Frugal Japan

I’m back from too brief a vacation in Japan, where we saw Tokyo, Tsukuba, and Kyoto. I have a few financial factoids to share:

• Near parity between the yen and the dollar makes Japan a great place for vacation travel right now. This means you don’t lose at the ATM or currency exchange, and that tracking what you’re spending as you go along is easy. We used the “drop two zeros” rule: 1,000 yen minus two zeros is about $10.
• No tax, no tip. On your restaurant tabs and whatever else you’re buying, what you see is what you pay. After a day or two of this, we realized we were spending less on most purchases than we do in the U.S. Taxes and tipping really adds up more than we realized.
• Surprise! Japan isn’t as expensive as everyone said it would be. I’m not sure why this was the #1 comment we heard when we told people we were headed to Japan. Unless you’re buying a house or renting an apartment in Tokyo, I couldn’t discern what cost more than it does in the U.S. (besides coffee). Meals out were about the same (we stuck with $10-entree level places for the most part), but often less for the quantity of food we ate, since miso soup, rice, raw cabbage, and tea were included with everything. This eliminated beverage costs and we got a lot more for our money overall. We ate, for example, at a top-notch yakitori place in Kyoto and had a LOT of food (edamame, about eight sets of skewers, french fries) and alcohol – three beers and one bottle of sake between us. The total tab was $48, $24 each. And it was some of the best food we’ve ever had, anywhere.

So do consider visiting Japan. The coffee cost more; I paid $2 daily for a good size (i.e., U.S. small, which is larger than the Japanese small) McDonald’s black coffee, so that was about $.50 more per cup than in San Francisco. Nicer cafes had coffee drinks that approached $4-$5, but if you’re a Starbucks fiend in the U.S. you’re familiar with that price range already.

Yen Zen

Greetings from Tokyo, where everything is not as expensive as you might think!

Flying here yesterday took 11 hours, so I had a lot of thinkin’ time. I thought about what this trip has really cost so far, and I thought I’d share it with you in case you’re considering international travel soon.
$260 – Japan Rail Pass (tourists only, unlimited)
$1,000 – Japan Air plane ticket, roundtrip
$135 – new passport
$25 – City Hall service to get passport
$50 – little trinkets to hand out (Japanese custom)
$50 – English language books to read
$64 – yarn for scarf-knitting on 11-hour flight (and worth every penny, I can say in retrospect)
$500 – cash for (so far) $105 worth of Tsukiji Fish Market sushi for three people, $3 coffee, $25 dinner for two (not bad!), $4 subway tickets
$2,084 total

That’s a lot of money, and much more than I usually spend. I admit, though, that since this is my first real vacation since September 2001, I’m not feeling guilty at all. Let’s see if the guilt-free feeling holds after getting my hair done in Harajuku on Thursday…

Tax In, Tax Out

It’s been too long since my last post. I swear I’m going to be better about that.

In happy tax (refund, that is) news, I’ll be getting the following back from respective governments:
Federal: +$4,475
IL: +$378
CA: +$621
Total Refund: $5,474
Cost of CPA: -$600
Actual Total: $4,874

My emergency fund currently has $4,788 in it. If I put my entire refund into savings, as I plan to, I will be SO CLOSE to my $10,000 goal for 2008, with $9,662. So close!

But, just as these refunds are coming, so is my 2006 property tax bill. I owe the bank a nice $5,500 for all of 2006 and one installment of 2007. I’m trying to decide what to do: Use the tax refund to pay off most of that bill, or get the emergency fund established and pay off the property taxes more slowly. I’m leaning toward getting that $10,000 stash established. There’s no interest added to the property tax bill, so there’s not a huge drawback in paying them more slowly. There’s definitely NOT the same sense of urgency with property taxes that there is with an APR at 16% or somesuch!

Vacation plans are throwing another wrench into this. Man and I are going to Tokyo next week. I haven’t taken a real “vacation” since September 2001, when I was out of work and went to visit my mom, who lives in Europe. It’s actually part work, part vacation, but we felt we should take advantage of the fact that work is paying for a hotel in Tokyo for five nights. When would we ever be able to afford THAT?

My plane ticket was just under $1,000, but I paid for that in cash already, and the Japan rail pass is $300 per person. It is, however, much less expensive than rail passes in Japan ($100 each way for the speed train), and is ONLY available to tourists. If we eat a lot of decent but frugal ramen, and manage to stay at this place in Kyoto for about $75 USD per night, I think we’ll be in OK shape. My goal is to spend no more than $1,000 total. Fortunately, I’m thin but way too Euro-curvy (i.e., I’m a 32D people) for most of those expensive and tempting clothes in Tokyo to fit me – ha! I’ll keep track of how we save money in Japan and post about it when I get back.

This was also the last month for which I paid $1,450 in rent for my apartment. From now on, my share of rent is about $800/month (DSL included), a definite improvement. Moving in with Mans is official and I’m surprised at how truly happy I am (and I’m not talking about financial reasons this time!). I just love him and his video-game-playing, home-cooking, frugal ways.