What are /r/JapanFinance's favorite Products & Services?

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They charge no fee to receive USD via ACH, but they charge 0.31% to do an ACH debit.

In desktop Firefox and Chrome you can use the great Bypass Paywalls extension.

On your phone you can likely click on the "show reader view" or "reader mode" option and it will remove the pop-over and give you the text.

Just noticed that Wise has extensive write-ups on other bank's money transfer services. Here's the one about Japan Post bank + their online transfer service for anyone else who wants to double check their calculations.

https://wise.com/jp/blog/international-transfer-japanpost-bank

Look into this company, cheaper, faster, and easier than using a bank to transfer money:

https://wise.com/jp

Be careful about investing outside Japan (if you don't live in the US and use US addresses and ID to set up accounts). A lot of countries have information sharing with Japan, whatever you earn has to be disclosed AND worldwide assets have to be disclosed.

Personal investors are good if you don't have the time or skill, just beware that giving someone your money involves risk. A long track record, part of a big institution, clean history mitigates some, but not all risk.

I recommend you keep your saving (or some part of it) as a emergency fund, and keep it in an account which is easy to liquidate in case of emergency, and start investing by tsumitate NISA.

And starting ideco from your 20s won't hurt ;)

This book is my reference to start investing.

Asking this in the off chance someone can help me find what I’m after.

I’ve been slowly collecting this whisky set. A complete set would make a nice addition to my home bar: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B092N5T331/

So far I have 5 out of 6. I am just missing ‘The Ardmore’ and can’t find anywhere.

If anyone knows where I could buy The Ardmore so I can complete the collection that would be great. I’d even just accept the packaging.

Let me knownif this works:

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Yea the Strong Zeros offer a very lucrative “Ronseal” Return on Investment. (for those who are not British and likely don’t get the “Ronseal” idiomatic phrase: https://www.ronseal.com/the-ronseal-phrase/ )

Early 2018, I used to go a bit medieval on the Kirin strong Peach+Mango.

(these ones: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B07NX22LTW/)

I don’t know why, But, I fee they changed the recipe a bit towards 2019, to make them not as sweet, so now they taste a bit rank.

If you read and understand Japanese, my wife suggested to read this book. Also checkout your local library for variety of books specially manga oriented.

https://liberaluni.com/

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4023318787

Recently, I noticed people in library reading this book quite often. Also, during tax and new financial year, bookstores usually have various personal finance related books on display. Check them out. If you are going to live in Japan long term, it is worthwhile to seek out Japanese resources.

When you say a few thousand $.. how much ch are we taking?

Because You can get a US borderless account with Wise: https://wise.com/

This will give you essentially a virtual US bank account, which they can transfer into.

Only issue there is things get a bit more difficult with Wise if it’s over ¥1 million (~$8,700)

Thank you for your elaborate reply! And thanks for the "just come back every 5 years is not enough" warning. The websites writing about PR do seem to imply that.

>be aware that if you are not a Japanese tax resident

That's something to consider, thanks for the heads-up.

From your link to Rakuten in that discussion,

>「永住」される場合は、証券総合口座の閉鎖が必要となります。
If you are a "permanent resident," you will need to close your general securities account. (DeepL)

Indeed, need to close it :/

u/darkpallys Adding onto this, in another comment You said you also used WISE to make the transfer?

Can’t guarantee you will get it back but it seems Wise will be willing to work with you to try: https://wise.com/help/articles/2978048/i-may-be-the-victim-of-fraud-or-a-scam

It would probably be easier to open a Wise account. It has a debit MasterCard which can be used at stores in Japan, and also to withdraw small sums of cash. According to their site it seems possible to withdraw your PayPal balance into your wise account. From there you can use it with the above card, or transfer it to a Japanese bank account.

Honestly, I'd just buy a reader, they are cheap enough that it's worth it to avoid any potential issues of trying to copy the file between a phone and computer.

3500 JPY - https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B089SRDDYN
2500 JPY - https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B08TWB9J4P

You could always test the process if you really want. Just start a new return, add data, copy to pc and try to resume, add data, then copy back and confirm the new data is there.

Nothing gets submitted to the NTA until you perform the digital signature at the very end, so just don't complete it.

Seems like a lot of hassle though.