How do you live a life 'comfortably' with money. Want to build a house near tokyo with wife...

How do you live a life 'comfortably' with money. Want to build a house near tokyo with wife. We like expensive clothes and nice furniture.
Don't want to be so tight with money.

I have a BA and doing a EE/Mgt degree now (free education)

>How do you live a life 'comfortably' with money.

You spend as little as possible and only spend money that provides you the greatest value, and only things you need.

$50,000 luxury, unnecessary car? - nope. a $3000 car will do.

Laser eye surgery from a highly talented surgeon for $6000 that will give you perfect vision and quality of life drastically improved for life? - Good deal.

Oversized apartment for $3000 rent/mo? - Nah i don't need it so much, I don't spend much time in my house besides sleeping and resting, I'll stick with a cheaper one.

Buying high quality food that tastes good, gives me the energy and nutrients I need to function? - Good deal, I will spend the $500/month or whatever it might cost.

Don't recommend Tokyo. It's probably one of the the least hospitable prefectures for immigrants and the real estate agents understand the massive value of urban sprawl. Most realtorsl flat out refuse to sell to immigrants and you'll find that anybody with a house within eyeshot doesn't really trust you. Houses are usually built very cheap (of course, the gaijin tax will make it very expensive) to a low standard of quality, homes aren't expected to be passed down to children.

Unless you're fluent in Japanese and went to a top school, you won't be able to find a job as an EE. If you do, you'll be forced into the salary-man lifestyle working for peanuts. You'll have a much more fulfilling life completing your career and earning your money in almost any other first world nation.

Japan is romanticized because our nook of the internet derives a lot of culture from the land of the rising sun. If your heart's set on moving there, go on a vacation and scope things out. Talk to realtors, talk to home-owners, talk to any business owner you'd visit on a regular basis. Don't get sucked into spending two weeks visiting cat and maid cafes or sampling all of the local ramen, that stuff's only fun if you're a tourist with no responsibilities and too much cash to blow.
>We like expensive clothes and nice furniture.
Of course you do.
>a $3000 car
An $800 Geo Metro will do. It's easy to fix and is pretty reliable, you won't be paying out the ass for gas, and you'll have a much lower premium.
>Laser eye surgery ... for $6000
An optometrist covered by your insurance and $80 glasses will work almost as well.
>Good deal, I will spend the $500/month or whatever it might cost.
Jesus, you shouldn't need to spend any more than $6-10 per head for day of food. Eat only calorie-rich, cheap foods like rice, beans, lentils, and spinach. Visit farmer's markets and bargain for a week's worth of food. Buy multivitamins if you're missing anything in your diet.

>An optometrist covered by your insurance and $80 glasses will work almost as well.
>Jesus, you shouldn't need to spend any more than $6-10 per head for day of food. Eat only calorie-rich, cheap foods like rice, beans, lentils, and spinach

That wasn't the point, dumbass.

I'm saying I'd rather spend my money to get maximum value in my quality of life.

The difference for me between a $50,000 car and a $3000 car is negligible.

The difference between eating bullshit that tastes awful and bland all day long for years like beans, lentils and rice isn't worth it compared to the amount you save.

I don't understand your question OP. If you have money, you have comfortable life, that's it.

If it's another "how do I make big bux Veeky Forums" then you can GTFO with your garbage thread.

lol and glasses really inconvenience you so much that you'd be willing to spend $6000 not to wear them?
>The difference for me between a $50,000 car and a $3000 car is negligible.
What you're trying to do here is some "optimize net happiness" bullshit which really doesn't cut it. If I get money, I can get happiness. If I blow all my money on LASIK and a Camaro, I'd have to pump money into additional optometrist appointments and gas/repair.
If there's any minor function I could want in a $3000 car, I could easily afford to buy it for my $800 car with the money I save from driving it.

I can see exceptions for people who drive or work with cars for fun, but it's still a lot easier to stockpile money for your car hobby if you're living cheap.

>bullshit that tastes awful and bland
>beans, lentils, and rice
I'm sorry that you don't know how to cook, you don't have to take your aggression out on me.

>all day long for years
Sure, I'm the dumbass here. You're expected to indulge every once in a while. Anybody watching their money can afford to go out for dinner on the town every once awhile, host a potluck, what have you. If you're spending $20 a day every day with an entry-EE salary just to eat, you're actually going to have to save up to eat anything better.

