RetireJapan Guides

[RetireJapan]

Well, the first RetireJapan Guide is coming out tomorrow: https://gum.co/rSGsF

Any ideas for new Guides? What would be most useful for people?

[RetireJapan]

I'm thinking of doing a NISA guide next, then a guide to buying a home in Japan (ie real estate for individuals, not as an investment).

After that (in no particular order)

the Japanese pension system
buying insurance
getting a mortgage
basic personal finance
choosing banks, brokers, etc.

What do you think? Are those the right ones to do next? Any other topics that would be useful to people? Ideally slightly technical subjects that don't have information in English available

[RetireJapan]

More topics:

inheritance in Japan
taxes in Japan

[Jamo]

Hi, firstly thanks so much for offering all this helpful material!

An insurance guide would be helpful for me. Japanese seem to love insurance (安心安全!), but a lot of it seems like poor value, particularly the savings type ones that payout once you reach a certain age.

[RetireJapan]

Hi Jamo

Definitely thinking of writing an insurance guide, as in Japan it can be complicated and expensive! Did you see the recent blog post: http://www.retirejapan.info/blog/pension-insurance

[Neil]

Way off in the future, when you have all the individual PDFs down, maybe a paperback omnibus edition?

[RetireJapan]

Way off in the future, when you have all the individual PDFs down, maybe a paperback omnibus edition?

That sounds like a vanity project! I have also considered a 'best of RetireJapan', basically all the blog posts edited and curated. Maybe a 10 year anniversary edition?

[RetireJapan]

Okay, so the two obvious Guides are done:

1. iDeCo
2. NISA

What should be number three? The restrictions:

1. information not available in English
2. useful to lots of people
3. something I can learn enough about in a couple of months to be useful

What do you think?

[Neil]

Lump sum investing? "I've got a million yen in cash. What should I do with it?" "I have ¥100,000 of my son's otoshidamas. What should I do with it?" That kind of thing would be useful to me, now you've covered the regular-deposit arena.

[RetireJapan]

Lump sum investing? "I've got a million yen in cash. What should I do with it?" "I have ¥100,000 of my son's otoshidamas. What should I do with it?" That kind of thing would be useful to me, now you've covered the regular-deposit arena.

Thanks! That seems more like a post in the forum though, where hopefully others would chip in as well. It's also fairly well covered online in English.

I want to concentrate on areas that are pretty opaque and difficult to get a handle on the basics, due to language or just obscurity. Things like insurance, or mortgages, or tax. Those three are quite hefty though, so any other ideas would be appreciated

Also if anyone knows of good resources in English about those three topics, that would also be helpful.