[Must-Read for Individual Investors] Bank of Japan data on stagnant real wages and the details of the 3 high-dividend stocks I moved into

"Hey Rin, my salary is supposed to have gone up, so why is life getting harder?"

—August 14, 2026, Thursday, 9:40 PM. At the counter of"buri" in Ebisu. Chi-chan asked me that while holding a glass of sake (880 yen) in both hands. Her smartphone was in her hand, open to her nursery school salary statement app.

"My base pay went up by 3,000 yen this year. I was happy, but somehow, things haven't gotten any easier at all."

I took out my smartphone and opened my brokerage account. August 2026 records.

Annual dividends, after tax, are "614,200 yen". The invested amount is not 920,000 yen, but for these 4 companies alone, it is "920,000 yen". The displayed yield is an average of "4.7%".

"...Rin, is this... dividends?"
"Yes. These 4 companies are working on my behalf every year."

Chi-chan set down her sake.

"I'm not laughing at your 3,000 yen base pay increase. But listen, I'll explain it step by step. It's not that your salary hasn't gone up. It's that 'it's going up, but its value is shrinking.' That's a completely different problem."

【What you will learn in this article】
1. How to read the "wages aren't growing" data quietly released by the Bank of Japan
2. How to calculate the "shrinkage" of your salary in numbers
3. How I allocated 920,000 yen across 4 companies (actual allocation amounts)
4. The 3 traps individuals fall into with high dividends
5. The 4th company—the one I least wanted to write about, the hidden one
📌 Recommended reading
・[Profit/Loss Disclosure] For those who can't act on the consumption tax cut, the 3 sectors I bought while wary of interest rates
・[All Figures Disclosed] The 3 days of tungsten price surges, the breakdown of the 2.14 million yen I invested and the unit prices

📉 The reason for "stagnant wages" quietly released by the Bank of Japan

I'll start with the conclusion. Your salary isn't growing because of a lack of effort on your part.

There is a story like this in an analysis released by the Bank of Japan's research lab. In Japan during the deflationary period, "productivity grew, but wages didn't keep up." It's the story that for a long time, companies accumulated profits as retained earnings instead of passing them on to salaries.

When I was at the desk, I looked at this structure from a different angle every day.

When you're trading Japanese stocks at a foreign proprietary desk, every earnings season you end up lining up dozens of companies where "profits are up, but labor costs are flat." We called those "shareholder-friendly companies."

To put it another way:

"The portion that didn't go to your salary is flowing to shareholders as dividends."

This isn't a conspiracy theory. If you read the IR of listed companies, it's written right there. Every year, some company announces "strengthening shareholder returns" or "increasing dividend payout ratios."

Chi-chan's 3,000 yen base pay increase and the "dividend increase" news from the same company. Both come from the same profits.

"So... as long as I'm on the side receiving a salary, will I always lose?"

I didn't say that.

"You should stand on both sides."

Receive a salary while also becoming a shareholder of that company. This is the quietest solution.

━━ One action you can take today ━━
Take out your pay stub and compare your take-home pay with the same month last year. If your gross pay has gone up but your take-home pay has decreased, that is the actual amount of your "devaluation."

💰 The calculation showing that a 3,000 yen base-up is actually a "pay cut"

I'll calculate this using Chi-chan's numbers. I have her permission.

・Monthly salary: 248,000 yen(gross) ・
2026 base-up: 3,000 yen per month ・Annual increase:
36,000 yen(gross)

That's the "increase" part. Now, we start the subtraction.

Social insurance premiums and taxes take away roughly 20%. A take-home increase of 36,000 yen is approximately "28,800 yen".

Next, living costs. I had Chi-chan list her 1 year of expenses exactly as they appear in her household account app.

▼ Item | August 2025 | August 2026 | Difference
Food Expenses | 42,000 yen | 47,500 yen | +5,500 yen
Electricity/Gas | 11,200 yen | 13,400 yen | +2,200 yen
Communication | 4,900 yen | 4,900 yen | ±0 yen
Daily Necessities | 8,300 yen | 9,600 yen | +1,300 yen
Transportation | 6,000 yen | 6,600 yen | +600 yen
Total | 72,400 yen | 82,000 yen | +9,600 yen

Monthly living costs have increased by "9,600 yen". When converted to an annual basis, that's "115,200 yen".

