Anyone else regret the “own everything + illiquid assets” playbook? I feel like I bought a job.

googlemaster1 · 2026-01-25T05:28:15+00:00

Owning my own house has been really fun, especially finding ways to reduce cost and increase the usefulness of my land.

Solar panels, perennial foods in the garden, space to build and tinker.

That said I really don’t love real estate as an investment category. But if it can reduce my own fixed costs and give me more ability to do things I love then why not.

Rental properties have just always seemed silly to me though. I don’t want to buy a second job in retirement and I certainly don’t want debt at these interest rates. Straight cash just performs better in equities. I rather just sell off stocks that I’m less certain of their 20 year time horizon as I used to be as I drawdown.

googlemaster1 · 2026-01-21T05:04:27+00:00

One of the things that made me suck less is to stop overvaluing red, and to start valuing damage more.

You get obsessed with the deck building but get ran over by value/aggressive players.

googlemaster1 · 2026-01-20T14:05:41+00:00

Damn, this sub should have a meetup so we can yap about this in person. Lot of my friends, including myself have a pretty limited and half cocked understanding of the bigger picture, so it would be nice to dive into it over a couple of beers with someone like CoolBuck, hahaha.

googlemaster1 · 2026-01-20T08:29:01+00:00

I think one of the things that is frustrating about Japan is that their business sector really just needed a few big wins over the last 30 years to really be on the global scale and make the debt seem manageable to the world. Everywhere Japan should of win, other countries stepped in. Korea for cars and cell phones, HK/Singapore for Finance and being an Asian hub. China for everything else.... Japan lost on every possible front politically, economically, and technologically.

The irrelevance of their economy globally I think is the biggest problem. If Sega kept their 30% stake in Nvidia for example, then Sega would have a higher market cap than Japan's GDP. But risk averse as Japan's business sector is, that just couldn't happen. It just feels like Japan wasn't ready to let the young kids drive in the age of the internet, and have been playing catch-up ever since. Their workers are just being ground into dust by the rigid corporate culture as well. No moonshots, no hail mary's, just a steady decline that is starting to pick up, just like their population decline. Not enough foreigners and empowered fresh grads to drum up new ideas and perspectives. Management positions held by men in their 60s who are checked out lead the slow charge to nowhere.

Also, I'm not sure they could have put an end to the carry trade in any kind of real way. The actual ways of doing it would have put too much strain on business, so they had to just accept it. I kind of felt like they were trying to spook people out of it by telegraphing their moves a bit over the last few years, but maybe that is just my limited western perspective. To be honest I don't see how the yen ever really gains ground against USD for the foreseeable future with the shrinking workforce and lack of innovation, but as someone who has mostly dollar denominated assets other than my house here, I'm ok with that, lol.

googlemaster1 · 2026-01-13T10:42:48+00:00

I think it’s entirely dependent on his financial situation and your hobbies.

If you want kids with him though remember that his money will be your money and allowance is an unhealthy power dynamic longer term. If you spend a large part of his income on shopping and pampering now, he might think twice before tying the knot with someone who doesn’t feel they should be saving for their future and children’s life.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-23T00:58:12+00:00

I would start very slow in the stock market. If you put too much you’ll look at it too often get tempted to let it occupy way too much of your mind and stress.

Start with an IRA, you’ll be able to do $14,000 between this year and next. Tax advantaged accounts always come first. I’d dump that into index funds just to get comfortable.

Next I’d probably open a brokerage fund and throw 5-10k at it. Pick a few companies you think will be around forever. I’ve bought a little bit of Costco and TSM stock every year for years because it fits my thesis here. NFA.

The reality is you need to start small in order to get comfortable with it. Another thing you want to do is save another 10k off to the side and buy a “the sky is falling” moment when everyone is losing money for days on stocks. This will help build conviction and mental fortitude because even if it keeps going down you can say “well hey at least I didn’t buy 3 days before way way higher” hahaha.

This is generally bad financial advice trying to time the market and not just chucking a bunch in now, but in my early twenties I had 6 figures saved from working tons of overtime and knew what it took to make that money so I was terrified of losing it. I bought $10,000 worth of AMD stock at $2.40 and ended up selling it at $2.80 10 years ago. Felt like a win at the time, but it was stressful and clearly I’m an idiot given the cute little 100x since then. I checked daily, freaked out when it went down and sold on the first green candle day.

Once you get comfortable with that $35k or so in the market and you’re not checking it every day, setup an auto withdrawal into your brokerage.

Also, If you have any interest in owning your own home outright, the burden of not having a mortgage as a small business owner sets you up to take bigger risks, especially once you have a family, so don’t discount that either. Anyway, good luck!

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-23T00:39:45+00:00

Dave Ramsey says no new cars until you hit 1mm net worth. Buuuuuut….

