My girlfriend and I returned from Tokyo last week. We spent a wonderful four days touring the city and we visited three of the four sites I previewed in my Tokyo preview post. I’ll make sure to add the Ghibli Museum to my itinerary for my next Tokyo trip.
We arrived in my apartment Wednesday night and it has been an eventful six days. Here’s a rundown of what’s been happening.
Nerd alert: I love grocery shopping.
Knowing that my huge bowl of chocolate krispies only costs me thirty-five cents is a saver’s dream. I do enjoy the occasional night out at a restaurant with an appetizer, entree, and a glass of wine but at $8-$20 a shot these nights tend to come once every couple of weeks. My girlfriend is also an amazing chef so in America I would get gourmet meals that cost less than $3.
There’s one problem: I can’t cook. I’ve been by myself in Japan for two months and the idea of hanging out in the kitchen while my vegetables saute is not something I look forward to. Instead, my meals tend to be gourmet ham sandwiches or pancakes.
Since Baker over at Man vs. Debt wrote a great post on the different costs of living around the globe, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the prices of everyday grocery items in Japan, compared to the average prices in America. The results were very surprising.
As you’re reading this I’m somewhere in Tokyo. Hopefully I know where I am.
My girlfriend arrived in Japan on Saturday. She will be temporarily moving in with me as we try to find her a job at an English school. The plan is to have her stay for a year or two but she needs to be sponsored by a company to get a work visa. It’s difficult for Americans trying to find work in Japan and she will only have three months to find a job and get her visa changed. Thankfully with a large English-speaking community in the area we have some leads and can hopefully find her something soon. More updates are sure to come.
This long weekend we will forget about work and visa issues and enjoy four days in Tokyo. Her arrival timed up perfectly with Silver Week so I have three days off school and can pick her up. This will be my third time to Tokyo and I’m still excited and anxious to get there. Adding to the excitement is the fact that it’s my girlfriend’s first trip overseas so I have to play tour guide and show her why I like this country so much.
Tokyo is difficult to digest at first. The city is split into multiple downtowns which all could be considered large cities by themselves. My girlfriend and I both enjoy people watching and big cities so we didn’t set many plans. Instead, we’re going to explore the different sections of the city and let ourselves wonder and get lost in the hysteria. I can’t wait!
I made a short list of places I’d like us to visit. If you’re unfamiliar with Tokyo, consider this Tokyo 101 in two minutes!
I have a good amount of friends who are headed back to universities across America this month so I came up with my three money-saving tips for college students. The savings I managed to come up with blew me away. I actually looked at the total and thought no one is going to believe that number, but it shows how much money can be easily wasted if you don’t pay attention to where it goes.
These are tips that can easily be implemented in your life and the savings that follow will allow you to stop worrying about buying the new Madden or a dinner at a nice restaurant. Hopefully you can take these tips and plug the money holes before it’s too late.
Here is my money saving list:
This week was my first time partaking in a festival of personal finance so I thought I would stick with a theme of firsts and do my first weekly blog round-up. Below you’ll find my favorite reads from around the web. Enjoy!
Japan is a closed culture. The people tend to stick to themselves and rarely speak out or do anything that would shed light on an individual. I once read a quote about the way Japanese people view the rights of an individual, “In America they say you have the right to free speech. In Japan, they say they have the right to silence.”
Being conservative has had its disadvantages for the Japanese society as of late. The birth rate is declining and a lack of family time due to excessive work hours has plagued the economy. Japanese workers are also not using their paid work holidays and have too much money saved. A large percentage of the countries GDP is made up of spending, and with the Japanese not using their cash, the country struggles to progress.
Too much savings? How is this possible?
I wasn’t expecting to write a post about this topic tonight, but money stories tend to pop up out of nowhere.
My girlfriend is arriving in Japan next Saturday. We’ve decided to make a long weekend out of her arrival in Tokyo since September 19-23 is a national holiday.
We looked into different accommodations for our time in Tokyo. Hotels were out of the question due to high prices. We looked into CouchSurfing, but we didn’t want to burden anyone with two pieces of luggage and didn’t want to constrict ourselves to a stranger’s schedule.
We settled on staying at a hostel. There are hundreds of hostels in Tokyo, and like any city, they vary in price and quality. I did my research through some third-party websites that specialize in finding hostels in big cities. These sites are really helpful as they organize all of the information and create a simple template for finding a hostel in a city.
When I lived in America my girlfriend and I would often visit Best Buy, Borders, or the local mall on a Saturday afternoon. Fortunately for us, we’re a couple who sees finances similarly so these trips to stores were more of a chance to decompress from the week, hang out, and gawk at the expensive items. Rarely did these trips end with us buying anything; we were more interested in seeing what was out there and enjoying our free time.
I now live in the countryside in Japan and the idea of going to the store on the weekend to hang out is a little more difficult. There is a local shopping center, but their items are limited and after one walk through I decided I wouldn’t be coming back very often. On top of losing a hobby, finding items for myself has become a bit of a challenge. I’m in the market for a wireless mouse and keyboard, but there are no stores within walking distance that carry these items. Luckily, one night a friend enlightened me to a new world, “You know, they have Amazon here, right?”
Fortunately for foreigners living in Japan, China, the UK, Germany, and France, Amazon – the company that brings everything from books to toilet paper to your door - has branched out to other countries.
The Japanese version offers new and improved perks to their customers. Thanks to companies like Zappos, customer service has been leaning towards the customer lately and Amazon Japan take this in stride.
Being efficient with your money is a sure fire way to reach and exceed your financial goals.
– A minimal amount of accounts that provide great benefits to your money will provide your financial life with structure and ease.
– Automating your savings and investing will take the emotional aspect out of money, and allow your net worth to grow exponentially.
–Taking a month to track your spending to create a budget will help you weed out and improve on the areas of your life where overspending occurs.
When it comes to money, efficiency leads to success.
Japan is known for being one of the most efficient countries in the world. It’s the size of California, but has a population of 127 million. California has just 37 million people. 70% of Japan is also covered by mountains so they know how to pack people in and succeed without an abundant amount of space or resources.
Having experienced Japan’s efficiency for over a month, I’ve seen money tips embedded in Japanese culture.
See how you can relate these examples to aspects in your financial life.
This is the second part of my two part mini-series on preparing your financial life to go abroad. On Wednesday, we looked at preparing for a vacation abroad. Today, we’ll take it a step further and discuss how to prepare your accounts for a permanent move abroad.
I moved out of the country a little over a month ago and recommend simplifying your financial records as much as possible. If you’re planning on moving abroad, you’ve more than likely put some thought into it and prepared, but concerns and tasks continue to creep up until departure day. The first month living in a new country is also a hectic time and knowing your financial life is doing fine back home, is a huge weight off your shoulders.
Hi, I'm Austin Morgan. I live in Japan, teach English, and write about personal finance. I hope you enjoy FF and feel free to contact me at anytime!
