Top tips on saving money while living in Japan

Travelling and living in Japan, honestly both cost a lot of money especially when you step your foot on megalopolis place like Tokyo,everything are notriously exepensive. As for us in Saga,Kyushu, living expenses here  still considerable but we love the way how we save when travelling around the country.

Honestly, in Japan when eating out, it usually costs about 2000++yen for cafes like Gusto or Joyfull.The average costs for apartment rent in Saga is about 42000 yen per person but don't freak out if it costs more like about 50 000 yen for area like Osaka.For a 10 kg rice,it costs around 3200yen and trust me, essential things like beauty products and cleanliness products,(toothpaste small tube almost 1000yen equals to Rm30)here they are really expensive!

Hence,saving money might not be a bad idea and it is not impossible.

1.The first place you might wanna spend your money when you decided to live in Japan would be Daiso..! (Other name like 100 yen shop,Seria)Here,you can get all the house stuffs like almost everything at very cheap price[100¥plus 8¥tax=108¥].

2.Get a bicycle.Save more when you travel at short distance.In Tokyo and other big city areas,they provide bicycle rental for you to enjoy at short distance.If not, you might be interested with the kinken shops like Daikokuya, where you can buy rail and bus tickets at discounted prices for busses, sports events, gift certificates,concerts and etc.Some of them do the currency exchange too.

3.Eating out might be enjoyable but cooking at home might not be a bad idea too if you're saving money here.We shop like about 1500yen per week here for groceries and end up using like 10000yen per person in one month only for food.But eating out, as i said before only one meal costs you 1000yen per person.

4.Use points card when shopping.Most of the shopping centre here provide their loyal customers with points cards for them to collect when shopping.The points can be redeem into shopping coupon and be use to buy things.I love the most when i got 500points and Morinaga give me the 500 yen coupon to shop groceries.And shop an hour to 30 minutes before the market close and you'll get food at discounted prices.

5.Don't make me mention the bills here as it is so expensive using the water,electricity and especially gas during winter.So save more and use less. I got to know that if you use electricity between 11.00pm to 6.00am,it will costs you less.

6.I don't know about other university but in Saga university, you can purchase buses tickets at a cheap price by using the students discounts(gakusei waribiki). For frequent usage of bus or trains, usually there's a discount if you buy the one month use of bus or trains or likely called as kaisuuken.Go and ask at the counter for such tickets.

7.consider to buy home appliances and furnitures at second hand shop.They're still in good conditions and you don't have to pay more for something that you can save on!

8.Buy gadget like cameras,TV,laptops, accessory via shopping online like amazon or rakuten.Some really do offer cheaper price than the one you can get from retail shops.Remember to compare the prices when you're planning to buy something.

9.If you' re not travelling around, it might be wise if you bring along little money with you to avoid from wasting your money and don't forget to bring along bottles of water to save your from buying water from vending machine.

10.Make a target and list all the bills or usage of money every month and you will see a progress in saving money.We do make the system ourselves here and it is good to see how we control the money usage.Maybe there's a time you will over budget but at least it will not burden you if you have a good plan.

This one i got from tofugu, might be a great info for those who are going to graduate or for the one who are just arriving to Japan for living.

Nowadays you can get or sell everything and anything online and usually for a reasonable price. Some websites you may want to check out are:

1. Kakaku – helps you directly compare the same product being sold over multiple sites so that you can make the best buys.
2. Gaijinpot – full of second-hand stuff which people want to get rid off for cheap or for free. Watch out especially for “sayonara sales” from people leaving Japan.
3. Nitori – for furniture
4. Groupon / Groupon-ish sites – such as Groupon or Ponpare. These can get you good deals for eating out/travel/whatever if you keep your eyes open and snap up the attractive ones.
5. Portal sites – such as Rakuten and Qoo10 are also worth looking at. That being said whether the deal is good depends on the individual vendor.

It is true that international students can use credit cards here but we personally did not want to use it to avoid extra usage of money. Each person has a different target but for us, we have many plans in future and hence we will need lots of money for the next few years.We hope these tips will be the great answers for you when you're thinking of saving money in Japan.Hihihi... :)