The reason these numbers could be laid out like this is because Chi-chan has been diligently keeping her household account book app every month. For those who find app input troublesome and can't keep it up, there is the Just-Write-It Household Account Notebook. It's designed so you just write down the amount, one line per day. Since there's no hassle of photographing receipts, some people find this easier to stick with. It costs about 800 yen, a price you won't regret even if you fail.

The increase in take-home pay is 28,800 yen. The increase in expenses is 115,200 yen.

Subtracting that, it's a net loss of 86,400 yen per year.

Wait, hold on. You mean even though it went up, I'm actually losing money?

Exactly. This is what's happening in Japan right now. Nominal base pay increases do exist, but the prices of goods are rising at a faster rate. That's why it's not growing when you look at 'real wages'.

Chi-chan still had the 3,000 yen slip she was so happy about saved on her smartphone.

I won't laugh at that. If there's one thing I learned in the 7 years I spent at my desk, it's that 'numbers are cruel, but they give options only to those who look at them'.

🔥So, here is the main point🔥

If there's an 86,400 yen hole in your year, there are only two ways to fill it.

・Increase your annual income by 86,400 yen (raise/side job) ・Create
86,400 yen in annual income other than your salary

I chose the latter, I can tell you that for sure. The former sells your own time. The latter makes your money work for you. When you hit 34 and start to see the limits of your physical stamina, this difference really starts to matter.

📊 Reverse calculation to fill the 86,400 yen annual hole with dividends

Speaking from my experience in foreign finance, this kind of reverse calculation takes 5 minutes.

Required dividend income: 86,400 yen per year (after tax) Tax rate:
20.315% Required dividends:
108,400 yen per year (before tax)

Here is the required investment amount by yield.

Chi-chan's savings are currently 3.1 million yen. Just sitting in a time deposit. The interest rate is 0.3%, so that's 9,300 yen a year. That's about 8 glasses of wine.

When she showed me her time deposit passbook, there was also a photo of a cute piggy bank next to it. A piggy bank that collects coins, it had about 3,000 yen in it. She said, 'I wanted the feeling of saving money.' Feelings are important. It's only worth about 1,500 yen, and just having it on your desk changes your mindset. But feelings alone won't fill an 86,400 yen hole.

If you put that same 3.1 million yen into a yield of 4.7%, it's 145,700 yen per year before tax. 116,100 yen after tax.

The 86,400 yen hole is filled, and you still have 29,700 yen left over.

'Just by moving your savings, the loss disappears.'

This is the true nature of hope. It's not about earning new money, it's just about changing where the money you already have is placed.

“But, it decreases, right? Stocks.”

It does decrease. It decreases. I won't sugarcoat that.

That is why I wrote that there is (a trap) in the “yield of 6% or more” column. People who skip this and jump into high yields are the ones who get taken the most. That is the side being taken. If you understand the root reasons for the relationship between dividends and stock prices, you will break the habit of looking only at yields.

━━ One action you can take today ━━
Punch your savings amount × 0.047 × 0.8 into a calculator. That is the “annual income generated just by changing where you keep it.” A calculator app on your smartphone is fine, but having a leather-style business calculatoron hand will keep your hands moving when you read financial results summaries in the future. An investment of about 2,000 yen.

⚠️ The record of the 350,000 yen I lost on high dividends

I won't just talk about perfect stories. I will show the record of where I was taken.

In the autumn of 2024, I bought a shipping company at a yield of “8.2%”. The amount invested was “1.8 million yen”.

The reason was simple: the yield was high. That was it. Someone who had worked on a prop desk for 7 years made a purchase like this.

Six months later, a dividend cut. The yield became “3.1%” on the display. The stock price also fell, and I sold at “minus 352,000 yen”.

Was I so frustrated I cried? No. I was speechless. At how sloppy my way of buying was.

What I did wrong is clear.

“Yield is a 'forecast,' not a 'promise'”

A yield of 8.2% is a hypothetical figure based on the assumption that “if last year's dividend is paid again this year, it is 8.2%.” The company is under no obligation to pay that dividend.

And for industries that fluctuate significantly with market conditions, the yield calculated using the dividend amount from a good year looks abnormally high. Individuals see that and jump in. When I was on the prop desk, we watched that inflow on the order board.

