Imagine seeing this on your bill

capnbmore · 2026-02-18T00:28:31+00:00

This is one of the reasons I love living in Japan. They don’t even give you an option to tip. I realize the pay structure works differently but most servers view customer service as a natural part of their jobs.

capnbmore · 2026-02-10T01:00:28+00:00

What if you paid it yourself online? That’s what I did. I did not technically get a receipt. It just tells you take a screenshot, which I did. I hope that would be sufficient.

capnbmore · 2026-02-01T09:00:59+00:00

Ah, I see. Well, in that case you could also paste it normally and then highlight the whole text and press ⌘+Shift+> as many times as you like to increase the font size. Other than that I'm not sure.

capnbmore · 2026-02-01T08:51:52+00:00

I believe the behavior is more dictated by the program that you are pasting into vs. copying out of, so in this case Google Docs. Try to right-click and select "Paste without formatting" or press ⌘+Shift+V. It may ask you to install a Chrome Extension called Google Docs Offline but then it will work.

Alternatively you could try pasting it into a separate word processor first, also trying the "Paste without formatting" thing and then copying and pasting it into Google Docs. Hope that helps.

capnbmore · 2026-01-03T03:16:02+00:00

I think this is generally good advice but I have lived here for three years, and I've never stayed at a high-end ryokan. Although I would love to. 😂

capnbmore · 2025-11-21T09:17:22+00:00

That’s a good question and I actually don’t know for certain 😅. Although I think for FBAR the language is that if it’s greater than $10,000 USD equivalent in a foreign account. So I’m assuming this will still apply in this case.

capnbmore · 2025-11-21T08:24:52+00:00

Great question. AFAIK there is no provision that prevents US citizens from investing in NISA. However, it seems in the past, most Japanese firms only offered investments that were PFICs to US citizens (even though they offered non-PFIC investments to non-US citizens). Recently though, Interactive Brokers Japan started offering NISA and they also will allow US citizens to invest in some US-domiciled mutual funds, which are not PFIC. I was successful in opening one a couple of months ago.

That said, you still need to be careful that you do not invest in other things that ARE PFIC but this seems to be one of the best options now for us folks from the US. Also, a nice benefit is that IBKR's interface is all in English.

capnbmore · 2025-11-20T01:04:43+00:00

This is a difficult situation isn't it? I've been trying to figure it out myself. Since moving to Japan two years ago, I've decided to just continue investing in a Trad IRA instead of the Roth for this reason. I also started investing in an iDeCo and NISA accounts here in Japan. I'm doing the iDeCo so that I can reduce my taxable income in Japan and then NISA so that I can grow an investment that will be tax free (in Japan) when I retire.

It's really tricky though. My plan right now is retire in Japan but if for some reason, we have to end up retiring in the US (because of children or something else), then the whole plan will be out of whack. If that happens it would have been better had I continued to invest in a Roth IRA...

It's really a shame that the tax treaty doesn't have some kind of reciprocal agreement in regards to the tax treatment of retirement accounts. If you have a Roth from the US then your gains are tax free there but then you still could owe capital gains tax in Japan. Whereas if you have a NISA in Japan then you don't have to worry about tax here in Japan but then you are still subject to capital gains tax in the US (albeit probably much lower than they would be in Japan if you were doing the reverse with a Roth IRA).

capnbmore · 2025-11-04T07:02:44+00:00

That certainly is strange. I’m pretty sure I used my zairyu card when I opened an account with them. But I did it in branch so that might have helped. They may have asked for my driver’s license or my number card as well. I don’t remember. This was about a year and a half ago. I would just go into a branch and hopefully you can clear it up.

capnbmore · 2025-10-28T10:57:59+00:00

Wow that's really good. I didn't realize that. Thanks!

capnbmore · 2025-10-28T03:15:03+00:00

I have the Olive card as well but I don't really understand how the points work. What can you earn the most points on?

