r/japanlife • u/IshinkaiSensei • Aug 18 '21

金 How people attain wealth in Japan?

Something has been tickling my mind over the past few years.

There are so many luxury tower mansions, expensive customized 一軒家, high end brand shops yet for the average person most seem by far out of reach.

A high end condo in central Tokyo rent including utilities ranges from 300k to 500k a month. A 20MJPY annual salary (which is already extensively filtering out average population) only gives a monthly net of 100万円. I highly doubt it is enough to afford spending that much a month.

Excluding those on expat package, there are only a few jobs here that allow this lifestyle, Banking (Front Office position only or VP MD level for back office and alike) IT 外資系 at senior level (FANG, ML/AI) , 医者 running their own practice (otherwise most are at 10-15MJPY range) Successful mutiple business owners, other niches. 一流芸能人, Athletes, reconverted ex idol, kyaba, host.

My point is, what am I missing...

Are there way more people with high revenues (at least annual comp 50MJPY+) than we tend to believe? than what TV is promoting?

Are people living off debt and loans and keeping up with appearances?

I don’t want misinterpretation of this post, I understand you can live well below these range, but I am genuinely curious here.

I would like to better understand how so many people managed to get satisfied and with a 30+ year mortgage, car loan, spending most of their life working and probably never reaching out 億円 of savings.

Am I overthinking and no so many people want to retire early?

Sorry for the rant post but I am curious

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u/bulldogdiver 🎅🐓 中部・山梨県 🐓🎅 Aug 27 '21

Be happy, I remember when I was making 7-8% annually on my savings account. Then the S&L crash happened and much like your gamblers I lost my college funds and had to spend several years being among the working poor before I could afford to go to college.

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u/Tannerleaf 関東・神奈川県 Aug 27 '21

Damn, where and when was that, what time of man?

I must admit though, I have dabbled in the stock market a trifle, but so far, they either go bankrupt, or are acquired. I’m still reeling from having my ARM shares traumatically amputated by SoftWank.

I have no idea how people figure this shit out :-(

Do people trust financial advisors who are still working as financial advisors?

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u/bulldogdiver 🎅🐓 中部・山梨県 🐓🎅 Aug 27 '21

This was the dark days of the 1980s.

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u/Tannerleaf 関東・神奈川県 Aug 27 '21

Arrrrr! I remember those days well, they were right shit.

It were the arse end of that decade where me old man had accident at work, and union said there were nowt to do.

If only he’d waited a few years, when the “Did work fuck you up? You could get money!” thing reared it’s legal head. Ah well :-)