The Poor Man's Survival Guide

You just got paid a few days ago and when you checked your account today you saw that all your money was gone. Was it the beer? Was it Lawson? Was it laundry? Why does it have to cost 500 yen to dry one load of clothes? This survival guide can offer some tips to make the most out of your money.

Personally, every time I'm strapped for cash I always blame it on all the valuable coins. Back home I never thought twice about throwing some change into a fountain or letting my roommate pick up the coins wedged between couch cushions. But here I'm amazed that one coin can actually be worth quite a lot. I think that I often use the coins here like I did back home and that gets me in a lot of trouble. That trouble can be tough at times, I've had times when I've actually lost weight because I was starving myself to save money. Luckily though, those days are mostly over thanks to a few tips I've learned over time. I'm skipping some of the obvious advice here such as 99 yen shops and 100 yen shops such as QQ and Daiso. These are some of the not-so-known ways to get by cheap.

Sun Drug
Sun Drug came to me like a saving grace back in my old days in Yotsukaido. Technically, Sun Drug is a drug store but it also sales a decent variety of foods, but they don't sale vegetables, poultry, seafood, or meat. Here are some of the best bargains that I know of:

• Tuna= 4 cans for around 230 yen
• Pasta and Pasta Sauce= Both for about 97 yen
• Tofu= 300 grams for 35 yen and many times the tofu is marked down to 15 yen
• Toilet paper= 8 rolls for a little more 100 yen
• Paper/Kitchen towels= 4 rolls for a little more than 100 yen
• Milk and Eggs= Lowfat milk for less than 100 yen and an 8 pack of eggs for 92 yen
• Yakisoba (refrigerator ones)= A pack of three for 79 yen

BLDY
Another way to kiss your money goodbye is going out drinking. At 800 yen a beer it's easy to run up 5000 yen plus bar tab. That's just a bit depressing. I often reminisce on the good ol' days when buddies would buy me shots or beers when we went out. Those days are long gone. These days if somebody buys me a beer I look at them as if they won the lottery. As expensive as booze is I completely understand people not wanting to buy a round for everyone.

Luckily though, I have discovered the promised land where you can drink for hours upon hours for less than the cost of one beer at most places. That promised land is a place called BLDY. On the outside there is nothing really appealing about BLDY. It looks like your average family restaurant. In reality though it's more like a mix between Saizeria and one of those all you can drink "Nomihoudai". Like most family restaurants BLDY has a drink bar but for around 625 yen you can use the "fruity bar" which has alcohol and lasts for 7 hours. Unfortunately, the fruity bar does not have beer but it does have several flavors of Cassis, Wine, and Shochu. For 7 hours and roughly 625 yen I could care less about the beer! With the fruity bar you also get access to all the normal sodas and juices to so there is the possibility for plenty of mixing action.

If you aren't comfortable drinking mixed drinks or wine but you don't have much money then you should probably just give in and try it out. If you think that drinking such drinks is not manly then my reasoning is this...Drinking what's stereotypically known as a "girly drink" my not look manly but it may help you relate with girls and I never saw anything wrong with that.

McDonalds
Everyone and their mother knows that McDonalds is so cheap that it's scary. Honestly, when you think about it McDonalds is always in a prime location and that prime real-estate costs quite a lot, especially in Japan, a country notorious for outrageous land prices. Moreover, after subtracting all their expenses (employee salaries, ingredients, etc.) their profit margin has to be pretty thin. Of course, how do you work with a thin profit margin? You either increase sales or decrease costs. Well, I hope it's a lot more of the former because I find it scary enough to wonder how they are able to charge so little for their food.

Regardless though, I still dine at McDonalds all of the time. I've eaten more than my fair share of 100 yen McChicken sandwiches and cheeseburgers but there is also a little known secret that I will let you in on to give you a break from the 100 yen menu. On the McDonalds Japan website they allow you to print off coupons for items sometimes at incredible discounts. Recently I went on a BigMac binge and thanks to my trusty coupons they were only 150 yen a pop. The coupons usually come in groups of 8 and when every single yen makes a difference these are lifesavers. Here's the link Mc Donalds.