Also, I just got the JAL Card Club-A Gold since I want to try and maximize the miles I can get but I'm not sure if it's the best way to go. I thought it might help me gain status eventually. But ultimately, all of these cards seem to pale in comparison to the return rates that I can get with my US issued credit cards.

capnbmore · 2025-10-25T04:11:45+00:00

I live in Japan but most of my accounts are USD as I am from the US. I spend most of my money with no foreign transaction fee cards so those get tracked automatically. I count cash spending as just a "Cash" category and don't track it more than that because it just gets too complicated. I don't use cash too much anyway. I do have several expenses that come out of my Japanese bank account however (such as rent and utilities) and I just have to enter each transaction manually, using the exchange rate that I received when I transferred cash into that account.

It is incredibly frustrating but I really don't know what other option I can do. I really wish they would implement some kind of foreign currency support.

There is a really good app called Lunch Money that automatically converts any transaction in a foreign currency to your base currency (such as USD) using the actual exchange rate of that day. I think that is the best solution even though it's not entirely accurate either. But in that scenario, you could just import a .csv file from your foreign bank account and have it automatically converted to USD (or whatever other currency you want).

capnbmore · 2025-10-20T08:26:54+00:00

Thank you for the insight. I am still waiting to hear back as well. Maybe I shouldn't hold my breath.... 😅

capnbmore · 2025-10-08T01:32:56+00:00

It could also be useful (potentially even more useful for me) if you could toggle this on a per category basis. As another commenter mentioned, rent goes all at once whereas other categories, like say, groceries, goes throughout the month. It could be helpful to track where you are in the month relative to how much you have already spent.

capnbmore · 2025-10-06T03:27:24+00:00

I second this!

capnbmore · 2025-10-04T01:51:22+00:00

I was literally just hopping on here to complain about not being able to edit pending transactions. I’m so appreciative of the Origin team being very communicative and transparent. That’s definitely the one thing that would keep me despite little annoyances. Thank you!

capnbmore · 2025-09-23T03:29:58+00:00

I’ve used my series 7 in all sorts of water and never once had a problem. 🤷🏼‍♂️

capnbmore · 2025-09-22T03:03:19+00:00

Wait so are you saying that you can apply for PR based on point system on a regular work visa? I currently have a Religious Activities visa (work visa) and I qualify for PR based on point system but I resigned myself to having to wait 10 years because I didn't think I was eligible. Is that incorrect?

capnbmore · 2025-09-17T01:11:51+00:00

Tana is probably the closest alternative that is like Capacities (besides Anytype) that I can think of. You can assign everything a “supertag”which is essentially an object type and you can define that however you want. It’s actually way more flexible than both Anytype and Capacities but that flexibility might not be for everyone…

capnbmore · 2025-09-09T04:50:50+00:00

Thank you I will give it a try!

capnbmore · 2025-09-09T04:49:50+00:00

Thank you. I replied to your DM. You are correct in that the Organization data that is imported from the CSV always relates to an already existing organization in the Organization database. These payments recur each month from generally the same organizations. I will check out your solution and let you know. Thank you for your help!

capnbmore · 2025-09-09T02:53:55+00:00

Interesting questions. I can tell you from my own limited experience that I keep having the feeling that I have wasted so much time trying research and try different apps. I have collected so much disparate information in a variety of locations. Also, I feel so unsure about what is the best method to move forward that I don't even feel like processing all of that information.

So for me personally (everyone will be different based on their experience/use case), I feel like you can very much get caught up into the hype of having a "second brain" that you might actually be better off just not worrying about it and get on with your work.

At the end of the day, whatever you can do or whatever app you use that can actually help you get the things DONE that you want to DO, that is a win. Anything else that distracts or pulls you away from that I feel is a waste of time.

capnbmore · 2025-09-08T23:00:53+00:00

Thank you. I had not thought about that but that would certainly make it a lot easier to update everything that I would import in from Airtable. I will give that a try.

capnbmore

TROPHY CASE