On the top of my to do list is get better control of and track my finances. In other words I need to learn navigating life’s mountains regarding personal finance. There was only a short period of my life after college where I felt I had any disposable income. Illustrated in this Japan Has a Problem video, Japan is one of the worst countries regarding financial opportunity. Financial struggles is a main contributor to my exit strategy of 2025. In my opinion financial challenges in Japan are slightly harder than what the video can demonstrate.
The video covers the static wages in japan, work culture, and the value of yen globally. In addition there are many hidden costs of living in Japan. There are so many bureaucratic costs and hurdles associated with living in Japan. These range from a multitude on taxes, registration, and public insurance fees. My least favorite tax is the residence tax. Prefectures and local municipalities charge residents 10% of their previous annual salary a month. What these taxes go to is extremely vague and hard to understand. Additionally you are charged just to live and exist.
This is especially hard if you transfer jobs with a salary decrease.
Navigating Life’s Mountains Means You Need a Map: Financial Tracking
Before I moved to Japan, I tracked my financial spending in a spreadsheet. Mind you I didn’t have much spending to track as my overhead expenses were low. This was due in part to living at home with my parents. When I move back to the United States in 2025 I fully intend to live at home. I don’t really care what society has to say about it. I’m sure my mom could use help around the house and it would allow me to invest in Racing, Digital Media Equipment, and my Brand.
When I moved to Japan the cash based society and currency exchange left me confused for around five years. But now I want to get back on the financial responsibility horse. At almost thirty, it might be a little late to decide to be financially responsible. I hate to write a cliche, but “Better Late than Never”.
Navigating Life’s Mountains Means Sometimes Making Bad Financial Decisions
A couple years ago I was fairly religious about tracking my spending. By late 2019 and early 2020 I had a pretty decent nest egg saved up. Wanting to get into car sales and exportation I bought a 1996 EVO IV. It was a wonderfully fun car especially in the winter. I remember using the EVO IV in the rally games I used to play on my game boy color. Something about it felt just right when driving in the snow with a turbo. The winter tires and the AYC system gave me the confidence to do play with the throttle, clutch, and left foot brake to do slides. Driving in the snow was a great way to learn how to control the weight shifting of the car and correct the balance using a mix of throttle, steering, and the feeling of g forces.
I had planned to sell the car after it became legal to export to the United States. Unfortunately, before I could make a profit by flipping the car I blew the car’s engine. This compounded with my other financial woes of being hospitalized and losing my job shortly after.
While buying the Evo IV might have been been a bad financial decision, I don’t think I’d change a thing. The Mitsubishi might have been a burden on my wallet, but it lightened up my life. In the economy car turned rally monster, the life enjoyment I had garnered had made the financial difficulties worth it. Not many people can say that they drove on real Japanese snow covered mountains in a rally car. I did and I lived to tell the tale.
Almost a Bad Life Decision
Navigating Life’s Mountains Night Drives
Imagine It’s a late winter and early spring night in the shadow of Mount Asama. The crisp mountain air is the same as the driver Keiichi Tsuchiya breathed in his youth. The looming mountain was not only a fixture of daily life, but it called to him on the weekends. Although the snow at ground level had departed until the next winter, at the top of the mountain there was still fresh snow falling. The the 4G63 rumbled to life as the ignition was turned. The distinct sound of a tuned turbo four cylinder reverberated through the lonely valley road as the turbo spooled.
During the darkness of the night the hairpin curves were no longer a utilitarian function used to make climbing the mountain safer, but instead used to make driving more fun. The rush of compressed air into the cylinders matched the rush of adrenaline as the climb continued. Confidence was built with every corner completed. . .Faster the driver pushed balancing throttle, brakes, and shifts to the point where everything was just one action. There was the moon, the snow covered road, and the car. The driver felt connected to the car, at one with the action and enviorment around him.
Navigating Life’s Mountains is A Rush Like No Other
At the top his hands shook as he held the warm can of coffee. It wasn’t the cold that was causing his body to shake, but the spiked epinephrin levels in his blood. The rush of touge driving was like none other. At the top of the mountain he stood in darkness looking at the sky. The stars were clear in the mountains of Nagano, the faint lights from the small city called saku were not enough to drown out the distant reminders that our world was small.
It’s lonely at the top of the mountain
It’s All Downhill from Here
It was time to start the descent. Like the uphill the downhill started off slow. One corner turned into two before everything felt like one. Looking at the speedometer the speed hit 80km/h before braking for the next turn. Grip felt good, but he wanted to know the limits. もっと早く the limit was pushed a little more. The engine roared and boost built as the accelerator was planted. The needle climbed higher 80km, 90, 100, 110km the world turned into a blur as the boost built and gravity aided in acceleration.
