RetireJapan

I was in a similar position once with a similar financial plan. I kept it for ten (out of 15) years and got the bonus before surrendering. Although it was a bad plan, it did make a very small amount of money (better than a bank). It's a hard call but if you think the current plan will make you some ...

So you mean using 5% of the remaining balance each year without adjusting for inflation? In other words, your budget will shrink each year, especially with inflation. But you can also up your spending if the stock market booms I guess. Might shrink temporarily, but should grow as the portfolio does...

'Make friends with foreigners and Instagram and set up a company with them.' Bloody hell, that's not far off saying send people an email telling them you are a Nigerian Prince.

Ok thanks @adamu. So if it is real do we actually have to do anything? As far as I can see it will just be a new site and presumably we will al be moved onto it anyway.

My wife got an email from SBI saying they are migrating their site from March 29th and customers will have to use the new site. But it then says you can click a link to go to the new site now, and when you do you are met with what looks like the SBI site but of course you have to log in. Seems a bit...

Sometimes I am glad that my understanding of investing is quite limited and basic. Stops me worrying too much about what to do or messing about too much!

Yeah that’s what I’m leaning towards. Have to be available from 9am to 9pm officially but I would seriously doubt I’d actually be working 12 hours a day. But if somehow I did, I’d be paid for it so that’s fine every now and then. It looks like a few classes are planned for every week ongoing, and t...

A lot of that supposed 10 year bonus is just a recycling of the upfront management fees that you paid at the beginning. I made hardly anything over 10 years but sent it from Hong Kong to the UK and I had been paying in yen at the time of Brexit, so made a bit on the good Sterling yen exchange. If y...

No, not a bad move as if you are a tax resident in Japan you have to pay tax on the gains no matter where the money is. I had the same policy, cashed in after 10 years and simply reported the gain to my accountant who included it in my tax return. You were paying in yen and got yen back so I think ...

How are the private lessons going? Are you teaching 1-to-1? If so, there's potential to scale this up to group lessons, maximising the profitability. Also, are you claiming all expenses if doing tax returns? If not, there might be scope to maximise profitability in this case through a bit of bookwo...