The new eternal NISA

Christmas came early this year The outline of the new new NISA accounts, long rumoured and leaked, were announced this week. The FSA official page has not been updated at this point, but the broad picture is clear with just a few details yet to be confirmed. The changes are great and address pretty much […]

On Tsumitate NISA

I have changed my mind! I have yet to use tsumitate NISA myself, and until recently my advice to people looking to choose between ordinary NISA and tsumitate NISA was to go for ordinary if you could afford to invest the full amount and tsumitate if you couldn’t. But I have changed my thinking on […]

Nenkin Calculations

Show me the money We had a lot of follow-up questions to last week’s nenkin post. One of the most common ones was ‘how much nenkin am I going to get?’. It’s a tough question to answer, so we’ll try to give some more information here. Kokumin Nenkin Basic kokumin nenkin is extremely easy to […]

The Nenkin Thing

We need to talk I had an interesting email exchange this week with a reader about nenkin. We’ve also had some questions on the forum. And I often see this topic pop up on the r/japanlife board on Reddit. Perhaps it’s time we had a chat. If you are currently paying into the Japanese national […]

Dividends in Japan

Screenshot of finance data for a Japanese company, showing the dividend yield.

I love the smell of dividends in the morning… … smells like freedom. ​This post is a quick introduction to dividends with a focus on how they behave in Japan. There are several schools of thought on dividends and different people will want to approach them in different ways. What are dividends? Dividends are regular […]

Investment Accounts in Japan

Logos of investment companies in Japan.

Now witness the power of this fully operational online broker account The three big online brokers in Japan For most people (US citizens see the note at the end of this post), the best option for opening investment accounts is going to be online. Banks and full service broker offices tend to have higher fees, […]

Investing in Solar Panels

Solar panels in front of a house in Japan.

Do you have solar panels? If not, why not? As part of our investigation into house builders something has come to my attention.It seems like under the current rules, putting solar panels on your house is close to being a no-brainer: most house owners should be considering it seriously.The system as I understand it works […]