How can I save money as a foreigner in Japan?

15 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **How can I save money as a foreigner in Japan?**

   22 years old, just got back from a three week trip to Japan, had a great time. Been thinking of moving long before that, but one of my biggest fears is bleeding my savings if I were living there. I know if I were to live in Tokyo, I’d have a hard time putting money away, but I’m curious what others have encountered. Is it possible to save money while juggling the costs of language school/tuition? Can you actually put away money working 28 hours a week at Donki? What about living in a smaller or rural city? How should I be approaching this?

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2. I dunno if I can be of much help, but I’m a student who currently studies in Japan. What about saving would you like to know?

3. How much do those 28 hours at Donki pay? I would imagine that it would be hard to get by with a part-time, let alone save any money, and I’m not even including the cost of language school.

4. At least you got savings to bleed

5. You should approach this as you would approach living anywhere and working anywhere.

   Pay
   Minus taxes
   Minus expenses

   The remainder is how much you can put away

6. Need more info, what actually is the plan here? Are you just looking to do language school for a few months and then go back home or do you want to stay there for the foreseeable future.

   I don’t see an equation where you can rent, pay tuition fees, food and travel while not running a pretty major deficit.

   The likelihood of being able to save anything is low imo.

7. In a work holiday visa you can find some jobs but it will most likely be low paying jobs and part time. So your savings will go away. You can consider a sharehouse to reduce expenses though

8. >Can you actually put away money working 28 hours a week at Donki?

   no and it’s intentional. The limit is there for a reason. In the eyes of the government, you should have all the money you need to be a student before coming to Japan. The part time job is intended to be fun money not what you live on.

9. Under what visa do you even think you could go to Japan and work 28h a week at Donki?

   How you should approach this is look into what kind of job you would do. To get a work visa, you would need to have a university degree, it’s difficult to get a visa without that. Next, try to work in a sector that does not have a low wage, like English assistant teacher or … working at Donki.

   A sure way to bleed your saving dry is to get a student visa, pay tuition and work a low wage part time job… especially if none of that will bring you anything extra to justify getting a visa once you are done with your study.

   It’s for sure possible to save money in Japan if you have the right job and that you properly manage your expense. Cannot live in an expensive and luxurious apartment if you have a low wage job.

10. You are not moving to japan

11. You’ll need around a million yen for school only, then you’ll be able to work 28hours a week as a student.

    Probably not enough, you should work somewhere in your country for a year or 2 and save as much money as you can before trying Japan

12. Spend less money, than you earn

13. Not really no. 28h part time will barely cover rent and food if you even get a well paid part time ( more than 1500¥) and even then it won’t be donki. Restaurants and shops pay around, or less than 1200¥.
    With just a part time it will be impossible to pay school expenses. ( All this in Tokyo)

14. I saved more money in two months in Japan than I could in six months back home in Australia.

    My rent costs per month what I used to pay per week; food costs almost nothing provided you don’t eat fruits; beers are like two dollars; my haircut costs half what it did back home.

    It’s very easy to save money here if you are not dumb and don’t seek out super expensive western stuff. Provided you live the Japanese way it will be a cheap existence.

    You have no visa I don’t know why I bothered with this; please dream in your head not in a thread.

15. if you need to support yourself while paying tuition from a 28 hours part time job, you need to dig into your savings, so no way to save money on top of that.

    maybe if you get high paying job like midnight shift at conbini, or amazon warehouse and live in dorm style sharehouse you can barely made enough for monthly expenses.

    but in general it is not realistic to save money if you have to pay tuition.