A few handy services which i use, truly… and, by clicking the magic links, you’ll send a few bucks and/or credit to your old pal to help me pay for my postage hobby errr… addiction.
Cheap Houses Japan – a paid weekly curated newsletter of well, houses for sale in Japan usually under $100,000 US, mostly move-in ready and within 30 minutes of public transportation of some kind + a very handy guidebook about the logistics of purchasing a house in Japan assembled by “not a realtor” and a great way to find a place without sifting through that literally millions of available unoccupied houses in Japan. [I have lots of interest & knowledge about this topic as well as a giant round-up of Akiya resources]
Moo – Really the finest little friendship/business/post cards and other printables (see some of my moo-com cards) i use them all the time and kinda smitten
Post Coffee (Japan) – cute curated coffee sets (beans or ground to order) for you, including subscription plan, or gift sets, use code coffee-fs7up for whopping ¥1480 off 1st order & i get ¥500 for my stash (note fast shipping)
iHerb – My supreme peanut butter and salt and vinegar chips hook-up + natural-centric (Ayurvedic!) personal health / care products, with cheap/fast/remarkable shipping to Japan, great prices and products and even better shipping
Wise.com (formerly Transferwise) – Remarkably handy means for moving money around internationally (fyi video) ya get some cash for clickity clicking, and you can hold various currencies and transfer around the world like no big deal (unlike w3stern union and other bank schemes)
Tangerine bank – 40917335S1 i have very mixed feelings about CDN banks and their love of fees and archaic policies… but this is the handiest of them all – use my Orange code to make you and me both $50 winners
American Express – handy for travel perks etc – pay-as-go better than credit (you get 25K magic travel points, i get 5K, cool? cool)
Powell’s City of Books – Epic bookstore located in Portland and shipping everywhere / support the grandmammy of indie queens
Nord VPN / password / locker – if you ain’t VPN’ing, you are a sucker and vulnerable, esp if using public wi-fi or need to geo-locate yerself. so use this service and get month(s) free (me also) use code: J9JGKX
Gandi – No Bullsht domain hosting… no scams, no spam, no hijacking, great support / you get 6 months of free web hosting and a 20% discount on a domain name (and i score a € 5.00 credit towards my acct)
See also:
Laughing Squid – these legends tend to my managed-wordpress/web-hosting (no kick-back, just great squad) / see also: blog of amusements (turns out they didn’t need me anymore)
23andme – Genetic testing for ancestry origin and DNA-based medical info (ugh a bit leery but hey, info is good) got sketchy
Ubiome – Medical intell based on gut bacteria with comprehensive reports (out of biz it seems)