Seishun 18
If you are planning on doing some traveling during the Spring, Winter or Summer holidays then the seishun juu-hachi kippu is something worth looking into. The ticket costs 11,500 yen and is good for 5 days worth of traveling but the days don't have to be consecutive. You get stamps for each day and once you have the stamp for that day then you are allowed unlimited usage of JR trains, excluding Shinkansen, sleeper cars and reserved seats. Ex. You can get your pass stamped on Monday and ride trains all day Monday. Tuesday you can do nothing and then Wednesday you can get your pass stamped again and ride trains all day again. Since the pass doesn't penalize you for not riding on consecutive days from that you would only have used two stamps and you would still have three leftover. You can find more information on the JR website at JR East

Tsutaya
Tsutaya is one of the largest video rental chains in the country. There are several ways to get free rental coupons from their site tsutaya.co.jp but the site is entirely in Japanese and if you have trouble with Japanese I recommend getting help from a Japanese friend. You can also have coupons sent to your cell phone using the site tsutaya@tsutaya.jp . This might be more feasible solution if you are wanting to ask a Japanese friend cause you can just hand them you cell phone and they can navigate you through the registration process.

Choose the right time to shop
This is probably true no matter where you go but I have found it to be especially useful in Japan. Living with a Japanese I have learned that the freshness of food is very important here. If something is close to reaching its expiration date, it gets thrown into the trash. Lucky for you this value on freshness opens up a great opportunity to save money. One major difference between Japan and other countries is that food items begin to become discounted several days before their expiration date. Some days I can buy chicken and beef at half price three days before their expiration. I am able to buy Tofu at Sun Drug sometimes a week before its expiration date at a 20 yen discount (that's actually a great deal since the original price was only 35 yen). The key to taking advantage of this opportunity is to go shopping at the right time. Most Japanese know about these discounts so you will probably have some competition from frugal housewives. The best time to go shopping is at night about one or two hours before the supermarket closes. This is when the supermarket will discount their items down to 50% for the mainly for the early shoppers the next day but you can take advantage of it that night. It will vary from store to store so visit your store a few times at night to find out when the employee with those discount stickers begins making his rounds. Good luck.

Some final advice...

• If you are gonna drink at home try drinking Shochu. You can buy nearly 3 liters of the stuff for roughly 1600 yen.

• Eat vegetables. Vegetables are relatively cheap here and sometimes the prices of items like cabbage fall to insanely low prices.

• Stay away from girls who carry around Louis Vuitton bags or else you might be forced to buy the next one.

• Don't use a coin laundry machine to dry your clothes!!! It's the biggest waste of money. Most dryers do a terrible job of drying and the good ones sometimes cost 3x the price of the bad ones. Just hang them outside to dry.

• If you are planning a flight within Japan look at some of the deals on Skymark Airlines (might need help from a Japanese friend). They always have really low prices on their flights. Right now you can fly from Tokyo to Fukuoka for only 16,000 yen and to Kobe for only 10,000 yen.

• Recycle shops carry lots of goods at really low prices but be careful because when you finally want to get rid of the item you might not be able to sell it and might have to pay for it to be disposed of. Ex. I bought a 1998 model refrigerator for 3000 yen and this year I tried to sell it to any recycle shops that would take it. Nobody wanted to buy it but I received several offers to pay them to take it off my hands. I eventually was forced to agree to those terms but when I brought the fridge to the shop the storeowner told me that he no longer wanted it. Left with no other options and an angry landlord (long story) I was forced to have the fridge disposed of and the disposal cost was 7,500 yen. That was 4,500 yen more than the cost I paid for it.

This is all of the information that I can currently think of. I hope this helps anyone looking for some ways to live a frugal life in Japan