Inside the desk, it was said like this.

“If the displayed yield exceeds 7%, it's not about dividends; it's about the stock price falling.”

Yield = Dividend ÷ Stock Price. If the denominator, the stock price, falls, the yield automatically rises. Even though the market is judging that “this dividend will not continue” and is dropping the stock price, individuals read that number as a “bargain.”

This misreading is the most costly one.

That is why I am “not choosing by yield” for the 4 companies I have now. The way to choose is elsewhere. I will write all of that from here on.

🏦 The thinking behind the allocation of 920,000 yen across 4 companies

From May to August 2026, I invested a total of 920,000 yen into 4 companies.

I'll start with the breakdown of the amounts.

・1st company: 280,000 yen
・2nd company: 240,000 yen
・3rd company: 220,000 yen
・4th company: 180,000 yen

It's not equal, is it? There's a reason for this.

The allocation isn't decided by "high yield." It's decided by "the strength to keep paying dividends."

Specifically, strength means these three things.

・What percentage of operating profit is paid out as dividends (dividend payout ratio)
・How many years of track record there is of not reducing dividends even in recession years
・How many times the cash on hand covers the annual dividend payment amount

The third one isn't talked about much, but it's the most effective. Even if profits dip temporarily, companies with plenty of cash will maintain their dividends. Conversely, companies that have profits but little cash will be the first to cut dividends in a bad year.

Chi-chan asked me, "Where can I see that?"

The first page of the financial results summary and the cash flow statement. That's all. Once you get used to it, it takes 5 minutes per company. If you aren't used to reading financial results summaries, the first book you pick up should be a thin one. Introduction to High-Dividend Stocks Through Manga is centered on diagrams, and you can grasp how to look at dividend payout ratios and cash flow in about an hour. It costs about 1,400 yen, which is much faster than getting discouraged by a thick specialized book.

And the 4th company.

180,000 yen is all I put in. It's the smallest. But this is the one company I most wanted to write about in this article.

A company with a small market capitalization that is barely covered by analysts. That's why only individuals can pick up companies like this. Proprietary trading desks can't buy them due to scale issues. They can't get enough lot size in.

"There is a share for individuals in places where institutions cannot buy."

This might be the biggest thing I realized after being at a desk for 7 years.

💎 What you can do starting next month if you only have savings

I'll write down what Chi-chan asked at the end.

"Should I put in all 3.1 million yen?"

No. I'll say it clearly.

What I told her was "Out of the 3.1 million yen, start with 600,000 yen.". There are 3 reasons.

First point. Stock prices go down. If your initial deposit is too large, you'll quit at the first dip. You shouldn't put in an amount that will break your heart right from the start.

Second point. 600,000 yen divided by 4 companies means 150,000 yen per company. At this scale, you can realistically choose companies you can buy in standard lots.

Third point. Invest 600,000 yen for one year and experience having dividends actually deposited into your account. The moment you see a "deposit notification" rather than just numbers, your way of thinking changes.

This was the same for me. The first dividend I received after becoming independent in 2019 was 4,120 yen. The amount is small. But the feeling of my account balance increasing in a month where I did nothing was something I experienced for the first time that day.

Right now, I receive 614,200 yen in annual dividends after tax. That's 2.5 months of Chi-chan's salary. This gets deposited automatically every year.

This is the amount that grew while I wasn't working.

And it will increase a bit more next year. Because I choose companies that increase their dividends.

Do you know how much your savings are earning in the bank right now? It's 3,000 yen per year on 1 million yen. If you finish reading this article and do nothing, you will receive the same 3,000 yen in August 2027. Prices will have risen again by then.

Which side do you want to spend one year on? Let me know in the comments.

💎 What you get in the rest of this (paid part)
✅ The full breakdown of the 4 companies I invested 920,000 yen into (industry, amount invested, acquisition price, current yield)
✅ The 4th company—How to find small-cap stocks that aren't covered (3-condition screening procedure)
✅ A 7-item checklist to identify "companies that won't stop dividends" in 5 minutes
✅ A monthly deposit calendar to turn 3.1 million yen in savings into dividend income (3–36 months)
✅ 3 traps of high-dividend investing and specific steps to avoid them
From here on, I will show you the details of those 4 companies and the entire procedure for you to do the same.

