RetireJapan

Over the last 2 months we found two properties we were quite interested in, (within the 23 wards, Southern Tokyo, 70-80 million). Both places sold within 24 hours of our viewing. I suppose the answer here is to start a relationship with an agent and get a lead before it hits Summo et al. However, th...

Hello everyone, I hoped to crowdsource the answer to this question. Basically I am looking for a short term US treasury fund (0-3 years) that hedges to JPY (i.e.: protects against depreciation of the dollar). The closest I have found is the iShares Core 7-10 Year US Treasury Bond JPY Hedged ETF (14...

Yep, I am sure there is a large discrepancy between prime, urban, suburban and rural. But even rural land might at least hold most of its value, unless you’re buying in a place with no future (seems unlikely but .. ?) My impression is that Japan is likely to abandon many of its towns and villages. ...

I agree that being on the same page is important. My wife would hate me if I tried to involve her in budgeting and as we probably only spend 70% of what we bring in it's not strictly necessary. I keep track of earnings and outgoings, we both invest in IDECO and any surplus goes into NISA. That's al...

Yes, she would be financially secure if I passed away tomorrow. Insurance is a waste of money in some circumstances, very happy to have invested the premiums we would have wasted on house, travel, life insurance over the years and built up assets we control. I'm glad you're so financially secure! V...

] Someone with kids, or a non-working spouse should DEFINITELY have insurance (just not whole life). I have both a non working spouse and children, but feel no take to take out insurance - we just have car insurance and more recently bicycle insurance. If you passed away tomorrow could your wife ju...

How old are you and what percentage of your income do you and your partner save on a monthly basis? How would that change with a mortgage? Selling down your savings when rates are so cheap would not typically be recommended. I'd very happily borrow at current rates and invest that money if they woul...

I think that in general, financial advisors do recommend life insurance if you have small children. The idea is that you only need it buy it through to their adulthood and then can reevaluate. A friend's husband died all of a sudden, and everything was in her husband's name. He had a large portfoli...

How does your family approach budgeting? My wife an I have not bothered budget in the past because we saved over 50% of our income. Investing is automatic, Nisa/ideco sweeps. However we have highly subsidized housing through her work. This is amazing but our family of 4 has outgrown the space, and ...

I did a bit of googling about claiming back dividend tax on a ETF and it seems that although you can't do that with an ETF tracking a foreign index like the FSTE or MSCI , it is in principle possible with an ETF tracking a Japanese index like the TOPIX or Nikkei225 the reason being that the compani...