Money definitely makes things a lot more fun

If you come to Japan for a year, you better make sure you enough money saved up to enjoy your experiences here. One of the worse things to do while you are here is to have to limit yourself because you don’t have enough moolah. It means you can’t travel, go out for dinner or do any shopping (heaven forbid!). That is not too say you can’t come to study in Japan but it is a lot more enjoyable and easier if you did have some.

I worked hard for the previous two years before I came to Gifu knowing that I didn’t really want to limit myself if I wanted to do things. I haven’t really done anything outrageously expensive but I haven’t skimped on the things that I did do. For example, I spent about $500 for a week travelling between Hiroshima and Osaka and I’m about to blow another $500 to go to Sapporo’s snow festival in February. And it isn’t just about the big things either; I like going to an izakaya once in a while and usually dinners there will put you back around $30 per person or go out shopping every so often.

I do watch my spending a bit more carefully now since the economy is in recession but I still do the things that I really want to do. Money is there to be spent but you need to have the money there in the first place to spend. Like any Malaysian person would say, “no money, no talk!” In general, I spend about $700-$1000 a month not including rent or bills (but that is usually only another $200) depending on how much I go out and what I do that month. For the 10 months that you will spend in Gifu, you probably need at least $10,000 to get by comfortably.

Tip of the day: Your room gets cold during winter so you’ll most likely be turning the heating on every day. Factor this into your electricity bill. LOL!