📋 Full breakdown of the 4 companies (industry, amount invested, acquisition price)

As promised, I'll give you the main part first.

2026 The 4 companies I invested in from May to August. These are the records as they are.

After tax, it's 34,180 yen per year. This is the record for that 920,000 yen.

Wait, Rin. You said 610,000 yen earlier, right?

Yes. The total dividend is 614,200 yen per year. The 4 companies written in this article are just a part of that. I've only extracted the ones I newly added this year. If I wrote everything, it would exceed 20 industries, and you wouldn't be able to replicate it even if you read it.

I cut it down to a size that is replicable.

Why these 4 industries?

There is an order to how you choose industries.

The first company is a general trading company. I placed this first because it has the strongest "stamina to not stop dividends." If you look at how many times the cash on hand covers the annual dividend amount, this industry is very thick. I also looked at the record of them not cutting dividends in the resource-price slump year of 2020.

The second is a major telecommunications company. The reason is that "sales are not swayed by the economy." People pay their phone bills even during a recession. Therefore, the source of dividends is stable. The yield is about the same as a trading company, but the nature is completely different. In a year when one fluctuates, the other supports it.

The third is a non-life insurance company. This is effective in a phase where interest rates rise. Since insurance companies invest the premiums they receive, a rise in interest rates leads directly to an improvement in investment yields. 2026 is a year I am watching, thinking that interest rates will move.

The fourth is a small-cap industrial machinery company. Only this one has a yield of 6.00%. Even though I wrote earlier to "be suspicious if it exceeds 7%," there is a reason why I am buying at 6%.

I will write the reason in the next section.

🔍 4th Company—How to Find Small-Cap Stocks That Aren't Covered

At foreign-affiliated desks, this is what actually happened.

"It's a good company, but I can't buy it."

The reason is liquidity. For companies with low daily trading volume, if a fund tries to buy, the stock price jumps due to their own buying. The same applies when selling; their own selling causes it to collapse. That's why they aren't candidates from the start.

Specifically, companies with daily trading value below 300 million yen are excluded from the investment targets of many institutional investors. Some companies even have that written in their internal screening criteria.

"Because they can't be bought, they are left cheap."

This is the structural reason why there is an opportunity in small-cap high-dividend stocks. They aren't cheap because their performance is bad. They are cheap because the number of buyers is structurally small.

So, how do you distinguish between "companies that are just cheap" and "companies that are left cheap" from among them? I will present the 3 conditions I use.

3-Condition Screening for Small-Cap High-Dividend Stocks

Condition 1: Equity ratio of 50% or more. Companies that operate on debt prioritize repayment over dividends in a phase where interest rates rise.
50% is the line I set as "a line that can withstand two consecutive bad years."

Condition 2: Operating cash flow is positive for 5 consecutive years. Profits can be created to any extent through accounting, but cash flow is hard to fake. Companies that have had cash coming in from their core business for
5 years in a row have the source for dividends.

Condition 3: Dividend payout ratio is within the range of 40 to 60%. This is an important point. Too low (below
20%) means there is room for dividend increases, but there is a possibility they are passive about shareholder returns. Too high (80%) means a dividend cut will occur if profits drop even slightly. 40 to 60% is the most resilient range.

I look for companies that meet these three conditions and also have a yield exceeding 5%.

When you enter these 3 conditions into a securities company's screening tool, you can narrow it down to about "20 to 40 companies" on the TSE. From there, I read the financial results summaries, and the one that remained at the end was this industrial machinery company.

The deciding factor was the fourth condition.

The fourth, most important condition

Whether the founding family is the top shareholder.

This isn't talked about much, but it's incredibly effective. In companies where the founding family is a major shareholder, cutting dividends reduces their own income. Therefore, an incentive to protect dividends is structurally embedded.

The industrial machinery company I bought has the founding family's asset management company holding "23%" of the issued shares. Dividends in a company with this structure are not easily cut.

However, there is a side effect: the stock price of such companies doesn't move much. So, don't expect capital gains. You can only buy them on the premise of continuing to receive dividends.

The reason I only put in 180,000 yen is because liquidity is thin. There is a possibility that you cannot sell immediately when you want to. Therefore, I keep it limited to "an amount I can hold for 5 years in the worst case". I don't recommend imitating this.

