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....

Another month gone. Unfortunately, my laptop decided to fry itself a couple of weeks ago, so I no longer have a computer at home. I’m still deciding how to go about remedying this situation. I’m leaning toward building a desktop PC since I used my laptop at home 95% of the time, but I’m also going to attempt to pursue warranty claims on my laptop since it’s been less than 2 years since I bought it and I’m eligible to pay for extended service....

Not too much to report this month, again. I did notice that I’m spending more on food than in previous months. I’ve been eating more meals with my girlfriend recently so that’s probably a contributing factor. The market has continued to relentlessly go up, despite the continuing deleterious economic effects of the COVID19 pandemic. As I write this, the US market is at an all-time high, despite an unemployment rate of about 10% (more than double what it was pre-pandemic), record-breaking GDP contraction (31....

Not too much to report this month, other than that this was my final transition month from my old company to my new one. I received my final paycheck from my previous company this month, as well as my first one from my new company. I have also returned to working in Tokyo rather than Nagoya, just in time for the 2nd wave of the Coronavirus. My current company isn’t well-equipped for work from home, so for the time being I continue to commute into the Tokyo office....

So, I started a new job this month. My previous company was hit hard by the virus and our management essentially told us that the company is on track to run out of money by the end of the summer and that we should do our best to find other employment. I was fortunate enough to be able to receive another opportunity fairly quickly and that I was able to get started right away....

Virus update: things are slowly starting to return to a more normal state over here. Japan’s State of Emergency was lifted last week and I’m seeing masks on store shelves again. Many people continue to work from home and mask usage is near-universal. There’s still a handful of cases detected each day (yesterday there were 35 for the whole country), but the effectiveness of contact tracing and quarantining the infected continues to reduce numbers....

Yet another month has come and gone. Financial highlights of the month included receiving a $1,200 stimulus deposit from the IRS, plus finally getting my IL state refund for 2019. In addition, the market recovered nicely in April (up 12.7% from the end of March), which helped restore much of my savings. Now I am back to where I was in September of last year, although with the economic uncertainty who knows how long it will last....

Hey all. So the virus (and associated fear and panic) continues to spread. The market volatility in March was unprecedented, and there’s a pretty good chance that the craziness will continue into the near future. So far I have refrained from making any large moves in the market, although I did move my cash savings from my money market account into a no-penalty CD at 1.75%. Not only did I manage to snag a decent interest rate before they dropped (the going rate for the same product is currently 1....

Yes, I missed last month’s update, sorry. No, you can’t get a refund. Last year, I switched this blog from Blogger to Wordpress, in order to experiment with wordpress hosting. As part of that, I paid for webhosting with Siteground. I had no issues with the quality of their service, but I wasn’t a fan when I received the reminder email to renew my service for the price of $143.40 per year!...

Since I posted my November update only a couple of weeks ago, I feel like I don’t have much news to write about. I have the entire week off as a company holiday, so I’m using this time to relax and recharge. I did a better job this month at cutting down on food spending by routinely preparing work lunch for myself at home. Compared to last month, my combined restaurant and grocery spending is about 33% lower, saving me about $200....