You do whatever you want though. Enjoy working hard until your late-seventies just so you can live your whole life in upper-mediocrity.

>lol and glasses really inconvenience you so much that you'd be willing to spend $6000 not to wear them?

Yes, they are unpleasant and I'd rather have perfect vision for life and wear nice sunglasses and not have the other problems rather than have $6000.

>I'm sorry that you don't know how to cook, you don't have to take your aggression out on me.

Well if you like it then that's fine but I don't enjoy it. So spending $500/month is well worth it. What else would I spend $500/month that provides as much value for me? Probably nothing.

>Enjoy working hard until your late-seventies just so you can live your whole life in upper-mediocrity

What else are you going to be doing? You're working and living either way, might as well work hard and spend it on things you like.

Besides you're missing the point. I'm saying I cut out buying things that provide little value to me when I can spend that money on things that provide more value.

$5000 on a vacation? Ok cool I guess, I saw some shit for 4 weeks then went home. Big deal.

Literal body improvement operations that last a lifetime and drastically improve your quality of life for $5000(or even more)? Much more worth it.

>Literal body improvement operations that last a lifetime
LASEK doesn't guarantee perfect vision for life. It's a corrective surgery for which a significantly cheaper option exists. Very few insurance companies will cover any part of it.
Assuming your vision keeps deterring, especially as you get into old age, you have to keep forking over more money for more surgeries. Some optometrists offer lifetime guarantees but they're ridiculously stingy and you have to jump through hoops to stay eligible.
>might as well work hard and spend it on things you like.
We obviously have different priorities. I'd rather pinch an occasional penny so that I can treat myself ocassionaly, you'd prefer to overpay for daily necessities so you can feel like you're living a quality life.
>What else are you going to be doing?
Retiring twenty years earlier than you and traveling around the world with my wife before settling down at a villa in Casablanca.

>Retiring twenty years earlier than you and traveling around the world with my wife before settling down at a villa in Casablanca.

Doesn't sound fun to me, vacations are alright but they get boring quickly and I want to go back home.

>Retiring earlier than you
I don't plan on ever retiring, I like my life, my job and the things it affords me. I will work until I am physically incapable of it.

Working for me is like a hobby that I strongly enjoy doing everyday and would do for free, but it just so happens to also pay very well.

Is there like a sticky for best books to read? not big bux, just money management?

my wife is japanese.

It's pretty simple OP, if you spend more than your paycheck, you're gonna be in trouble. If you don't save for retirement, you're going to be in trouble later.

Japan also has stupid social mores about buying new (used is for losers) and houses are supposed to be built anew. So you're fucked, basically.

I kinda wanted to build a house lol. but how does this effect housing/land prices?

bump

in the 60's, 70s and 80s all you had to do was get a nice factory job, and all of those things (minus maybe the expensive clothes/furniture) could be yours.

Now? You must start your own buisness.

No one in their right mind in this work environment will ever pay you anything more than what you need to be to attain anything more than medicore.

That's maybe a rented apartment. (Housing is too expensive to own), a medicore vehicle, and new set of clothes once every few months).

If something goes wrong in your life, medical expenses etc. Your life is over, thank you play again.

I fucking hate how right you are.

Japan has some of the best priced real estate in the world, relative to local income and rent prices. Obviously you can get a cheaper place elsewhere, but relative to Japanese rents, Japanese houses are about the most reasonable in the world. Shrinking population and low immigration will do that.

This guy is gonna win it for good. Great advice OP, listen to him.

I suggest Early Retirement Extreme and Mr. Money Mustache, the former being better imo. Check out the Wiki through their main page, it contains some really great info.

I suppose you are from the US. I don't know how it is there exactly, but I think the same as here, namely if you live in a big city you can't even afford an apartment, you have to flat-share (which means you get a room), and most times even that eats away half your income.
At least healthcare is "free" here, for now.

Actually thinking of buying a flat through a friend (jap national) and renting it out.

do it like the richest german
living in a lower middle class house
driving a cheap car
only two pictures of him in the internet
worth 17 mrd €

>my wife is japanese.

Enjoy your Elliot Rodger type of hapa offspring.

who the fuck wants to be miserly with their money?

I can only pray the guy is at the very asian himself. Please OP, don't create another ER.

>very asian
Very least is what I meant.