2020 Roundup
All in one place Once again there will only be one roundup post this year. Here is the 2019 post if you want to see what that year looked like. 2020 was… not great This year has been very stressful, and we were among the ones lucky enough not to suffer any health or financial […]
Progress Report 2020
The Progress Continues This year we will continue combining all the progress report posts into one huge long report. I think they work better as one big long post. You can see last year’s post here (spoiler alert: this year’s is almost identical). We’re going to cover the following areas in order: iDeCo Progress NISA […]
The End Game
Safe withdrawal rates and asset management in retirement I really enjoyed watching The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix series about a fictional female chess player in the 60s) last week. In chess, there are roughly three periods of play: the opening, which is highly structured; the mid-game, which is more chaotic and allows for inspired genius; and […]
The Monday Read
Let it snow? edition Apparently it snowed this morning briefly, but I didn’t notice because I was asleep… oh, well. We wrote up the (existing) forum rules again this week: And the forum has been very active this week: This week’s links This is pretty insane: https://marginalrevolution.com/…/new-crispr-based-covid… This explains a lot https://www.theatlantic.com/…/wear-your-mask…/615796/ I enjoyed reading […]
Japan Pension Update 2020
I found my 年金定期便！ Another year, another pension update. Nothing new, just some new numbers and a chance for people who haven’t really thought about their nenkin before to make sure they understand it. You can see the Pension Update 2017 here (this post explains a lot of the format etc.), the Pension Update 2018 here, and the Pension […]
The Monday Read
Hot hot hot Welcome to the new normal: masks and record-breaking temperatures. I hope everyone had a good obon week. Here are this week’s links Dirty deeds indeed: Dirty deeds done dirt cheap I really need to get around to reading this book: Learning from Rory Sutherland This is good news: Japan’s male smoking rate […]
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 […]
Guest Post – Housing Seminar
Everything you wanted to know about buying a home in Japan We have a real treat for you today: a guest post from Alan with his notes from attending a real estate seminar in Tokyo recently. I’m stunned at how comprehansive and useful it is. Huge thanks to Alan for taking the time to write […]
What do we do now?
A few ideas These are truly interesting times. So far, things are not too bad in Japan, but the uncertainty is pretty rough. I spend far too much time online reading news and other sites, and would undoubtedly benefit from logging off and doing something else. But if there are two things I am good […]
The Monday Read
So far so good edition Well, into week two of school closures and fingers crossed, it seems things aren’t as bad as they could be. Let’s hope it continues that way! The weather has been pretty miserable though. Quite unusual for Sendai. I feel like I’m back in the UK. This week’s links I am […]