No way!? A woman who went from -2 million yen to 10 million yen in assets in 5 years

I thought it had gotten cooler now that it's autumn, but it's gotten hot again, so I'm still wearing short sleeves.

I imagine many of you might be getting tired of hearing about a spendthrift office worker every time...

Today, I would like to talk about my wife.

Recently, for some reason, her assets seem to be increasing, so I'm writing this in the hope that it might provide a hint as to how she increased them.
I'm writing this in the hope that it might provide a hint as to how she increased them.

This is just my wife's personal experience, so I don't know if it's reproducible... In fact, it might not be.

By the way, here is a brief profile of my wife.

1. Woman in her 30s
2. Lives in Tokyo
3. Third career (manufacturing, design-related, advertising)
4. Working full-time after maternity and childcare leave
5. Hobbies are overseas travel and foreign dramas

I think it was around 2019 when my wife started saving in earnest.

Until then, she was actually in a negative situation due to student loans, revolving credit payments, and so on.

Revolving credit is something some people use without even realizing it.
It's convenient because it keeps payments at a fixed amount, but it's a devilish system.

We'll look at this later, but the high interest rates on revolving credit are astonishing.

I'll look back at how someone who was completely unrelated to savings and investments managed to build assets!

1. Understand your assets

First, we grasped our asset situation when we started living together.
Starting to live together means two strangers are living together, so the topic of money inevitably comes up.

While talking about sharing living expenses, annual income, and savings, it became clear that my wife had debts. *I don't think debt itself is bad. We have a full loan, after all.

Up until then, she had been indifferent to money, so it seems she wasn't particularly conscious about saving.

I was shocked that there was revolving credit among those debts, haha.

We decided to take action quickly and started by paying it off.

Do you know?

The interest rate for revolving credit is about 15%.

If you borrow 1 million yen, you will pay 150,000 yen in interest in one year.
If it were an investment, it would be incredibly excellent.

In the case of a loan, if you pay it back at 20,000 yen per month

The repayment period will take 6 years and 7 months.

The interest will be about 579,114 yen, so you will end up paying a total of 1,579,114 yen. Haha

This is just a story about the pattern of only paying back if you borrow.

What might be quite common is the pattern of borrowing even more, which can lead to a state where the principal doesn't decrease and you only pay interest...

The scary thing about this system is that you end up unable to pay, and you end up living paycheck to paycheck by borrowing from another card.

If you get involved lightly, it can lead to terrible consequences.

Be careful with credit card revolving payments. Our household paid off the revolving debt first, and from there, we started managing it with a spreadsheet.

(*By the way, I have since switched to an analog style.)

2. Household account management

What is important here is to grasp your income and expenditures.

What I actually realized was that there was a lot of so-called latte money.

I couldn't eliminate wasteful spending to zero, but I decided to curb it to some extent.

By managing a household account book, you can visualize how much money is going out and how much is coming in. This also leads to reducing waste.

Income - Savings (Investment) = Expenditures

First, we establish this structure.

Once you visualize it, waste becomes visible, making it easier to save.

It's the same principle as how you can lose weight by recording your diet.

In our household's case, we reviewed things like communication costs and subscriptions.
At the time, we were in a rental apartment, but we didn't cut that; we reduced other fixed costs instead.

Generally, I think housing costs have the heaviest weight, but our values were to cherish our living environment, so we didn't cut it.

I think this depends on individual values, but I personally believe that cherishing the space you live in ultimately improves your performance.

Since the expenses being used became clear, while reducing waste, we started Tsumitate NISA from here.

I had already started Tsumitate NISA, so I just helped with opening the account, and we started by filling the 400,000 yen quota.

By the way, she seemed interested in individual stocks as well, so she bought some during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since it had dropped almost to the bottom, the stock price rose from there.

She also experienced selling at a positive timing, so she seemed to become more positive about investing.

This led to a successful experience early in her investment journey.

By the way, her securities account and the funds she purchased are different from mine.
*She said she didn't want to invest in the same things as others.

In terms of what we actually did, this was almost all of it.

We own our home (with a mortgage), have a car, and have one child, and we eat out quite a bit, but perhaps our strength lies in the fact that we are both aware of each other's assets.

As for other strengths,

Thoroughly researching high-ticket purchases

Making full use of national and local government systems

These things might be important.

Regarding NISA, as well as hometown tax donations and child-rearing support, I research and utilize anything that applies to us.

I am thorough about this.

I do everything I can for our livelihood.

On top of that, taking moderate risks with financial investments might have also been a good thing.

My wife, who doesn't particularly worry about assets, has turned a significant profit before I knew it.

I will share a little bit for reference.

I keenly felt the amazing power of leaving things alone. lol

Investment return rate +43.6%
+1,861,832 yen

All she did was set it up and occasionally move money from her account.

I helped with the initial setup, but after that, all we've done is enter it into the household account book.

The fact that my wife has never made a withdrawal might have been good in the end.

Besides the securities account, we have a regular savings account, whole life insurance (savings type), and pension insurance.

Before I knew it

She surpassed 10 million yen?!

That is what she said.

She didn't live the kind of frugal life you hear about on the street.

What I found amazing was that she had no hesitation about financial investment and was making her own choices.

I work in finance, so I had no resistance to it, but my wife was not like that.

I felt the strength of her mindset as someone who is action-oriented and willing to take risks.

From this, here is what I felt:

1. Visualize it

2. Try financial investment even with a small amount

3. Don't worry about it

Continuing these three simple things.

When I talk to business partners and colleagues, the topic often comes up that women are the ones who can increase their money. Men tend to overthink things.

My wife isn't interested in money like I am; she is interested in our family's life.

Perhaps money comes to her precisely because she doesn't focus too much on it.

I want to learn that 'don't worry about it' mindset too.