My case (financial/work situation)

[adamu]

It’s a bit like Bitcoin - I don’t like the idea one bit but the obvious trajectory is upwards.

I still think that's a huge bubble too. But then by the same logic so is gold, so what do I know

For me the common theme is inflated values based on hype far beyond any practical use.

[Deep Blue]

I guess you assign zero credence to the “store of value” concept.

Unfortunately, as every month and year goes by and we see increasing acceptance of this (and allocation to!) from pension funds and insurers it gets harder and harder to to refute the idea that people see this craptocurrency as a store of value that can’t be diluted or confiscated.

Pretty much the same deal as gold I feel.

[Yossarian]

new text is polluted by output from the models themselves (known as slop) so developing them further will be quite challenging. And nobody has been able to solve the problem that the results are inaccurate, as by their nature they work on predictions.

Agreed. Bots plagiarizing humans and then plagiarizing each other. Bots chatting with bots. Can see it happening on sites like reddit.

When it comes to marketing, companies who were paying low-quality writers peanuts for SEO content don't care. They want to publish as much as possible and Google hasn't figured out how to stop the spam (although they're getting better at it).

Some companies who care about quality are using AI for first drafts and then sending them to human editors to get them ready for publishing. Others are totally against AI content.

The word in writer circles is that poor writers should be worried. But writers with other skills (editing, customer research, etc) will be fine.

[Yossarian]

I'm talking about marketing by the way. In no way do I think AI has the creativity to write art. But BS SEO articles, it can do already.

[AreTheyTheLemmings?]

I do have one piece of advice I feel might be valuable, but it's predicated on something. So, if I'm not being too impertinent, could I ask you one thing in advance?

Am I correct in thinking that you're quite an introvert?

Yes. I don’t go out socially, or really talk to many people (and I’m fine with that. I’m not trying to get pity or whatever. I’m not one of those people who comes to Japan and then complains why can’t I make any friends?! I never had many friends in the uk either. I’m happy being by myself and with my wife. I’m also diagnosed (in the uk) as autistic.

Thanks for responding. What follows is based on the assumption that you're an introvert, and that intensive social interaction depletes your mental energy. TBH, I'm not sure how it relates to your diagnosis, so please accept/reject/adapt it as you see fit. (Also, on re-reading, it comes across as a bit preachy. Sorry! It's meant in good faith.)

Okay, so! To my eye, the people who seem to be doing well in work and life are those who know stuff and know people. "Know stuff" doesn't necessarily mean that they have high-level degrees and whatnot; just that they're constantly learning more about the stuff they're interested in. In your case, maybe that's gardening, maybe something else. For instance, reading books and magazines about the stuff you're interested in, and watching videos, and joining community classes, etc. It doesn't have to be full-on... just whatever you're comfortable with. You can build up quite a stack of knowledge that way if you keep at it over time.

And "know people" doesn't mean that they're out socializing every night or kissing arses to build connections in the halls of power; just that they have friends and stay in contact with them. To the introvert, however, this might not seem worth the mental discomfort involved, but my experience working through that has taught me that accepting just a little bit of that discomfort can result in life/work improvements. I've found that to build some knowledge and have some friends takes just a low-intensity effort. The intensity of effort isn't that relevant; keeping it up over the long-term is more pertinent.

Just meeting up every once in a while can suffice. The most common form of this is going out for a meal or drinks, but it doesn't have to be that, and even if that's what you end up doing, it doesn't (it mustn't!) mean you throw away what little money you have on beer every Friday night. A few skewers and a nama at a yakitori joint every couple of months is a 1000-yen outlay.

In my experience, if I feel a little uncomfortable or awkward going in to a situation, it often ends up being beneficial and I'm glad I made the effort to push through (or at least accept) that initial mental apprehension. So, if you can lean in to that discomfort a little bit, just as much and as often as you can handle, there are benefits to be had.

The material benefits of knowing stuff and knowing people arrive slowly - frustratingly slowly - but they do arrive. After all, the people who seem to be doing well in work and life are those who know stuff and know people, right? And like any other investment, the benefits of knowing stuff and knowing people compound over time.

I hope it works out for you.

[kuma]

Does your wife have (1) a period of 3yrs of continuous UK residency in her past (even in childhood), and (2) a national insurance number (NINO)*? If yes and yes, she would be eligible to make voluntary Class 3 contributions despite no UK work history. Could be something to consider for the future, even if finances are strained now to make the annual Class 3 contributions (approx 200,000 yen per year).

* many people who were resident in the UK when they turned 16 would have automatically been issued with a NINO if their parents/guardians were registered for child benefit (which happens in the majority of cases).

