I will be attending a university in Tokyo this spring for a semester of study abroad. I was hoping to receive some scholarships but it isn’t looking promising. So I’m hoping to get some input on whether I should be worried.
My tuition and room are payed for. Additionally, I am receiving a total stipend of 145000 JPY for meals for the entire semester. Is this enough to sustain me from mid March through mid August? I calculated and this would be about 24166 JPY per month.
I’m also planning on doing a Workaday from the beginning of January through mid March. Although not set, I’m pretty sure this work will be in ski towns of either Niigata or Nagano if that helps with price estimates. I will recieve 800-1000 JPY per hour I work (about 20 hours a week estimated) and free accommodation. However, I am required to buy and make my own meals.
Additionally, I have about $2000 saved up to spend for travel expenses, experiences, and expenses not covered.
Am I going to run out of money? What might be an estimate for weekly expenses in meals and transportation for a single person in Tokyo? What might be an estimate for how much I will have to dip into the $2000 to cover basic living expenses?
1 comment
> Is this enough to sustain me from mid March through mid August? I calculated and this would be about 24166 JPY per month.
No. Unless you eat the cheapest things you can find and spend absolutely nothing on anything else (transport, clothes, emergencies, healthcare, toiletries – *anything*).
You will need those savings, and savings from your workaday – but your workaday is minimum wage and you’ll still be in “spend absolutely nothing on anything other than food” mode. And your part time minimum wage workaday salary will be *more than double* your income with your stipend, while in a cheaper COL area that’s still not really cheap enough to offset your very, very low income.
This doesn’t sound reasonable to me. Especially with living costs increasing across the board in Japan.
EDIT: I estimate this to be about ¥2750, or $20, per day, if we take your workaday income, all your savings, and your stipend and average it all together from the beginning of Jan to mid-August. Just taking the longest, cheapest bus from ~~Nagoya~~Nagano to Tokyo would cost two days’ pay.