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🇰🇷 South Korea /Economy & Trade

A shadow behind Japan’s youth investment boom: “I eat just one meal a day to invest”

From Dong-A Ilbo · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Japan’s expanded NISA tax-free investment scheme has sharply increased participation among people in their 20s and 30s amid rising share prices.
  • Cumulative NISA purchases reached 71 trillion yen by the end of 2025, about twice the 2023 level, while 26% of people in their 20s and 38% of those in their 30s held NISA accounts.
  • Some investors pursuing early retirement are reducing basic living expenses so severely that the trend has produced what is described as “NISA poverty.”

Japan’s tax-free investment boom has taken hold among young people, but behind the promise of early retirement is a harsher reality: some investors are cutting back so severely that they eat only once a day.

Participation surged after the government expanded the small-investment tax exemption program into the new NISA in 2024. The program exempts dividends and trading gains from tax, and its expansion coincided with rising share prices.

According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, cumulative purchases through NISA reached 71 trillion yen by the end of 2025, roughly double the 2023 figure. The rise has been especially pronounced among younger investors. NISA accounts were held by 26% of people in their 20s and 38% of those in their 30s. Investment amounts more than doubled for people in their 20s compared with 2023 and nearly quadrupled among those in their 30s.

Many participants dream of achieving financial independence and retiring early, a goal known as FIRE. But the rush to invest has also drawn criticism over “NISA poverty,” a side effect in which people drastically reduce their spending on daily necessities to put more money into the market. The investor base is also becoming more diverse, with investment schools reporting changes in who is entering the market.

I eat just one meal a day to invest.

· Unnamed young investorThe headline cites the investor as an example of the extreme spending cuts associated with NISA poverty.
About this summary

Originally published by Dong-A Ilbo in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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