Yes she does. Born and raised in the uk, did somewhat work there but no where near enough nor long enough to pay NI. She has her number. Have looked into enough to know she should class 3 and I’ve suggested several times for her to get on it and potentially ask her parents to consider helping pay it off to get the minimum 10 years.
Will nudge again next month when we both have a little less going on.

That's great. Time is on her side here. The state pension age for her is currently set to 68. The full state pension is due with 35 qualifying years. So she could achieve this if starting voluntary contributions at 32 or 33ish. Class 3 is approx GBP1,000 / JPY200,000 per year. (Which, by coincidence, is about the same as the standard kokumin nenkin contributions. So if you got a job with shakai hoken and she became your dependent, she'd get the Japanese pension contributions for free and you could divert the JPY200,000 to her UK state pension...). The facility to backpay UK NI contributions (ordinarily up to 6yrs; extraordinarily up to 18yrs, expiring soon) means that you can wait until things are affordable. The UK pension, under current rules, would massively boost a JP (kokumin nenkin) pension. UK pension is soon to be approx GBP12k per year. I don't have a forex crystal ball but have recently been using 200 as the back-of-the-envelope GBP:JPY conversion rate, and this equates to JPY2.4m... which is 3 times the basic JP pension of JPY800,000 (although she may get a little less if not achieving the full 40yrs of contributions; though she is also wisely contributing to fuka nenkin, which is a phenomenally good move).

As a couple, if you're both looking at full UK state pensions + full(ish) JP state pensions, that's a very good base under current rules. (JPY6m+ as a couple under current rules; though expect 'but it's frozen' and 'but it will change' comments!!!). If you can navigate a path towards both contributing the JPY5,000 (minimum) to iDeCo, you'd build up an amazing tax-free allowance. That's because the tax-free allowance is based upon length of time contributing, so you could achieve a much larger allowance than some of the more advanced-in-years members of the forum if you can at some point get contributions up and running. (Again, no urgency.) Should earnings increase or inheritance be received or NISA investments rocket or other routes to financial rosiness, your future self might thank your 30-something-self for getting in the system while you did. And once in, you'd have the power of compounding too; time really is on your side.

With due apologies for replying on this peripheral point when your main situation is what you really want answers on.

[KCLenny]

Thanks for responding. What follows is based on the assumption that you're an introvert, and that intensive social interaction depletes your mental energy. TBH, I'm not sure how it relates to your diagnosis, so please accept/reject/adapt it as you see fit. (Also, on re-reading, it comes across as a bit preachy. Sorry! It's meant in good faith.)

Okay, so! To my eye, the people who seem to be doing well in work and life are those who know stuff and know people. "Know stuff" doesn't necessarily mean that they have high-level degrees and whatnot; just that they're constantly learning more about the stuff they're interested in. In your case, maybe that's gardening, maybe something else. For instance, reading books and magazines about the stuff you're interested in, and watching videos, and joining community classes, etc. It doesn't have to be full-on... just whatever you're comfortable with. You can build up quite a stack of knowledge that way if you keep at it over time.

And "know people" doesn't mean that they're out socializing every night or kissing arses to build connections in the halls of power; just that they have friends and stay in contact with them. To the introvert, however, this might not seem worth the mental discomfort involved, but my experience working through that has taught me that accepting just a little bit of that discomfort can result in life/work improvements. I've found that to build some knowledge and have some friends takes just a low-intensity effort. The intensity of effort isn't that relevant; keeping it up over the long-term is more pertinent.

Just meeting up every once in a while can suffice. The most common form of this is going out for a meal or drinks, but it doesn't have to be that, and even if that's what you end up doing, it doesn't (it mustn't!) mean you throw away what little money you have on beer every Friday night. A few skewers and a nama at a yakitori joint every couple of months is a 1000-yen outlay.

In my experience, if I feel a little uncomfortable or awkward going in to a situation, it often ends up being beneficial and I'm glad I made the effort to push through (or at least accept) that initial mental apprehension. So, if you can lean in to that discomfort a little bit, just as much and as often as you can handle, there are benefits to be had.

The material benefits of knowing stuff and knowing people arrive slowly - frustratingly slowly - but they do arrive. After all, the people who seem to be doing well in work and life are those who know stuff and know people, right? And like any other investment, the benefits of knowing stuff and knowing people compound over time.

I hope it works out for you.

I understand inherently what you’re saying. It just doesn’t seem to be something applicable to me. I don’t have any co-workers who finish at the same time as me or live nearby to make it nice to actually want to meet up, even once a week.
I’m really not trying to make excuses because I would like to go out with someone every now and then.
But there are basically 2 people from my work, one only works Sundays and I never see him. The other works until 9 and I finish almost days at 4, so that never likes up.
And socialising with them isn’t going to help my job or anything and there isn’t any one I do know who could fill that role either.

