Finance and Mindset Blog by Ryu Aomi

  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

I found out a lot about money and it's a lot different from what I used to think. Last year on June, starting from just 100,000JPY or about 700USD, I started to work in Resort jobs or called "resoba" in Japan. Resoba are hotel related jobs mainly at the front desk, restaurants, or housekeeping jobs that don't require much skill to start. The worker saves on living expenses like rent and food which is usually fully provided, and hotels can cover the shortage in staffs, a win win. Japan stretches north to south and each province is quite unique. I was always fascinated by the system that you can travel across Japan working for resoba. And interestingly, I save a lot more than when I used to make much more in the city. This blog is my log for traveling across Japan taking resoba jobs.  This post is my balance for August, 2024. My income for August, 263,000JPY First of all, my income. For August 2024 it was 263,000JPY. I decided to resign from the fish shop in Tsukiji to

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

  I seem to be doing a lot better with money now. Some people make a lot of money but are always short of money, while others make less but manage to get by pretty well. I've lived my life without paying much attention to money, putting priorities towards curiosity and experience over saving. During Covid, finance was very stressful and I realized I need to better manage my finances.  Come to think of it now, there is just one habit I made sure I stick to that helped me to grow my bank account every month. It's obvious but so many people including myself just a few years back couldn't do. And I want to share my experience wih you. End each month with a positive balance Nothing fancy but it's so true. Credit cards are the worst thing because it distracts you from making sure you end the month with a positive balance. The rewards, the cash backs... If you can really control it, then it might be better to make full use of them. But my bank account is in better shape withou