✅ 7 items to identify companies that won't stop dividends in 5 minutes

Copy and paste this to use it. I look at them in this order when evaluating a company.

If even one item among the 7 falls under "exclude," I don't buy that company. I don't buy it no matter what the yield is.

The shipping company I lost 352,000 yen on in 2024 failed on items 3 and 5 of this table. At the time, I was only looking at the 8.2% yield. I made the table after that.

How to calculate item 5

Even though it's the most useful, it's the least known.

The calculation formula is as follows.

Cash and cash equivalents ÷ (Dividend per share × Number of issued shares) = Dividend payment capacity (multiplier)

For example, if cash is 30 billion yen and the total annual dividend payment is 6 billion yen, it's 5 times. This means the company can pay dividends with just the cash on hand even if profits are zero for 5 years.

If it falls below 3 times, dividends become risky in bad years. If it's less than 1 time, it will definitely be cut in the next recession.

This figure doesn't appear in brokerage apps. You have to calculate it yourself from the financial results summary. That's why individuals rarely do it.

But it only takes 5 minutes.

📅 36-month calendar to turn 3.1 million yen in savings into dividends

I am releasing the actual plan I gave to Chi-chan exactly as it is.

Premise: Out of 3.1 million yen in savings, the total amount to be invested is 2.4 million yen. 700,000 yen will be kept in cash as a living defense fund.

After 36 months, the annual dividend will be "89,600 yen" after tax.

It exceeds Chi-chan's shortfall of 86,400 yen per year.

3 years it takes. It's not fast. But during these 3 years, she hasn't changed her job as a nursery teacher even for a day. She hasn't taken a side job either. She just changed where her savings are kept.

"This is the quietest way to turn things around"

Why do I break it down like this instead of doing it all at once? I'll write down the reason.

The "0 yen" periods in months 4-6 and 10-12 are the most important parts of this table.

You do nothing here. You just watch the dividends enter your account. You read the financial results once. You experience the stock price dropping once.

If you don't include this "do-nothing period," people will inevitably sell everything halfway through.

When I was at my desk, this was what I saw most often. When you track individual trading data on the board, panic selling concentrates on the third day of a decline. When the price drops right after you buy, people doubt their own judgment. Doubt can only be erased by time.

That's why I incorporate time into the plan.

A "design to ensure you don't quit" investing can also be created with tools. What I gave Chi-chan wasn't a screenshot of a securities app, but an Asset Formation Investment Record Notebook. It has columns to handwrite the deposit date, stock price, and how you felt at that time. It's a notebook that costs about 1,800 yen, but when you open it on the third day of a decline, you can see that you've held your ground in the same place many times. That becomes the reason not to sell.

🚨 3 Traps Individuals Fall Into with High Dividends

To summarize what we've covered so far, I'll organize the three traps.

Trap 1: Jumping in on the ex-dividend date

If you buy on the day the right to receive dividends is determined (the final day with rights), you will receive the dividend. This is a fact.

However, the next day (the ex-dividend date), the stock price drops by the amount of the dividend. Theoretically, that's what happens, and in practice, that's generally what happens.

In other words, even if you buy just before for the sake of dividends, it's offset by the drop in stock price, so you don't gain anything. In fact, since dividends are taxed at 20.315%, you actually lose money by the amount of the tax.

At the end of March and the end of September, this jumping in happens every year. When you look at the board, you can see individual buying concentrating. That's where you become the one being taken advantage of.

Avoidance procedure: Invest "more than 2 months before" the final day with rights. Do not buy after that. Write it on your calendar.

Trap 2: Buying from the top of the yield ranking

Buying from the top of a securities app's "high dividend ranking" is the most dangerous way to buy.

There are only two reasons why a stock ranks high. Either the dividend is high, or the stock price has fallen. And in most cases, it's the latter.

Avoidance procedure: Before looking at the ranking, run it through the 7-item checklist mentioned earlier. Use the ranking only to gather candidates, not to decide the order.

Trap 3: Concentrating in one industry

High-yield industries tend to cluster depending on the period. 2026 would be finance and resources. If you put everything here, your dividends will drop sharply in the year that industry collapses.

The reason I diversify my 4 companies across "general trading, telecommunications, non-life insurance, and industrial machinery" is to avoid this. I line up things that won't collapse for the same reason.

