What a surreal month it’s been.
Life goes on here in Tokyo, but there’s been a lot of attention focused on the US election, as well as the resurgence in COVID-19 cases in the US and Europe. Election coverage here treats it mostly as spectacle, and doesn’t really provide much analysis or opinion. However, since the US electoral college system is so bizarre, there’s always a lot of explanation of how it works and why they need to focus the coverage on specific states. COVID-19 cases in Japan remain pretty stable (between 500 and 1000 daily new cases) thanks to nearly-universal cautious behavior (I occasionally see someone outside without a mask or only mouth covered instead of nose and mouth) and frequent hand and surface sterilization. Compared to most of Europe (most countries at over 10k cases / day) or the US (100k+ cases / day), I feel lucky to be in Japan!
PC building update: I was able to switch to using a Raspberry Pi 4 as my main computer for the time being. It’s barely powerful enough to handle basic web browsing, but it struggles with anything more demanding than watching a 360p YouTube video. Still, it has been enough to hold me over while I finished acquiring parts for my new computer. I just finished acquiring my parts today, and hopefully will get to build this weekend! Looking forward to the experience.
Here’s my October expenses:
| Category | 10/20 | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | $949.51 | Regular rent |
| Internet | $17.57 | |
| Cell Phone | $31.10 | |
| Natural Gas | $17.21 | |
| Electricity | $33.64 | |
| Water | $36.39 | I pay every 2 months |
| Groceries | $356.83 | |
| Transport | $32.42 | |
| Health | $216.45 | Health insurance + flu shot |
| Other | $150.00 | US mailbox subscription |
| Necessary | $1,841.12 | |
| Restaurants | $88.99 | |
| Entertainment | $0.00 | |
| Shopping | $571.53 | Components for new PC |
| Travel/Parking | $220.67 | Weekend trip to Yokohama |
| Gifts/Donations | $8.83 | |
| Software/Games | $0.00 | |
| Business | $0.00 | |
| Other | $0.00 | |
| Discretionary | $890.02 | |
| Total Expenses | $2,731.14 | More than average for the month |
| Gross Income | $3,445.81 | Salary |
| Taxes | $428.20 | |
| Net Income | $3,017.61 | |
| Savings | $286.47 | |
| Savings Rate | 9.49% | Less than average for the month |
| Net Worth | $345,125.60 | Temporary pre-election market dip |
Projected time to FI (assuming 6% growth and 4% withdrawal rate): 6 years, 11 months.