RetireJapan

I think that's a good way to think about pension. I will also make sure I can live off my investments when I retire, with pension as an added bonus rather than a necessity. I guess that's the reason the government has been promoting the NISA and iDeco systems to encourage people to fund their own re...

Happy 2019 Everyone! So Japan has decided to add a new way to take our money from January this year with the new "sayonara tax" (¥1000) for all travellers departing from Japan. Just our luck as we will be travelling to the US in a few days. Anyways, I recently discovered a very simple to u...

Thank you for the feedback! We actually had our property reevaluated a year after purchase and we were quoted much higher prices (10-15%) than our original purchase price due to the good location. However, due to the high capital gains tax for selling a property held under 5 years, we decided to kee...

Thanks for your input. I think I'm going to go with the investing route. But I will talk things over with the wife over the new year holidays and then decide. Unfortunately, the loan is under my wife's name so I don't think I'm eligible for the tax credit. I do want to get my name added once I get P...

Merry Christmas, I opened an account with them a few months ago. It was all done online. I don't think they called me to just check my Japanese. They sent me a letter when my name didn't match my ID. I think the only call they make is to verify your workplace, so you should let your workplace know t...

Merry Christmas all, First of all, I'm loving all the invaluable information that I've been reading on the forum and blog post. Thank you so much! I've been trying to find an investing community for Japan in English for quite some time now. I'm 32 Australian, with a Japanese wife and a 8 month old b...