Finance and Mindset Blog by Ryu Aomi

Back during the middle of the pandemic, I was lost.  I remember sleeping 20 hours, eating something, then going back to sleep for another 20. It was like that for awhile then I could really tell my health had gone broke. Sticking to just 1 good habit leads to more good habits At the time, I read that one small habit and sticking to it is what I needed to do, but I doubted that just one habit won't change anything. But there really wasn't anything I felt doing so I played a HIIT Youtube on and started to exercise once a day. For a few days, it was one exercise, eat, then go back to sleep. But sticking to that somehow led to another small action, then another, and another. There were days when I would want to continue the exercise that automatically plays after the video ends. I remember I was so out of shape I needed to skip some of the moves but it got better. Then it led me to add more habits over the past two years or so. Sleeping early and rising early Walking 10,000 steps/d

My first business didn't work out well. But I'm actually glad I tried, because my mindset changed in a positive way. It actually did take me a while for me to recover mentally and financially. But 2 years in and I look back that it's not a big deal to make mistakes. It actually helps you to reflect on it, and gives you hints on how you could improve. The more mistakes you make earlier in life the better Before starting the business, I always seemed to have the pressure that I have to succeed. Or to be right and correct all the time at least. But actually it's the opposite. I need to make a lot of mistakes, and learn to get back up as fast as possible for the next challenge. I realised that when my mother kept repeating that "I failed" every time we talked on the phone. My mom sounded like its the end of the world while I was thinking it might be the start of something new. The most important thing is to not repeat the same mistakes. In order for you to do that

  My favorite investment is gold. But the reason is different from the answer you get from Google. During Covid, my financial situation wasn’t very good and I needed money to pay my workers. I was selling my belongings, which were sold for a fraction of the money I bought them. It helped very little. Looking back it was a good experience learning that my belongings I thought were a lot less valuable. But the only one that were priced more than when I bought it, was gold. Gold on an emergency In Japan we have a saying, "有事の金" which can be translated to “gold during an emergency.” I remember gold coming down with the pandemic, but then there was a timing when gold surged. When you need to sell your investments is a lot of time an emergency. So I learned that at least a portion should be gold. I didn’t want to sell my gold but I thought it was time and went to an established gold shop. But I noticed something interesting. There were people selling gold like me, but there were al

I made a lot of mistakes before my investing performance stabilized. Not only is it important to learn from your mistakes, it's also important to study what works for oneself. While the "how to invest" is important, the psychology or "how I approach" investing is much more important. In this post I will share the 3 books that helped me most out of many I read. 1. The Psychology of Money The first step in investing is to have a surplus every month. Investing should be done with spare money, and it's not a good idea to borrow money or leverage. In   The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Housel Morgan talked about the savings rate. Having a high savings rate is more important than how much you make. Even if you make a lot of money, your savings rate is low if you use it all. Conversely, even if you make average income, if you don't spend it you have a high savings rate. The first step to having a high savings rate is

The worst thing that could happen to you can really be the best thing that has ever happened to you. For me it was failing my tourism business in Covid, and I had to start over. I lost my money, my girlfriend. Lost hope. Japan was the last to open its ports from Covid, so when Southeast Asia started to open its ports, I closed my business, and went on a food trip around Southeast Asia. It was like going through a dark tunnel My trip around Southeast Asia was interesting, but to be honest I wasn't able to enjoy myself to the fullest. I had to cut my expenses, so I stayed in basic Airbnb, went for street food, walked and read books a lot. It's nice, to see different things to where I was born in Japan, or where I grew up in San Francisco, or where I worked in Singapore and some parts of Europe. But at the back of my mind I knew I'm lost without much meaning in life. Everyday I learn something But everyday, I will learn something.  Either from books or just by walking and obse

Last year, I decided to save money by working at a resort job for two years, starting with 100,000 yen on hand. I wanted to see if I can save money without having a special skill and the results have been better than I intended. If I make sure I have money on a surplus at the end of the month, I'm on the right path. The one habit that led me not to worry about money anymore When I started to have some spare money, I started to invest the money. In this post, I will talk about what I learned about long term investing, the main benefit, and the results so far. 30,000 JPY to invest We already know from the best seller book, " The Richest Man in Babylon ," taking 10% of your income to invest to become wealthy long term. This basically forces you to have a surplus every month. I went on to read more finance books, but I still think that's the best answer. Investing 10% to 25% of your take-home pay brings good results over the long run. How much do I need? I didn't real