RetireJapan is ten years old today!
On December 4th, 2013 the first blog post was published on this site.
This post is #921. At this rate, we should hit blog post #1000 sometime towards the end of 2024.
The blog was the first thing on RetireJapan, and in many ways it is the heart of the whole operation. Everything else came later.
The Monday Read started in February 2018, and is kind of the secret ingredient that has kept the blog going for so long. Having that hard deadline Monday morning where the post needs to be ready in order to go out to the mailing list has been essential.
Like any habit, you need to have motivation and a trigger to remind you to do it.
Thanks for reading. Some of you have been here the whole time, others will have joined more recently. Please do continue sending me interesting links, questions, stories, and feedback. It makes it all worthwhile!
RetireJapan TV
Our first episode is up on YouTube and your favourite podcast platform (let me know if you can’t find it and I’ll make sure it is on the platform).
We talked about pensions, took a look at recent news stories, checked out how to get cheap flights to Europe, and looked ahead to what awaits us for the rest of Season 2 of RetireJapan TV.
YouTube
Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We published a new video this week: Just how good are Japan’s iDeCo investment accounts?
Please watch, like, subscribe, and share with other people!
The Forum
The Forum is doing well (31,356 posts so far). Here are the latest active threads:
This week’s books
I had no idea Brett Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho, basically wrote Zoolander too. Apparently he sued and got an out of court settlement from the movie company!
I started reading Battle Mage (only 99 yen on Kindle right now) by Peter Flannery because Ali Abdaal recommended it and I am a sucker for fantasy. It is okay. Some interesting ideas, but the writing is a bit amateurish. A fun read though, if you are into that kind of thing 😉
A nice article about one of my favourite writers. Gone too soon: Remembering Iain Banks: a prolific, terrific talent
This week’s links
- This is really serious and one reason I encourage couples to work on their finances together: Older single women face growing risk of poverty in Japan
- Derek’s ability to navigate society here continues to amaze me: Parking
- Do we need better sex ed? Syphilis cases hit record high for third straight year in Japan
- I can see this becoming a problem in Japan too: Trouble in paradise: The loneliness and isolation of Brits in Spain
- Heh. Media watch: If public misspeaking were an Olympic event, the LDP would get all the gold
- This is good news, hopefully the LDP and the central government will get with the program soon: Over 70% of Japanese Live in Municipalities Issuing Same-Sex Partnership Certificates
- Found Vitaliy’s latest quite interesting, even though I am not planning to change anything based on this: My Thoughts on the Economy
- This has nothing whatsoever to do with my hairstyle (YouTube): Why MEN have MIDLIFE CRISES: you have to practice being selfish
- Seems like RetireJapan is ahead of the curve again! Neil Gaiman’s Radical Vision for the Future of the Internet
- Noooooooooo. Bedbugs are spreading in South Korea and China. Is Japan next?
- Heh. Party Question
- This really ties into my RetireJapan hierarchy of spending needs… video coming soon! Why the FIRE movement began and is gaining steam
- This article is great. 17m and 168m are very different numbers! How Much Is Enough to Retire in Japan?
- Apparently not. Is Aging Behind Japan’s Drop in Consumer Spending?
- I’m 46 too, so this blog post was fascinating to read: The Biggest Problem With Being A Long-Term Investor
- RIP. I was a bit of a fan but would love to be that sharp at that age: Charlie Munger Dead At 99
- A new perspective for me: A brighter demographic story for China
What do you think? Anything interesting in there?
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Congrats on 10 years! Keep up, we know it takes time , and appreciate it!
Well done! Your site is very useful.
#10 – With how popular Japan is for travel I’m really surprised bedbugs haven’t been a big problem here yet. I guess it’s just a matter of time.
#13 – Very interesting. I feel like that number must vary significantly where you live. How much you need in the heart of Tokyo vs living somewhere in the countryside of Kagoshima.
Happy 10th Anniversary!!
Happy birthday! I found #1 and #4 concerning but the table in #13 was shocking. I agree with the author that ¥20 million is not enough and that ¥170 million is much more like what we should aim for. So reading that 52% of those senior Japanese households surveyed have less than ¥10 million in assets – and 23% have zero assets – blew my tiny mind. A lot of people will have to work right up until they die.
I skimmed through #13 so may have misread but it seems the 168 million total includes the total pension payments for 35 years, so if you are getting a pension ,much less than that actually needs to be saved. Still think 20 million is far too little, though!
Yes. They calculated:
-what they think you will need in total (168M)
-what a maximum pension will offer (87.5M)
-what you can earn by working longer, from 65 to 75 (30M)
leaving a gap of about 50M to come from investments/savings.
It seems a fairly sensible approach.
#13 – As a retiree (leaving investments aside for the moment), I’ve looked at the combined totals in my bank accounts from year to year as a way to see how much money I’m using. Up to now that has been calendar year totals, so for example this year I’d look at January 4th, 2023, and compare that to the totals I see on January 4th, 2024. This means I can skip doing a huge number-crunching project and just look at this to see what my ‘burn’ is.
This total reflects all money coming in (pensions, basically) balanced against all money going out (all kinds of expenses and spending, both necessary and discretionary). Of course this is a negative number, since I spend more than my pension income. It might look like this: January 2023 – ¥10 million; January 2024 – ¥8.5 million. And generally I think about ¥1.5-2.0 million over and above pension is ballpark.
In April of 2024, I will have been retired for 7 full years, and in view of #13, I’m wondering if I could pull my bank balances for April of 2017, and then compare that overall number with what I see for April 2024. Then divide by 7 for the average, and maybe look again at each year to see what the highest vs the lowest burn was. My first two years retired might be highest ones (I’m free! I’m free!!), 2020 and/or 2021 might be lowest (due to covid and reduced spending).
Stay tuned?
That would be a really interesting guest post for the blog -hint, hint 🙂
Agreed. Actual spending in retirement in Japan would be really useful info to share. Perhaps even see if one or two of the other retirees could participate too?