Really good stuff.

Questions to ask during the next bear market.

Morgan Housel has a great list of important things we don’t notice because they are obvious.

Does money make us happy? Or is this a bit more nuanced?

An article about how the Olympics isn’t going to magically fix everything wrong with Japan. Well, duh.

Physician on Fire writes about the book How to Think about Money.

This article claims the yen will remain stable going forward. Get ready for it to shoot up in three… two… one…

I really enjoy the vlog Tokyo on Fire. In this episode they talk about why the labour deregulation bill failed to clear the Diet last week.

Being unable to explain things clearly without jargon is probably a red flag.

There are many reasons to be optimistic these days. 
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Anything good in there? Any great news stories we missed?

12 Responses

  1. I’m enjoying these collections of links a lot, I like to discover new blogs, in particular when someone does the curation job for me 🙂
    Keep these Monday reads coming, thanks !

  2. Thanks so very much for sharing my post on savings rates. Having a rate greater than 50% is fantastic! That said, I believe you can be on track to achieve your goals with a wide range of rates. Personal finance is personal!

    1. Thanks for writing it, Jason! I enjoyed your take on savings rates.
      For every thing, a season. As long as you aren’t spending more than you earn…

  3. Really enjoyed reading through this list. Thank you for putting it all together.
    Looking forward to next Monday’s links.

  5. Ben Carlson (A Wealth of Common Sense) is an excellent financial adviser and analyst I would also strongly recommend his weekly podcast, Animal Spirits for those interested.

  6. Hi RetireJapan,
    Can I ask if you include the compulsory Japanese pension payments into your savings rate? I’m trying to calculate our savings rate now and not sure if I should include the pension payments because it is before tax and it is not guaranteed that I will receive the payments later.

    1. Hi Dr. S
      I’m not sure it really matters how you work out your savings rate. After all, the only person who really cares about it is you 😉
      As long as you 1) have an idea what it is, and 2) try to improve it over time I think you’re 90% of the way there.
      Some people use gross income, others net. Some include pension payments and mortgage payments, or payments toward debt.
      I like to use net income after tax and social security, and don’t count mortgage payments ,etc. as saving. I don’t think that is ‘correct’, it just makes sense to me.
      Investopedia also seems to favour % of disposable income as savings rate: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/savings-rate.asp

      1. Thank RetireJapan,
        Makes sense to me not to include mortgage payments or payments towards debt.
        You make a great point about aiming to improve it over time. I have some goals set in place to increase my savings rate within the next two few years.
        I am very impressed with your 50% savings rate!
        BTW, any idea of the average household savings rate for Japan. I know it isn’t an accurate figure but still, I couldn’t find an up to date estimate.
        Just curious:)

      2. Well, you have to remember we are DINKS now. Makes a big difference.
        I found a bunch of articles about savings rates and amounts in Japan. I think this one is saying that the savings rate is 0.75%: http://www.garbagenews.net/archives/1325243.html
        This one says the average amount of savings for a family is 18.2m yen: https://rocketnews24.com/2017/05/17/901903/
        Both of these should be taken with a pinch of salt due to the large amount of cash savings floating around Japan.