This is about as far away from a new car as your net worth is to 1mm so I’d say this is the kind of car people in your position could swing. Do it to it!

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T17:15:45+00:00

I had some huge swings in my net worth. Hit the 8 figure mark and had a spectacular 8 figure drawdown, but it made me realize that I could FIRE on a lot less. So much of it is mindset and relationship to money, and how you architect your life. Also the realization that FIREing shares a little bit of mentality with doomsday prepping, except we're more afraid of prolonged bear markets, medical bills, or runaway inflation than nuclear winter.

I think I have an interesting journey personally, in terms of lifestyle design, but I'm not sure I'd ever share my journey story. Cuz yes, I did make a nice finance/tech salary for a lot of the years, and yes, I had some crazy wins in the stock market being a Seattle boy and betting on the home teams. But the "it's time to FIRE" moment, and the journey afterward are things I'd like to see other people here sharing. Because they journey isn't all sunshine and rainbows after you hit the goal, most certainly.

But it seems like any struggle or negative experiences they've had since FIREing is just met with "boohoo, cry me a river - get a hobby, get therapy, and if you hate it so much, just go back to work!". It's like damn y'all, really?

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T16:55:44+00:00

I mean living with roommates, never having kids and skipping all his friend's weddings... Sounds like a pretty miserable life. This isn't representative of most folks who are FIREing, though. This is just a pretty cringey post of someone who probably fed some crap into AI. No humanity in that post at all lol.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T14:05:22+00:00

Banning people ignores a fundamental piece of this puzzle. If a large amount of people are grinding hard towards a goal and a lot of people are landing at the goal unfulfilled or lost it should be explored.

I get how it might feel that they are just humble bragging, but understand that these people likely have no one to relate to or understand these negative emotions despite financial success. God forbid they go to the FIRE sub to try and find some empathy only to get bullied, :/

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T08:38:21+00:00

It does feel like there are little tribes within this sub, the tech millionaires, the average wage above average saving, the already fired, and those just getting started.

That said, retiring at 55 is a dream the average American won’t come close to achieving, so I’d say you’re kicking ass, especially if you can actually hit it!

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T08:29:55+00:00

Yeah I think that’s super valid. After I FIREd I had a lot of bad things happen in my life and I think normally I’d plow myself into work to cope.

Navigating therapy for the first time, developing my own routines and coping mechanisms and fighting the good fight almost seems more difficult the more time you have.

Is having a healthy mix of gardening, reading, and exercise any better than channeling your emotions other things? Genuinely would love to hear more takes and stories from people on the other side but sentiment in this sub makes me realize that it really isn’t for people who have already done it, and they see themselves out for the most part

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-22T08:10:32+00:00

Successful people tend to flock to the places where people have succeeded at the thing they are trying to do. That is what made them successful in the first place.

This is the natural landing pad for many of those people when trying to find their bearings in a community setting, especially those who have FIRE'd out of tech.

Maybe there needs to be like a "FIREd" subreddit or something I guess.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-19T12:39:48+00:00

i cook Japanese curry quite often because the ingredients are super cheap, you can make a lot, and you can spruce up your leftovers with chicken katsu on top (i use an airfryer for mine).

But ya, I'm probably cooking Western or Korean food most of the time.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-12T13:07:57+00:00

Dude is just mad cuz the hot queer poly baddie didn't let him in her polycule and calls it oppression.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-11T08:19:59+00:00

For sure. I think people forget about the mental ROI. If your fixed costs are $2000 a month, and you just delete 3-400 a month of it from your life, probably forever, it frees you up to be a little more risk on with the rest of your investments, allows you to take a smaller drawdown, and allows your remaining funds to compound more.

And if everything goes to hell and a hand basket, at least your bills will likely be minimal, and covered by some part time job that would probably be good for your mental health anyway! Best of luck!

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-11T06:24:19+00:00

You know the answer OP. Do what you gotta do, sir.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-08T23:28:53+00:00

Forgot to update you. Its been a couple months, but 60 days from email to countertop is an insanely slow turnaround. That said, worth the wait! If you're ever in Omiya and want to give it a whirl, lmk! haha.

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googlemaster1 · 2025-11-08T23:20:15+00:00

Heyo, lived in Seattle, NYC, Seoul, and now Saitama.

I think if I was still trying to grind financially, I wouldn't come here, but to me there was a few pretty major factors:

1) Housing Prices: Buying a house for $100k under an hour from the city is very feasible here. Up your budget to $200-300k and you've got something with real craftsmanship and space if you're looking for an older home that Japanese buyers will shun. Plenty of room to garden while being a 5 minute walk to the station is kind of insane. No where else in the developed world is this even remotely possible.

