Hi everyone, I moved to Japan a year ago. When I first came here I was not sure if I wanted to stay but after doing a visit back home to the US, I realized that Japan is definitely the place I want to stay for a long time. After having saved some money for an emergency fund, I wanted to ask for your advice on what to do next.
General Information
- 28 years old
- Plan to stay long-term in Japan
- Currently on a 5-year work visa (4 years left)
- Will keep my passport since I have family in the US and want to be able to go back if ever needed
Salary and Expenses
- Monthly Salary before taxes: 470,000 (Yearly bonus that could range from 0 to 2 months but I can not estimate it)
- Rent: 72,500 (Company rents the apartment and takes it out of my salary to lower taxes. I live with my GF and we split the rent. The actual total is 145,000)
- Monthly Salary After Taxes & receiving GF's Rent Payment: 312,500
Saving a month
After living here for the past year, I have been able to save around 100,000 a month. I believe it will go up considering I spent a decent amount of money on a new apartment, furniture, and other things involving moving to a new country. The goal is to invest more as I get more raises and get better at budgeting.
So the question is how should I start saving as a US Citizen?
After reading through lots of previous threads, these are the few options that I see. I believe I am right to assume to avoid NISA and I cannot use IDeco as an American.
- Open an Interactive Brokers Japan and invest in ETFs
- Transfer using Wise or SWIFT to the US and invest in ETFs using Robinhood, Scwab, or etc
Would appreciate any advice and if you have any questions that I could support with, don't hesitate to ask!
by onepageleft