Monthly Financial Snapshot: October 2024

Apologies for missing last month’s update, as I was away on the Europe trip. The trip was mostly a success: we were able to successfully navigate the aggressive itinerary, despite occasional transport delays. My favorite locations we visited were Helsinki, Vienna, and Switzerland (Geneva and Zurich). Paris was worse than I remembered it from my very first visit back in late 2011, and Munich was crowded and noisy due to Oktoberfest. I think Paris is beyond hope, but Munich might be worth a second chance if we go again at a different time of year.

Finance-wise, I ended up selling off (and then re-buying) my assets that I had acquired prior to my move to Japan, since I passed my 5-year residency on the 14th. After 5 years, all income, dividends, capital gains from foreign sources become taxable in Japan even if they are not repatriated, so by selling before the 5-year deadline and realizing gains and resetting the cost basis, I will only pay tax to the US on the realized gains (15% in the US vs 20.315% in Japan), and my future capital gains will be calculated from the higher basis. Since wash sales are not a concern (no losses), I took the opportunity to shift from the mutual fund to the ETF versions of the assets when I bought them back, because ETFs are a bit easier to monitor and easier to transfer to another brokerage should that be necessary in the future. In addition, in the past there was a slight discount on the management fee for holding the mutual fund over the ETF, but that advantage has also largely disappeared.

The yen had a bit of a strengthening run over the summer, but that too appears to have reversed, going from 144 to 152 to the dollar over the course of the month. Still wondering if it will ever recover back to “normal” levels near 100 or if those days are gone forever. The US has started cutting interest rates a bit, so maybe that could help a recovery in the new future? ¯\(ツ)/¯

Here’s a summary of my financial position this month:

Projected time to FI (assuming 6% growth and 4% withdrawal rate): 10 years, 7 months.