If you’re a salaryman in Japan and you’ve decided to take your finances seriously, here’s the question that confused me most when I started: “What do I actually do first?” There’s so much advice online, but very little of it is sequenced. These are the five steps in the order I wish I’d done them.
Step 1: Open Your Bank App and Learn Your Real Salary
Don’t look at your gross salary. Look at your take-home pay (tedori) — what actually hits your bank account on payday after taxes, pension, and health insurance. This is your real economic engine.
For most full-time Japanese employees, take-home is roughly 75–80% of gross. If your gross annual salary is ¥6 million, your monthly take-home is around ¥360,000. That’s the number that matters.
Step 2: Track 3 Months of Spending (Money Forward ME)
You cannot improve what you don’t measure. Use the free version of Money Forward ME to auto-import bank, credit card, and electronic money data. Wait 90 days. Then look.
The first month is for understanding. The second is for noticing patterns. The third is for cutting the obvious leaks (subscriptions you forgot, konbini habits, taxi shortcuts).
Step 3: Build a ¥500,000 Cash Buffer
Before any investing, build a ¥500,000 emergency fund in a high-interest online bank account (SBI Net Bank, Rakuten Bank — interest still tiny but ATM access is free). This isn’t your full emergency fund — that’s bigger. This is your “I won’t panic-sell stocks if my dishwasher breaks” fund.
If ¥500,000 sounds impossible, that’s the signal that Step 2 wasn’t honest enough. Try again.
Step 4: Open NISA and Buy Your First Index Fund
Open a NISA account at Rakuten or SBI Securities. Buy eMAXIS Slim All Country (global stocks index, expense ratio 0.05775%) every month, starting at any amount — even ¥1,000.
The point of Step 4 is not the gains. The point is to create the muscle memory of buying every month regardless of how the market feels. Once that habit exists, you can increase the amount as your buffer grows.
Step 5: Sign Up for iDeCo
iDeCo is Japan’s defined contribution pension scheme. Contributions are tax-deductible from your income — meaning every ¥10,000 you put in saves you roughly ¥2,000–¥5,500 in income and resident tax depending on your bracket.
For a typical salaryman, you can contribute ¥23,000/month. The deductible savings alone are massive. The catch: you can’t withdraw until age 60, so it’s locked. That’s actually a feature, not a bug.
My Honest Mistake (and What I’d Tell My Past Self)
I did these steps in the wrong order. I jumped into Step 4 (investing) without doing Step 3 (cash buffer). When the market dropped in late 2024, I needed cash for an unexpected family expense and had to sell at a loss. That single decision cost me roughly ¥120,000.
The right sequence — buffer first, then investing — would have saved me that loss and the stress. Skip steps at your peril.
Summary: The 90-Day Action Plan
- Week 1: Install Money Forward ME, link accounts
- Week 4: First spending review, cut subscriptions
- Week 8: Switch mobile carrier or electricity provider for monthly savings
- Week 10: Build cash buffer to ¥500,000
- Week 12: Open NISA and iDeCo, set up automatic monthly purchases
90 days of focus changes the next 30 years. The first ¥10,000 invested matters more than any future ¥10 million — it’s the proof to yourself that you can do this.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. It does not recommend any specific financial product. Investment decisions are your sole responsibility, and you may lose your principal. Tax rules and financial regulations described here reflect the situation as of 2026 in Japan and may change. Please consult a licensed advisor or the official sources (FSA, NTA, MOF) for the latest information.