Avoidance procedure: Cap each industry at 30% of the total invested amount. With 4 companies, it automatically becomes 25% each, so as long as you diversify the industries, you can protect yourself.

━━ Summary so far ━━
・Don't choose by yield. Choose by the financial strength to not stop dividends
・If even one of the 7 items is a "exclude," don't buy
・Stagger your investments. Include periods of 0 yen in your plan
・1 industry 30% cap

📈 What will happen to your account in 3 years

Finally, I'll just leave the numbers here.

For someone who currently has 3.1 million yen in savings at the bank, 3 years later.

・Interest received: 9,300 yen per year × 3 years = 27,900 yen
・Purchasing power lost to inflation: 86,400 yen per year × 3 years = 259,200 yen
・Net difference: ▲231,300 yen

For someone who used the same 3.1 million yen to execute the plan in this article, 3 years later.

・Cumulative dividends received (after tax): approximately 154,000 yen
・Annual dividend at the 3-year mark (after tax): 89,600 yen
・Amount received every year from the 4th year onwards: 89,600 yen + dividend increases

The difference exceeds 3 years at the "380,000 yen" mark.

And the decisive difference is 4 years onwards. For those who left it in the bank, in the 4th year it is still 9,300 yen. For those who set up dividends, in the 4th year they receive 89,600 yen, and in the 5th year it climbs into the 90,000 yen range due to dividend increases.

This gap widens as time passes.

Chi-chan submitted her securities account application on August 17th. She hasn't bought even 1 yen worth yet. That is fine.

"The day you start moving becomes the starting point of compound interest."

The first dividend I received in 2019 was 4,120 yen. That has become 7 years later, 614,200 yen per year. It's not magic. I just didn't stop.

Your salary might not keep up with inflation next year either. That is not your fault. The Bank of Japan's data says so.

But you can decide whether or not to create an income stream other than your salary.

🎯 Summary: Just the numbers one more time

・Chi-chan's effective loss: 86,400 yen
per year ・Amount I invested in 4 companies in 2026: 920,000 yen
・Average acquisition yield of those 4 companies: 4.66%
・My annual dividend (after tax): 614,200 yen
・Amount taken in 2024: - 352,000 yen
・Period to convert 3.1 million yen in savings into dividends: 36 months ・Annual dividend after 36 months (after tax):
89,600 yen

Open the financial results summary of just one company this week. Any company is fine. It could even be the company you work for.

Look at only these two things: the "dividend payout ratio" on the first page and the "cash flows from operating activities" in the cash flow statement. It will take 5 minutes.

If you wait until next month, you will miss the final day with rights for September once again. And in August 2027, you will again receive 3,000 yen in interest on 1 million yen. Prices will have risen again.

You don't have to repeat that one year ever again.

Your savings balance × 0.047 × 0.8. Just do this calculation tonight.

※This article is for informational purposes based on the author's experience and research, and does not guarantee specific investment, tax-saving, or profit results. Please make final decisions at your own risk.

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If you've read this far, before you hit 'like,' go check the profit and loss in your own account. We can talk after that.
If this note was still helpful, please like and follow. The record continues calmly.

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[List of Sources]
・Bank of Japan Research Lab, "On the Relationship Between Productivity and Wages in Japan"
・Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "Monthly Labour Survey" (Real Wage Index)
・Statistics Bureau of Japan, "Consumer Price Index"
・Company Financial Results Briefings and Securities Reports (March/June 2026 terms)
・Japan Exchange Group, Statistical Information (Trading Value and Liquidity Data)

📚 Related Articles (Other articles by Rin)
・[P&L Disclosure] For those who can't move on a consumption tax cut, the 3 sectors I bought in anticipation of interest rates
・[Full Figures Disclosed] The 3 days of tungsten price surges, the breakdown of the 2.14 million yen I invested and the unit price
・[Institutional Perspective] On the night of the US employment statistics, I bought 3 sectors that are not semiconductors
・[Position Record] Stocks that fell due to worsening Japan-China relations, I only picked up 3
・[Position Record] 1% food consumption tax, what I bought were not food stocks

#Money #Investment #HighDividendStockInvestment #AssetFormation #IndividualStockInvestment #FIRE #NewNISA #DividendLife #RealWages #MyInvestmentRecord