That's great. Time is on her side here. The state pension age for her is currently set to 68. The full state pension is due with 35 qualifying years. So she could achieve this if starting voluntary contributions at 32 or 33ish. Class 3 is approx GBP1,000 / JPY200,000 per year. (Which, by coincidence, is about the same as the standard kokumin nenkin contributions. So if you got a job with shakai hoken and she became your dependent, she'd get the Japanese pension contributions for free and you could divert the JPY200,000 to her UK state pension...). The facility to backpay UK NI contributions (ordinarily up to 6yrs; extraordinarily up to 18yrs, expiring soon) means that you can wait until things are affordable. The UK pension, under current rules, would massively boost a JP (kokumin nenkin) pension. UK pension is soon to be approx GBP12k per year. I don't have a forex crystal ball but have recently been using 200 as the back-of-the-envelope GBP:JPY conversion rate, and this equates to JPY2.4m... which is 3 times the basic JP pension of JPY800,000 (although she may get a little less if not achieving the full 40yrs of contributions; though she is also wisely contributing to fuka nenkin, which is a phenomenally good move).

As a couple, if you're both looking at full UK state pensions + full(ish) JP state pensions, that's a very good base under current rules. (JPY6m+ as a couple under current rules; though expect 'but it's frozen' and 'but it will change' comments!!!). If you can navigate a path towards both contributing the JPY5,000 (minimum) to iDeCo, you'd build up an amazing tax-free allowance. That's because the tax-free allowance is based upon length of time contributing, so you could achieve a much larger allowance than some of the more advanced-in-years members of the forum if you can at some point get contributions up and running. (Again, no urgency.) Should earnings increase or inheritance be received or NISA investments rocket or other routes to financial rosiness, your future self might thank your 30-something-self for getting in the system while you did. And once in, you'd have the power of compounding too; time really is on your side.

With due apologies for replying on this peripheral point when your main situation is what you really want answers on.

Blimey, that is reassuring.
I ran the numbers with ChatGPT on just getting the minimum 10 years uk for both of us plus the fuka kokumin in Japan, and it looks like approx 3 million yen a year, which is only a bit less than our total salaries combined now as it is.
So full uk pension would definitely be a huge benefit to us in retirement, but even 20 years contributions would also do nicely.

I’m not really sure how ideco works but I was under the impression I couldn’t do it or it wouldn’t be worth it for my current situation. I don’t know how true that is though and don’t know anything about it.

[Piri0]

Bit of a digression, but don't you feel under threat from A.I as a freelance copywriter with no formal qualifications?

I do website copywriting which AI is pretty bad at currently. I also do a lot of customer research and strategy, too. If I was doing only content marketing or social media copywriting, I'd be very worried.

AI has definitely made life more difficult for many freelance writers though. It's interesting seeing how companies react. Some people are all aboard with gen AI. Others are very strict (at a contract level) about having no AI generated work.

No doubt AI will be able to do most writing very well in the future. And for companies who are going for quantity over quality, it's plenty good enough now.

My safety net is customer research. Until AI can do customer interviews, I'm safe.

I agree, I’m in a similar situation.

[Beaglehound]

IDECO has the benefit of tax savings as you invest from pre-tax income. So for you, for whatever amount you invest it would likely reduce your tax bill by 15% (5% national tax and 10% local tax). For each year you invest you get a 400k tax free allowance on withdrawal, more after a certain number of years (I forget how many). Given that you said you contribute 15k a month to NISA, that would save you 27k per year on tax were it in IDECO and tax on withdrawal would be unlikely barring spectacular gains. Not a major game changer perhaps, and there is more flexibility in NISA as you can withdraw whenever, but certainly worth considering, especially if your income rises to a higher tax band.

[goodandbadjapan]

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 bookwork. Private lessons could be a growth area whilst taking the positives of the current job (5yr history there implies you know the systems inside out, and the steady paycheque) and mitigating the negatives (mismanagement, etc). Over time, could change the ratio of employed / self-employed teaching (if you're employer accepted you going down from 5 days to 4, for example). Some people parlay this type of thing into full-time or semi-full-time self-employment. Still doesn't get shakai hoken, but avoids bad bosses, and can maximise profitability. Can sound scary to some, but you've already taken the first step of teaching privately and already have a track record of teaching group lessons (presumably?) at your eikaiwa; no intrinsic reason from your post why the private lessons can't be scaled up.

This is a great option. Owner/operators can make a decent living running a small eikaiwa. It is very possible to make 500,000 to a million a month or more if you have a full teaching schedule.

We charge 7,000-16,000 yen a month per student, and have classes of 8-14 students.

As someone who has made his living basically just doing this, I would say it is a great option. The biggest hurdle if you are scaling up and getting groups etc is making sure you have a place to teach them, and being able to converse with parents of kids etc well enough to get them to sign up. If you have those two things (and visa, of course) you can make a very good living.