Foreigner's Finances

Don’t Let Finances Paralyze Your Life

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The availability of online banking, Mint, and stock portfolios at my finger tips made me over manage my finances in America. I evolved from occasionally checking my debit card statement to checking four to five different accounts daily. I had too much control. This was a huge waste of time and needed to change. Luckily, dealing with my finances while living in Japan has changed my ability to manage money and forced me to become more patient.

Despite living in Japan, I have the language ability of a newborn. I’m an English teacher and although I’m attempting to learn Japanese, I can’t hold a conversation and cannot understand any Japanese words besides water and friend. My lack of language abilities has forced me to rely heavily on my supervisor at school who has helped me with setting up my bank account, buying a phone, and getting car insurance. My level of incompetence is to the point where any bill sent to me is brought to school the next day so my supervisor can tell me what it says and what to do with it.

My lack of language abilities has led to uncertainty about multiple money situations. Not knowing the specifics of my financial situations has been frustrating at times, but it has shown me how pointless 98% of money concerns are. Paying attention to your finances is important, but a majority of my concerns won’t cost me more than $50 and the peace of mind and free time is worth much more.

For example, I don’t know how much my bills for rent, phone, internet, electricity, and car insurance are going to be. I have automatic withdrawal set up but it takes 2-3 months to kick in. Until I see the charges in my bank book and have my supervisor translate them, I won’t know how much my major expenses are. I have a rough estimate, but I’m still unsure after being here over two months.

One of the most difficult and eye-opening experiences was purchasing my cell phone. My supervisor talked with the cell phone employee in Japanese for fifteen minutes and I could only get five sentences out of it after she translated. There’s a scene in Lost in Translation where Bill Murray is flabbergasted when his translator only gives him short sentences after his Japanese speaking director talks for five minutes at a time. That was me at the cell phone place. Once again, I was a newborn.

I had a very rough idea what my monthly bill was going to be, but I had no idea how long the contract was, why I had been given 2, 5000 yen gift cards (about $50), or why my supervisor was insistent on what color phone instead of the monthly bill.

In the end, she looked confident in the deal and I knew that me getting the specifics I really wanted would be near impossible with the language barrier. I needed to let go. I had an idea that I wasn’t getting scammed so I moved on. If I had been in America, this wouldn’t have happened. But, I would have stressed myself out with choosing between twenty-five cell phone price packages to save $15 at most. Not knowing the details was surprisingly peaceful.

Keeping track of spending has also been challenging since Japan is a cash based society. In America, my credit or debit purchases were available to view that day and I could look at Mint to see how my spending categories were fairing for that month. Most of these concerns and checks were a complete waste of time and I was probably avoiding something I should have been doing.

My experiences in Japan have taught me that a majority of money concerns are pointless time wasters. It’s important to set up your finances and make sure you’re money is accounted for, but too often we over analyze every decision for no real reason. Don’t let your finances get in the way of living your life and pursuing goals. Let go a bit and you’ll notice the benefits immediately.

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Photo by Lori

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