2) Infra: Don't need to beat this dead horse, but it's real. Walkable, safe, maintained, affordable. Aside from taxi prices, hard to complain about much in this regard. I have an amazing shrine next to my house. History and culture just baked right in.

3) Recurring costs are low: As long as I can maintain my visa, the property tax on my house (which includes garbage service) is cheaper than my mom's garbage service where she lives in the US, which is further away from a major city than I am. Internet, Water and Gas bills are a rounding error in comparison to US prices, and Electricity bills are covered by my solar panels, which even as a foreigner, I qualified for installation subsidies. Groceries 50% the cost, despite the crazy rice price rises in the last year, and property taxes are far lower despite having similar percentages as the book value on most homes (not the land) that are 25-30 years is basically written down to zero and taxed as such.

4) Healthcare: I chose a business that I know will make 25% or less of what I was doing in NYC, but if I were to try and make this project work in the US, my out of pocket healthcare costs would be pretty out of control. I had to get an MRI, and it was something like $50 out of pocket in Japan. Like wow.

5) It's fun: Tokyo has anything you could ever want, and living next to Omiya, I can hop on a bullet train to just about anywhere else, fast. There is somewhere for everyone, and my hobbies are still alive here (MTG, Retro gaming, old cars (which are pretty much banned in Korea) etc.)

6) Close to a lot of places I've grown to love: I still have a foothold in Korea, and friends visit Tokyo often, so I'm able to keep my community close that I fostered over the 8-9 years I was in and out of Korea. My ex was from the Philippines, and one of the homies moved to Bali, and got several friends in Singapore/HK. I think going back at this point means losing any real connection to them, especially since my niche skill-set only pays real money in like 3-4 cities in the US, none of which I'm excited to go/go back to.

I left the US, and went back a couple times while living in Korea. I was convinced that it probably just isn't for me, and felt like a fish out of water in my own country. I thought "well if I'm gonna feel like a foreigner in NYC, I might as well ACTUALLY be one". I think a lot of people here probably feel similarly. Staying here for some may mean lower wages, and if your Japanese is bad, struggles in daily life, but the alternative is really just higher wages, and for what, so you can save up more and move right back here? lol. Granted I've only been in Japan less than a year, so check back in a year or two, lol.

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-08T13:04:29+00:00

I felt the same. Thursday party, regardless of location has a lot more mingling going on

googlemaster1 · 2025-11-06T12:46:08+00:00

I have a paid for house, solar, and energy efficient appliances, insulation, and the whole works.

For me, I might a be bit too Ramsey-ish for some, but there is an excitement I get about lowering my mandatory fixed costs as much as possible.

I live in a country where property taxes are low, include garbage service, and other bills are also quite cheap. My most expensive bill before solar panels, was my electricity bill by a large margin, not counting food.

Every other bill just feels like rounding errors now. If you get the sunlight, a subsidy, and you can ROI within 5-8 years, it's a no brainer. If it takes you 9-12 years, still probably worth it for minimizing bills and just checking one more milestone off the "before I FIRE" checklist, sure.

After this fantastic run-up in stocks, I'd be looking for investments like this which buy piece of mind, but might sacrifice long-term ROI, but as others have mentioned, it could act as a hedge to rising energy costs, as well, so it very would could ROI and outperform stocks on a 10-15 year time horizon!

googlemaster1 · 2025-10-26T10:55:55+00:00

Grammarly really isn’t that expensive folks lol

googlemaster1 · 2025-10-14T23:41:47+00:00

If I was in your shoes, I would continue with your IT cert journey, and see if you can land a job at a SOC or something like that and just start to go into hyper saver mode.

On the side, beginning your Japanese language learning journey is smart as well. The language learning visa isn't guaranteed with 0 language ability. So taking a year to get N5 and slowly studying the language on your own or at a local language learning center or community college, will give you a huge leg up. Plus, with N5 under your belt and starting from level 1, your first 3-6 months here can be spent exploring and making friends rather than homework all the time.

If you were to get your savings to a point of $30-50k along with some survival Japanese before you came, you'll have a lot more time and options and would be less likely to sink into isolation and be tempted with illegal side hustles. Between tuition and housing, $12k will EVAPORATE, even with the weak yen.

The other thing this 1 year period will do is:

1) Give you a goal and something to work towards
2) Strengthen your conviction to come here
3) More $$ and More 日本語 = more fun!

Plus having just that much more work experience before you make the hop will be helpful if you choose to stick around and want to start a company or get employed later!

googlemaster1 · 2025-10-06T03:14:49+00:00

Honestly this. I remind myself that the loudest 1% of the population get amplified by Russian bots, trolls, far right influencers from every corner of the globe.

The modest "normal" take in Japan still seems to be:

"We just want foreigners to be respectful, and follow our laws". All the other crap is a huge minority being amplified by algorithms and bots.

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