I know that I have sent this blog to nowheresville from my long absence. I do, like all bloggers have some form of excuse. Since I last blogged extensively, I have changed jobs and am now working on what could be the  beginnings of a new business with a friend. The business is a foreign language used bookstore, called Mondo Books (問答書店 in Japanese) and we are located on Otsu-dori (大津通り), a busy street in Nagoya’s Osu neighborhood.

So far as I can tell, we are the only business of our type in the region. That said, it doesn’t guarantee our success. There is the small fact of getting the word out… which is complicated by the fact that we are starting in the middle of the summer holidays, a time when many foreign residents (our target customers) are on vacation elsewhere in the world.

We are lucky enough to have found a central yet cheapish location on Otsu-dori, one of the main shopping streets in the area. Unfortunately, our store is not directly facing the street, and we have to fight for pedestrians’ attention with nothing more than a few sidewalk signs.

It is  “trial shop” though, and the rent is cheap enough to get us started. I will try and fill you in on the continuing developments. Or why not come by, say “hi”  and I can tell you about them in person?

Until next time….

So, suffice to say I was impressed when I first encountered the Japanese haircut chain known as QB House, where you can get a cut for around ￥1000.

The business formula is rather simple: standardization and volume, volume, volume. Before you enter the shop, there is a light outside indicating the approximate wait time. Inside, you put your money into a machine (￥1000 notes only) and it spews out a ticket.  When one of the chairs is free, you had over your ticket to the barber and get your haircut.

While some may lament the fact that the barbers aren’t so chatty, and the service can be a bit impersonal, it’s hard to argue with ￥1000 .

Congratulations for the lucky ones of you out there who will recieve payments as part of the Japanese government’s 2 trillion yen economic stimulus package 定額給付金　teigaku kyuufukin. Under the plan, ￥12000 payments will be distributed to households across Japan.

So how will it all work? The Mainichi Shinbun explains:

[...]cash will be doled out to households by transferring the money to individual accounts at financial institutions after the head of each household files an application by postal mail to local governments.

The draft says it is desirable to start supplying the cash to households before the end of fiscal 2008, but the actual starting date will be decided by each municipal government. The deadline for applications is still being debated and will be either within three months or six months.

While the government and the ruling coalition had earlier pledged to finish distributing the cash to all households before the end of this fiscal year, it has emerged that it will be unfeasible.

Under the draft plan, each municipal government will send application forms to the heads of households, who will be expected to return them with their bank account details. Municipal governments will confirm the identity of recipients by requiring them to send copies of their bankbooks and driver’s licenses together with their application. The officials may also transfer the cash to accounts already on record for use in withdrawing utility fees.

If an individual cannot file an application through postal mail, the head of a household can visit the municipal government office and go through procedures to have the cash transferred to their account. Supplying the money through municipal government offices is also an option, but for safety reasons, it will be limited to cases where bank transfers are difficult.

The amount of cash to be doled out will be 12,000 yen per person, and additional 8,000 yen will be paid to those aged over 65 or under 18. The base date for determining a person’s age will be either Jan. 1 or Feb. 1 next year.

The cash will be provided by municipal governments where recipients have their residency registered as of the base date. As for foreigners, the cash allowance will be distributed to permanent foreign residents and the foreign spouses of Japanese nationals.

So all you permanent residents and spouses out there, enjoy your ￥12000. You might want to look into putting your money in a higher interest yen time deposit (see my previous article on the subject) or picking up some personal finance books to increase your financial IQ.

As I don’t fall into either of the above categories, I’ll just have to see if I can win it at pachinko.

But alas, for those of us who have come to this fair isle without the privilege of having a card, the road to attaining one is ever so steep.  For those foreigners without the benefit of a spousal visa, or an  永住権　(eijuuken) permanent residency status, the path to attaining credit can be a bit rocky. From the perspective of most Japanese banks, foreigners on short term visas are a flight risk, and the rate of credit card refusals can be high.

So what’s a foreigner in such a position to do?

Get a debit card.

Available from a number of banks, debit cards allow all the advantages of being able to purchase online, coupled with far easier availability for us the credit-challenged masses. Plus there’s less risk of you spending beyond your means.

I have applied for an account at one of said banks and will apply for a visa debit card as soon as I can.  I will keep you informed as to how it tuns out. In the meantime, you can check out these debit card offers using the links below.

「スルガ銀行」　Suruga Bank Visa Debit Card

Japanese    (Bad) Japanese-English Translation

「イ－バンク｣　eBank Money Card

Japanese  (Bad) Japanese-English Translation

また今度・・・ until next time…

Having recently learned the Japanese word for interest （金利 kinri）I did a search on the internet for “high interest bank accounts” (高金利口座　kou-kinri-kouzai) in my broken Japanese. Not amazingly, some results came up (even this country of notoriously low interest rates) including this site with a handy-dandy bank interest rate comparison chart. (位　i means place in Japanese with １位　meaning “first place” ２位　”second place” and so on. Before you get too excited with Yen rates over 0.5%, keep in mind the minimum deposit amounts listed on the right hand side of the chart. They are listed in 万　man or 10,000 yen units and many of them are yen time deposits which will not mature from a month’s time to several years from now.

While none of these are wonderful for long range investing (there is such a high chance of inflation gobbling up your money), yen time deposits might be good places to stash your cash for your next trip home/Thailand or storing up money to send home or invest. Hey, why not grow your investment by 10 yen while you wait to move it along to something better overseas? “Better than a kick in the teeth” as a friend of mine once said.

Apologies for the long delay between posts. Life tends to get in the way of blogging at times. Anyhow, I am back now as we enter what some are calling a recession and the doomsayers are calling a depression. Whatever the case may be, I’ll keep plugging away to try and find interesting and useful resouces for those of us weathering the storm here in Japan.

 The Bank of Japan has estimated that there is ¥42 trillion in cash hidden in Japanese households – money that could be employed more productively elsewhere….

“Japanese wives take a great joy from saving and managing household money,”… When cash is set aside as hesokuri, the bank notes are usually hidden in a dresser, at the back of bookshelves or even in the refrigerator….

“You might find them strapped in the bottom of a natto container,” (a fermented soy bean dish popular in Japan).

Maybe Mrs. Sato has something to smile about after all…

Mari Sato has nodded off on the train again. It’s been happening a lot lately, the result of sleepless nights worrying about a money crisis. Like most Japanese wives, Mrs. Sato is the family’s money manager, therefore it’s up to her to resolve this financial problem. So she lies awake at nights trying to figure out how.

To put it bluntly, Mrs. Sato needs cash — a lot of it, and soon. Her daughter, Sumiko, will likely be admitted into a prestigious university. That would ensure a good career with an excellent salary. But the Satos will have to pay an annual tuition fee of $8,500….

The dollar nosedived below ¥96.00 Monday for the first time in nearly 13 years as fears of a U.S. financial industry meltdown persist amid America’s festering subprime mortgage loan crisis.

At 5 p.m., the greenback traded at ¥97.37-39 in Tokyo, down from ¥100.28-30 at 5 p.m. Friday. The dollar briefly dropped to ¥95.77, marking its lowest level since August 1995.