RResidents in Japan

Frugal eating

Hi everyone!! Happy holidays! So I’m looking for ways to be more frugal on my eating habits and reduce how much I spend on food. I’m curious to hear what other people here might be already doing or recommend.I’d love to hear if you have any tips or tricks for saving money on food while still eating well? I love cooking so I’m open to trying new recipes, meal prepping, or anything else that might help.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

11 comments

  1. I’ve just started putting a bag of moyashi in everything to stretch out how much I actually have to eat.

  2. Gyomu supa and aeon top value products. Buy veggies and fruit that are in season. No meat, you can use tofu for cheap protein

  3. Batch cook, although I end up eating the same thing multiple days a week. Get tinned beans and frozen veg from lopia/gyomu.

  5. When I was short on money, I tried different ways to save on food and in the end arrived to pasta in all forms. Pasta itself is cheap and one pack easily gives four-five meals (expensive pasta tends to be more satiating), while sauces can be very cheap to make yourself or even to buy them ready.

    Tried Japanese diet as well, with moyashi, lots of tofu, natto etc, but quickly found it to be bland and making me feel miserable about life. Therefore pasta.

    Giallo Zafferano has tons of authentic pasta recipes, the ways to eat pasta seem to be nearly unlimited.

  6. If you can get used to the taste & smell, natto is perfect for penny pinching. Cheap, filling, and extremely healthy.

  7. Breakfast every morning: 1 fried egg, I small yogurt and a half an apple. Comes out to less than 400calories. Lunch is an egg salad sandwich and the other half of the apple.

  8. Pricing of food in Japan is a scam. It’s not based on any sort of cost + pricing but more on the nutritional value as compared to other products. At Aeon, a small, onsite-made okonomiyaki is 378 yen and in the frozen section, the packaged one is… 378 yen. Helluva coincidence. So there is no really cheap food to buy. It’s all pro-rata’d to its nearest substitute.

    I can go to an import shop like Caferrant and buy a can of Hormel’s Chili Pork and Beans and pay about 370 which is much better value than most foods in Aeon (given it’s not just a pile of rice with a small ration of protein laid on top). How can a food shipped 10,000 miles to a specialty store be cheaper than the local produce? Because the local populace haven’t been indoctrinated to accept the pricing regime of unfamiliar products so genuine demand pricing has to be pursued.

  10. Learn how to cook! If you can cook basic meals using local, seasonal ingredients you’ll save money. If you need ideas you can browse apps like Cookpad. Try searching for keywords like literally 安い or 節約.

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