RetireJapan

My understanding on the EF purpose was always: 1. For unexpected "emergencies" (job loss, emergency flight, broken home appliance) 2. Should be totally liquid (cash on hand in bank or safely stored at home) and not invested I've got 6 months of expenses kept in a separate bank account whic...

Hi Welcome to the forum! iDeCo only contains mutual funds at this point. You can see the lineup for each provider here: https://www.dcnenkin.jp/search/commission.php [click on the provider name to go to the list of funds] What about for the US citizens who are forced to paying cash only? Do these c...

The wife and I started off with a Kei (yellow plate) before kids. After kids, we ended up getting a regular size Toyota Noah which I quite like as a 6 foot tall American. When the kids move out, I can see myself downsizing to a Kei again. The road tax, shaken, gas, etc are all much cheaper and I can...

This doesn't answer any of your questions, but I guess it could help someone else. If you're handy and/or enjoy DIY, you could save some serious money if you do the shaken (car inspection) yourself. There's the regular shaken where you take your car to a car dealer, gas station, etc, and ask them t...

My wife has been complaining about lack of freezer space for some time now. Can I ask about your freezer purchase at Costco? What size was it and what did you pay for it? We got ours about 10 years ago (Haier). I think 100L/¥50,000 but I am not sure. It is usually packed with stuff. Costco purchase...

My wife has been complaining about lack of freezer space for some time now. Can I ask about your freezer purchase at Costco? What size was it and what did you pay for it? Ahh, this was almost ten years ago, so I can’t remember exactly what I paid, but I think it was about ¥30,000 plus I had to pay ...

Does anyone else keep a close watch on time when using pay / coin parking or is this just me being a cheapskate? :lol: I often go "pick up" the car and exit before my family is finished shopping just to avoid some extra yen. Haha. Or how about those "buy X amount and Y hours of parkin...

I know it’s probably super obvious, but supermarkets and grocery stores here reduce the prices on premade food near the end of the day. It seems to go 10-20% off, then 50% off the second time. If you can time it right (and can battle with the other people there), you can get some good deals. Also I...

The math is gonna drive me nuts! :lol: I was hoping for a simple, easy to apply, solution. :D I wonder if there is a website where I could perhaps crunch the numbers (tax savings vs other options). Is anyone actually putting cash allotments into their Ideco? I'd love to hear the experiences of othe...

Its an interesting question though. Does "saving" money tax-free this way advantageous over buying an ETF. I imagine you’d need to be on a high income tax bracket and even then only start using iDeco from age 50 or something. And keep your “invested” annual contributions lower than the ta...