RetireJapan

2. Vanguard requires you to buy ETF shares in units no smaller than 1 share when you initiate the account while with mutual funds you can invest exact dollar amounts as long as you have the minimum (typically $3000) to start the mutual fund position. That is really good to know. So just to clarify,...

So, my Vanguard account has been open for about a week and hasn't been closed or anything, therefore it looks like my US address was enough to get me an account! I'm a little anxious about pulling the trigger and actually funding the account and then buying some indexes and ETFs. I think I'll be goi...

My hesitations would be, (1) the rate is not coming from a japanese bank (tho the difference might be fractional, consistency might outweigh that it is not japanese), and (2) seeing code like that might put them off. Ah... That is a good point... As convenient as it might be, I guess it depends how...

Regarding getting exchange rates for trade calculation and tracking sheets: In response to captainspoke's post about the following exchange rate site that he uses: A key point is that for anything that happens in US$, you have to convert that to yen on the date that it happened. For conversions I us...

It's part of your tax return. If you have a My Number Card, you can submit it online. Awesome, thanks adamu! I'm glad that the My Number card is so useful, it's really such a cool thing about living here. I joined a new company at the start of this year and haven't had a tax return mailed to me yet...

captainspoke, you are a gentleman and a scholar! You deserve a promotion to Admiral for the knowledge in this set of posts alone! This is incredible!! I'll be making one of these sheets for sure! I did have a question: you and others have said that we have to report this income abroad to the Japanes...

Hi captainspoke! Thank so much for your reply. For tax reporting in japan, you'll need to get a couple spreadsheets going--I use one for trades (gains/losses) and a second to record and keep track of distributions (interest, dividends, quarterly distributions, etc). Ok cool, I can do that. Would you...

A quick update: I was able to open up a Vanguard account today using my US address (the one I am maintaining while living in Japan), with little issue. I tried giving Vanguard a call to ask them about opening an account, but was told that I could not be helped...so I just decided to go online and tr...

Welcome! Read this first: https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/ RetireJapan, thank you so much for pointing me to that website. John's posts are eye opening and super easy to understand. My plans fell through this weekend so I plowed through all the parts of his stocks series as well as a few of hi...

Awesome! Thank you so much for the advice TokyoWart; It really really helps me get oriented in this new world. I'll definitely looking into starting an account at one of the places you mentioned and see what I can do... I wonder if, because I still have a US bank account and stuff, if it will be eas...