The Monday Read
Oh Canada Edition Well, it seems like I’m in Canada, eh? First time here, we started with a couple of days in Vancouver. Lovely city, and we had incredible weather while we were there. Next up is Calgary, then Toronto. YouTube Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We published a video […]
The Monday Read
Hospitals are under strain edition My wife got a throat infection on Thursday. She is susceptible to them, and they are dangerous and come on very quickly. We went to the local clinic, got antibiotics, and thought we’d caught it in time. Unfortunately the symptoms are similar to Covid, so we had to wait outside […]
Transferwise is now Wise
They are all grown up and sophisticated now Site favourite Transferwise changed their name recently, to Wise. I guess they want to emphasise that they don’t just do transfers, but in fact have a number of different offerings for consumers. This came to my attention because they sent me a number of emails about it, […]
Kosei Nenkin — Applying for Your Private School Pension
Ever wondered about how difficult it might be to apply? Wonder no more. Contributor par excellence Mason Dixon returns with another treatise that will be of interest to many of our readers: the exact process to apply for your pension. With RetireJapan as the single best source in assisting foreigners in Japan to plan for […]
The Monday Read
My Number shenanigans edition I hope everyone is doing okay out there. The rain and floods look pretty scary. I got an email this week from our HR department at work, talking about changes to the My Number system. There are basically two big ones that happened in May this year. The first change is […]
The Monday Read
Long time no write This is the first Monday Read this month! Which is a pretty poor state of affairs. I apologise for depriving you of your weekly entertaining email/annoying inbox clutter. We’ve also been remiss in terms of writing any actual content for the blog. Have a couple of posts lined up though, so […]
Cashless Rebates
How does 2-5% cashback sound, sir? Have you noticed that recently a lot of shops suddenly have ‘we take PayPay’ and similar signs up? There are also a lot of places that recently started accepting credit cards, using those little blue card readers to process the payment. It seems this is not a spontaneous occurence, […]
The Monday Read
More like the August Read, amirite? Hi friends Did you miss me? I must admit I have really enjoyed the change of pace during August. How was your summer? Can’t believe it is September already. You may have noticed a change to the Monday Read this year. Previously I wrote the post on Sunday (sometimes […]
The Monday Read
The Rainy Season is here. Apparently. Still pretty nice in Sendai though 🙂 Here are this week’s links: This essay on Why Nerds are Unpopular was interesting, although I think the US is particularly anti-intellectual in schools. I thought being a politician in Japan was more lucrative -there goes my post-retirement side gig! Local elections […]
Kokumin Nenkin: Japan State Pension
All residents of Japan must pay into the national pension kokumin nenkin (国民年金) unless they are paying into kōsei nenkin (厚生年金) or are a dependent covered by their spouse’s pension (when the spouse is paying into kōsei nenkin). This is currently lightly enforced, but the system appears to be changing with the introduction of the […]