Just curious. I myself used to be on the cafeteria meal plan (20,000 yen a month, breakfast and dinner 5 days a week) and spent another 15000/20000 yen on top of that cooking/eating out on weekends and buying konbini snacks during weekdays.
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But I’ve dropped out of it and will be cooking entirely myself starting from January. Curious how much I should aim for.
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Knowing about your average spending might give me some idea about it. Thanks!
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I want to know too. I just start living in Tokyo 3 months ago, and on average 1,500 per day on food, so 45,000-50,000 per month. I do cook, and sometime skip breakfast on weekend, but spend a bit on beer and snacks.
Osaka: Around 1,000/day for 2 people(30,000/month). We don’t eat out, but like we do get snacks from combini when walking around.
Edit: both of us are around 50kg each to give some background.
I live in Kyoto city and if I prepare recipes/menu plans properly, I’ll spend around 15,000 to 20,000 for maybe 2 or 3 weeks? The higher range is when I do beef focused meals or plan poorly. I don’t eat out often, maybe once a week and I don’t often go to conbini. Maybe I’ll stop and get a coffee or a famichiki but that’s maybe once or 2 times a month. I usually aim at spending less than 150,000 though.
I don’t live in Kyoto but I budget 3 to 4-man a month for groceries and 1-man for konbini/eating out as a single person . I keep these two purchases separate so it’s easier for me track how much I’m spending on each side. If I’m not spending that much on konbini/eating out/take out for one month, that extra goes to my grocery budget. Your budget will depend what you cook. If you’re fine with cooking simple food most Japanese people make, then you’ll get by with buying cheaper brand you can find in your local supermarket. I also pretty much eat the same thing and rarely try out new menus so it helps with keeping my grocery list simple and cheap.
If you like to cook some other type of dishes other than Japanese, then yeah you’ll probably be spending more. For example, I spend roughly 3k-yen a month on just frozen hash browns alone because I love them; it’s my comfort breakfast food. Yeah I can probably make them on my own…but I’m lazy. I justify it as meh it’s only 3k out of my budget so as long as I don’t go over it I’m good.
But with the recent inflation/shrinkflation, I might have start rethinking priorities. Since you said you’ll start cooking on your own from January, just be aware that the initial cost can be expensive. Meaning buying all the seasonings, condiments, utensils you don’t have, etc. In the long run, it’ll be an investment but you might find it expensive to gather everything in one go.