I’d like to ask for some easy to understand advice for starting to invest for retirement. My situation is:
- US Citizen living in Japan, married to a Japanese person
Am now 33, and hope to start investing from January
Don’t have a high-income job; neither does my wife - but we have low expenses
My wife will max out her ideco by herself
For now planning to stay in Japan for good, but might return to US someday
I have never worked in the US, so I don’t have a 401k or IRA
So, since I don’t have an existing taxable account in the US, I looked up I.B. It appears that you need to prove you have done 100 trades to start using I.B., and that it is for frequent traders. Is that right? I’m just a normal guy with not much money to invest and not planning to change things too often.
Other options on these forums that I found:
Firstrade (https://www.firstrade.com/content/en-us/welcome)
TradeStation (https://www.tradestation.com/)
Monex
Any insight on I.B. or the others for someone in my situation?
Also, I am concerned about needing to exchange my yen to dollars to invest in I.B. and the others. That would mean I pay fees to invest, and then in the future, I pay fees to get my money out (unless I end up moving to the US before then). Any information on this?
I know this is a lot of information to ask for, but I would really be grateful for some sincere advice.
Thank you