RetireJapan

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 12:24 pm

Wales4rugbyWC19 wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 12:03 pm Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you have to continue paying health insurance and long term care insurance in Japan when you are retired? In the UK once you are over 65 you do not need to pay national insurance any longer. That could be quite significant difference in take home disposable pension income between the two countries.

In my honest opinion I think the Japanese system is the right system for financing public health services. The elderly do still use the the health system, if not even more than the younger population.

You do, but I don't expect to be paying much health insurance/long term care insurance once I retire, because the bulk of our income will be from investments (either tax-exempt from NISA or paying capital gains only in a taxable account).

My impression of the current state of the NHS is that it is much easier and more pleasant to access medical services in Japan than in the UK right now

By far the biggest hurdle to move back to the UK would be housing though. We could possibly buy something, but it would require us to cash in a lot of our current savings/investments!

Will you dividend income from your NISAs continue to be tax free when they finish?

Wales4rugbyWC19 wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 11:55 pm Will you dividend income from your NISAs continue to be tax free when they finish?

Dividends in a taxable account would pay dividend tax and thus not count as income (only income used to calculate health/care insurance rates).

I no longer have dividend paying stocks -switched to indexes earlier this year: https://www.retirejapan.com/blog/my-inv ... all-wrong/

Planning to use a tsumitate NISA ladder instead now.

As well as all of captainspoke's points above, I would say the language barrier is another reason we don't see Japan on the "cheap places to retire" lists. The reading and writing (form-filling, etc.) is a hurdle too high for most people.

As for housing in your country of origin, it helps a lot if you still have a foot in the property ladder there. In my case that will be my mum's house, which is in the north of England so not worth as much as the ones in the south, but comparable to houses in the same area of course. If I decided to live in it after she died (I really don't want to, but just in case) then the sale of my house here should cover my brother's half of the house so I would effectively be swapping a house in Japan for a house in the UK. The living costs are a different matter... I guess some are higher and some are lower than here but haven't really looked into it.

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 12:39 am

Wales4rugbyWC19 wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 11:55 pm Will you dividend income from your NISAs continue to be tax free when they finish?

Dividends in a taxable account would pay dividend tax and thus not count as income (only income used to calculate health/care insurance rates).

You can choose to lump them in as income if you do a tax return. If your taxable income is low, that might even work out better. But it will increase your taxable income, so could affect your health insurance payments etc. Not sure of the details. Activate Tkydon.

adamu wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 2:12 am

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 12:39 am Dividends in a taxable account would pay dividend tax and thus not count as income (only income used to calculate health/care insurance rates).

You can choose to lump them in as income if you do a tax return. If your taxable income is low, that might even work out better. But it will increase your taxable income, so could affect your health insurance payments etc. Not sure of the details. Activate Tkydon.

Good point! I always default to the lazy option, but there are choices for those who want to expore them

Beaglehound wrote: ↑Sat May 21, 2022 6:20 am It would be a struggle, largely because we built a house, which has no mortgage but limited resale value. Basically that decision committed us to retiring here, or at least basing ourselves here in retirement.

Sounds like our situation.
While healthy I think we could afford to live in another country, especially one with a lower cost of living such as Costa Rica, Chile, Portugal, Spain etc. Need to get SWMBO to learn some Spanish though.

As others have said, health care over the long term can be pricey anywhere for non-permanent residents.

I will be able to qualify for US Medicare from age 65, but I am not eager to live there for a number of reasons, most societal. I suppose finding a cheap place in a small town might be affordable, or maybe a condo in a resort that gets rented much of the year. An uncle had one in Branson and one in Colorado and that worked out well for them. They had managed to downsize their life to digital photo albums by the time they were 70, so moving back and forth was easy.

Once I retire and start getting a pension, the ¥ rate will be a factor. ¥100 vs ¥150 is a huge difference, and after factoring in inflation, it is psychologically hard to pay ¥200 for something I know costs ¥100 in Japan. I am sure none of us visit developed countries these days without feeling a bit of sticker shock.

I got curious and did a quick check. As I suspected, Spanish-speaking countries are in the majority. Malaysia seems to head the list in Asia. As others here have noted, Japan appears to be absent from every list.

France also pops up on a few. I have a British friend who bought a rundown 200yr old place in France on the cheap. Many towns in the countryside are desperate for residents, much like many of the Italian places for 1 euro that get advertised.


https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/ ... tire-list/
https://retirementinvestments.com/retir ... to-retire/

#1 Portugal
Top cities: Lisbon, Porto, and the Algrave

Portugal is a popular retirement destination because of its amazing weather and 1,114 miles of coastline. It’s easy to visit Spain and other European countries from Portugal, and the cost of living is 25% lower than in the US on average.

You will save the most on rent that costs 44% less than in the US. If you want to purchase a property, plan on spending $300 per square foot for an apartment in Lisbon or another major city.

The official language is Portuguese, but it’s easy to find people who speak English. Lisbon has a safety index score of 71, and Portugal is among the top three safest countries in the world.
You can expect warm weather all year round with temperatures that range from 60° to 80.°

TJKansai wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 2:50 am Portugal is among the top three safest countries in the world.
You can expect warm weather all year round with temperatures that range from 60° to 80.°

I grew up in northern Spain and still have family there. We spent time there regularly in The Before Times, but I wonder what climate change will do to the region.

We always thought that we would spend a few months overseas to escape winters. We were especially attracted to Sth E Asia. We also have property back home to live in. Fast forward to actual retirement, Covid, our children’s family and careers, our financial choices and we have definitely decided to retire here. We will just take an annual foreign trip or two of a few weeks.

That’s always enough to remind us that as pretty as Mediterranean villages look, it’s not where we belong. The food is good but never as good as in Japan. My local French bakery is better than all those we tried in the last few trips to France. Plus all those Instagram-worthy photos do not capture the smell of human piss and dog poo in those gorgeous cities. Speaking of which, so few places have washlet toilets. I miss them greatly unless I am in Asian or Hawaiian hotels where they are becoming more common. Then there are the pickpockets, strikes, poor air conditioning, lousy customer service, weak yen problems …

It’s always nice to come home!

Tokyo wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 8:23 am We always thought that we would spend a few months overseas to escape winters. We were especially attracted to Sth E Asia. We also have property back home to live in. Fast forward to actual retirement, Covid, our children’s family and careers, our financial choices and we have definitely decided to retire here. We will just take an annual foreign trip or two of a few weeks.

Our plan in The Before Times was to have a base here in Sendai then take a couple of extended trips abroad (6-10 weeks or so) each year, either to spend time with family (we have kids in Canada and Sweden, my family in Spain, and friends in the UK and the US) or to visit places on the bucket list (I still want to make it to Mexico).

We'll see how this plays out in the future, and whethr Covid and other factors actually allow us to travel (and whether we want to).

I guess the key in this (like everything) is to experiment, be flexible, and see how things go.