US Citizen (Dummy) looking to boost Retirement

[SeaDaddy]

Hello, I am a US Citizen [39M] who has been living in Japan for almost 15 years now. My wife is Japanese and we have been trying to secure a little more for retirement but being an American it seems my options are severely limited.

IDeCo, NISA, etc are out of the question.

I am a part time employee enrolled in Kosei Nenkin so I cannot enroll in Kokumin Nenkin Kikin or Fuka Nenkin.

I don't have an IRA in America. I do have a bank account still open and could start an IRA with my credit union but that seems a complete waste with the weak yen and the fact I probably won't be moving back to the US to retire. I also file my taxes under the Foreign Income Exclusion.

The only other option would be investing. From my reading and searches it seems my best choices are Interactive Brokers, Firstrade, or TD Ameritrade.
From my understanding I shouldn't invest in one of their IRAs because of taxes?
In fact, my only option would be in US based EFTs?

Does anyone have experience with these companies as an American living in Japan? How hard is it to start an account and which would be best for someone who has no experience investing/trading?

As a last question from someone who is afraid of loosing his whole retirement from bad investing is there a safer option out there?

[runmanTX]

Hello, I am a US Citizen [39M] who has been living in Japan for almost 15 years now. My wife is Japanese and we have been trying to secure a little more for retirement but being an American it seems my options are severely limited.

IDeCo, NISA, etc are out of the question.

I am a part time employee enrolled in Kosei Nenkin so I cannot enroll in Kokumin Nenkin Kikin or Fuka Nenkin.

I don't have an IRA in America. I do have a bank account still open and could start an IRA with my credit union but that seems a complete waste with the weak yen and the fact I probably won't be moving back to the US to retire. I also file my taxes under the Foreign Income Exclusion.

The only other option would be investing. From my reading and searches it seems my best choices are Interactive Brokers, Firstrade, or TD Ameritrade.
From my understanding I shouldn't invest in one of their IRAs because of taxes?
In fact, my only option would be in US based EFTs?

Does anyone have experience with these companies as an American living in Japan? How hard is it to start an account and which would be best for someone who has no experience investing/trading?

As a last question from someone who is afraid of loosing his whole retirement from bad investing is there a safer option out there?

First of all, welcome to the wonderful world of investing. I am much in the same situation as you. American living in Japan to Japanese wife and new to investing. I opened an account with TD Ameritrade last year. Although I wasn't able to do it online, I called them via Skype for free and got them to send me an application via email. I filled that out and faxed it to them. It took me about a month for the whole process to be completed. Got the account open and have been investing in ETF's monthly ever since. It really is much easier than I ever imagined.

I've found that the more I understand about investing, the less worried I am about losing my retirement investments.
As you're probably aware of from reading the forum, Americans are pretty limited to what we can invest in for tax reasons. PFICs are dangerous and IRAs are limited as well.
Good luck to you!

[SeaDaddy]

runmanTX,

Thank you for replying! Hope you don't mind some questions

Was there any specific reason you chose Ameritrade over other options?

Are you investing in YEN using Ameritrade? If so, how are you sending them the money?

Can you just set a monthly amount to invest and kind of let it be, or do you have to actively monitor your investments?

I will probably have more questions about taxes and such later but I don't want to overwhelm you

[RetireJapan]

runmanTX,

Thank you for replying! Hope you don't mind some questions

Was there any specific reason you chose Ameritrade over other options?

Are you investing in YEN using Ameritrade? If so, how are you sending them the money?

Can you just set a monthly amount to invest and kind of let it be, or do you have to actively monitor your investments?

I will probably have more questions about taxes and such later but I don't want to overwhelm you

Welcome! For the investing basic stuff, US citizens also have a great resource in https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php

[runmanTX]

runmanTX,

Thank you for replying! Hope you don't mind some questions

Was there any specific reason you chose Ameritrade over other options?

Are you investing in YEN using Ameritrade? If so, how are you sending them the money?

Can you just set a monthly amount to invest and kind of let it be, or do you have to actively monitor your investments?

I will probably have more questions about taxes and such later but I don't want to overwhelm you

--So I chose TDA after reading a few recommendations here on the forum. Also I was a little turned off by the high required balance to open with Interactive Brokers. I'm not sure if that's still the case. I didn't really investigate it.

--I send money via WISE (for an obvious fee) to my US bank account and then transfer it (no fee) to my TD Ameritrade account. So yes, yen to dollars which is killing me with the current weak yen. As I stated before, I buy ETFs (index funds) monthly. My current plan is buy and hold for another 10 years (or hopefully sooner) until I retire. I don't really actively monitor as I'm not planning to sell until at least 8 years or more. Although I tend to check my balance daily

--Not sure if you can set a monthly amount to invest but would guess the answer is NO.
Hope this helps.
Btw, as your name is "sea daddy" I'm wondering if you are / were in the USN. I am prior Navy.

[SeaDaddy]

--So I chose TDA after reading a few recommendations here on the forum. Also I was a little turned off by the high required balance to open with Interactive Brokers. I'm not sure if that's still the case. I didn't really investigate it.

--I send money via WISE (for an obvious fee) to my US bank account and then transfer it (no fee) to my TD Ameritrade account. So yes, yen to dollars which is killing me with the current weak yen. As I stated before, I buy ETFs (index funds) monthly. My current plan is buy and hold for another 10 years (or hopefully sooner) until I retire. I don't really actively monitor as I'm not planning to sell until at least 8 years or more. Although I tend to check my balance daily

--Not sure if you can set a monthly amount to invest but would guess the answer is NO.
Hope this helps.
Btw, as your name is "sea daddy" I'm wondering if you are / were in the USN. I am prior Navy.

--Just checking this page it seems there is no minimum for opening a IBLLC account. The monthly activity fee information is confusing to me and when I click the link provided I get a 404 error I swear I saw somewhere on their site you can invest using JPY but can't seem to find it again.

--Checking the WISE website that exchange rate looks painful! This might be an incentive to go with IB if you can invest using JPY.

--My name is just the first three letters of my real name and Daddy, because, well, I am a Daddy. I have never served.

[captainspoke]

IBLLC has closed temporarily to new accounts--hopefully temporarily, anyway. I think word of this first came out in late May or so.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about being able to set up something automated, so that a certain amount was invested monthly, and wouldn't give that any preference when choosing an account. It's simple enough to log in and put in an order.