When he was 30, Yuiki Hotaka bid farewell to Japan’s notoriously long working hours and crowded commutes forever.
He wasn’t merely quitting his job at a Mitsubishi group company he had worked for since graduating university. He was retiring after saving around ¥70 million ($637,000) in financial assets. Based on his calculations, that would allow him to live off stock dividends for the rest of his life and pursue his interests and hobbies: Farming, hiking and enlightening readers of his blog about the alternative lifestyle he practices known as FIRE — an acronym that stands for “financial independence, retire early.”
“To me, it’s more about securing time and freedom rather than money,” says Hotaka, who now lives in the countryside in the Kanto region. “I didn’t want to spend my life tied to the corporate office.”