Looking at the approaching hairpin it was time to brake. The driver pushed hard on the brakes expecting to slow down. The world slowed down but the cars speed barely slowed. The buzzing of ABS was like an alarm going off in the driver’s head. If the antilock breaks were going off and the car was still hesitant to slow down he had found the grip level and far surpassed it. Knowing how ABS worked he stayed on the brakes balancing the car to keep it from spinning as all the weight shifted forward.
The car had slowed but at this rate the car would still hit the wires. . .if those wires failed it was nothing but a drop into the abyss off the side of the mountain. The red lights of the speedometer were at 80ks, 70ks, but the wires seemed to be unavoidable at this point.
This Could be it. . . I might Die Here Today
LaidbackMarco
Right when he had surrendered himself to the great beyond snow and ice turned into dry pavement. The car didn’t fully stop but it was enough to get the car controlled and around the hairpin. The driver breathed a sigh of relief as the car slowly descended down the mountain.
How We Can Turn Things Around
I’m hoping you enjoyed the tale of my near death experience in my EVO IV. After having gone through an experience like this you might wonder if it’s affected me in any way. You would think I would start to see the world in rose tinted glasses being thankful for everyday that I was alive. Actually, the reaction to something like this is a roller coaster.
At first I was in shock, I remember stopping at a Lawsons to grab a drink and just staring at nothing in the seat of my car for an hour. Next I thought that I might keep this story to myself until I actually do wind up dead. Following that I doubted that it was even a near death experience given it was my own decision to be dumb. There was a part of me that was curious about miracles and alternate timelines. Finally I’ve settled on trying to remember the experience so that during everyday mundanities of life I might be thankful to still exist.
Trying to remember to see the benefits of limitations is something I’m trying to work on in 2024. What can I learn from both almost dying and the car being in the state it’s in.
Lessons to Learn
- Be thankful for everyday you are alive
- Find the limits of grip before doing anything dumb
- Learn how to swap a front-wheel-drive-based 4WD engine
- I’ve learned how nice Japanese Drivers/Mechanics can be
- Learn to repair paint, treat rust, and repair body parts
- Learn to Save Again
If I’m able to learn these valuable lessons from my misfortunes then this series of unfortunate events will be a net positive in my life.
Financial Book Keeping
Back on topic. . .this was supposed to be an article about using google sheets or microsoft excel to track finances again but I got side tracked. I remember watching my mom balance and look at her checkbook all the time when we were kids. It’s like my mom to try and hide stress from us, but I feel like the way I remember her looking at the checkbook I would attribute to a stressed character now. (I see everything in terms of animation now haha)
That being said in order to buy my white deathbox on four wheels I heavily tracked my finances using a google sheets template. Every expense was scrutinized and looked over. Although I had made fun of my mom for buying generic brands, I was right there with her as an adult.
When I was tracking my expenses I simply used a Google Sheets template. This is probably not the optimal way to track receipts, expenses, and budget. However, I would rather start doing it this way again and optimize the practice later. Feel free to use the template if you find it helpful, but it can also be found as the Google Sheets Default Template.
Navigating Life’s Mountains There’s Always Another Mountain to Climb
Starting to Track My Expenses Again
After the EVO Broke down, it was such a blow mentally and financially that I had stopped tracking my finances. That was during a time when I lost my job with a good salary and was forced to work in a factory. It was probably the most important time it was most to track my expenses, but things felt hopeless. There’s nothing like starting fresh and new again so I’m getting back on the horse.
Learning to track expenses is a great skill to have considering I want to build Laidback Lifestyle into a business one day. Not to mention it will make doing my taxes a lot easier.
Just as this blog has turned into my external diary, I hope these google sheets will turn into an objective measurement for myself. It’s a lot easier to get a look at yourself when you step back and place things into external places.
Now some of you might be thinking you purchased call of duty when you’re trying to save money. . . and yes. On a side tangent I believe videogames are some of the most cost effective forms of entertainment but we’ll save that for another blog. Here’s to hope that one day I’ll be uncomfortable showing these because the numbers are too high and not tool low 😅
Much Love 🩷❤️🩵
Laidbackmarco
TO DO LIST
Keep better track and record of finances- Design Shirts, Clothes, Sweaters, and Products for the brand
- Make a diagram of LaidbackLifestyle funnels and web
- Redesign website to integrate product sales
- Cleanup YouTube channels, linking, and tags
- Send Ophelia, Monstercat, and Other Labels a Demo. . .how do I put together a demo and press kit?
- Visualizer for “Lost at Sea”
- Vertical Visualizer
- Visualizer for “Feel Good Inc.” Drumstep Remix
- Upload any Video To LaidbackGaming
- Finish Editing Yokohama Photos and Post Them Online
- Make a reel with trending audio of before and after edits
- Draw anime characters on them for laidbackanime
- Create Shortform Content from Nissan Global HQ
- How to Make Music Video DAW
- A7III Review
- Make some Art
