By Dako The word usually arrives in a sentence that also contains a deadline. Some office on the Japanese side of your life, a city hall, a bank, a legal affairs bureau, asks for a US document, and then adds…
By Dako & Jay We have a FIRE number. It’s in dollars, because every account we own is in dollars. Two 401(k)s. A taxable brokerage of US-listed funds and US stocks, a traditional IRA, a Roth, an HSA, a high-yield…
By Dako For a long time I filed the green card question under “not urgent.” We haven’t decided whether we’re moving to Japan, splitting the year, or staying put. So the card just sits there, doing its job, waiting for…
By Jay Let me describe my role in Japanese government offices, because “survival guide” implies more heroism than I can honestly claim. Dako walks up to the counter. Dako talks. The person behind the counter talks back. Papers appear, get…
By Dako The dual-base dream has a specific shape in our house: cherry blossoms and my parents’ kitchen for part of the year, our life in the US for the rest. Somewhere along the way of imagining it, the unromantic…
By Dako & Jay Here’s a confession to open a parenting post: we haven’t actually had the conversation yet. Our kids are still little, young enough that “financial independence” would land somewhere between “quantum physics” and “why the sky is…
By Dako Nobody loses a brokerage account at the border. That’s the fear that brings people to this question, so let’s retire it in the first paragraph: moving to Japan does not freeze, confiscate, or erase your US accounts. What…
By Dako The scariest version of the story goes like this: you give up your green card, and the IRS takes half of everything on your way out. I’ve now spent enough evenings inside section 877A of the tax code…
By Dako & Jay In our house we talk about “our retirement money” the way most couples do. One number, one plan, one future. The IRS has never once seen it that way. A 401(k) is an individual account. Not…
By Jay Nobody warns you about the paperwork. People warn you about chopsticks etiquette and meeting the parents and whether you should bow or shake hands. Useless. Lovely, but useless. I’m the American half of this blog. My wife Dako…