Might be a little specific, but it seems we spend a lot, but I fail to see what we could cut…
So, how much do you spend on food (average 123000 for us) utilities (30000) health (129000, but we have health issues), education (70000, public schools only), taxes and insurances (93000), and a few other things.
How is it for you ?
29 comments
I can only comment on food but I spend about 25.000Â¥ for two people. So you can definitely cut that by going to supermarkets like gyomu and buying fruit and veggies that are in season
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How do you spend 70,000 / month when your kids all go to public school?! Juku?
Food is the big one, I think. If you are buying in bulk and cooking for 5, 123k/month for food is high. You could probably cut your food expenses significantly by buying and cooking in bulk and planning meals around seasonal produce and what is on sale.
We’re a family of 4 with two teens, and at first I thought your 123,000¥ per month on food was a lot, but thinking through our spending, it’s actually pretty on par with us. We could probably be more frugal, but I don’t think we spend extravagantly… like 70% groceries, 30% restaurants? by ¥ amount (not by quantity of food/number of meals)
Can’t comment on rest of your budget except for the food as we’re all in different situations.
As a data point. We’re a family of 4 with two younger kids:
Groceries: 70,000-80,000
Eating out: 50,000-70,000 (includes my twice-a-month wife approved nights-out)
Family of four (and a cat) here in Okinawa. I struggle to keep our grocery bill under 100,000 per month.
You need to break things down and into more detail
-> Food eating at home vs going out
-> Utilities. Gas, water, electricity, internet, phone contracts
-> Health I guess there is nothing to do. Unless this is not real medicine expenditure. There is something called kougaku iryouhi you can apply for to get some reimbursement for spending a lot on medicine.
-> Education. Not sure
-> Why would you lump in taxes with insurance? I do not think you can choose which tax to pay. That does not make any sense. Life insurance, health insurance, car insurance,…?
It is always in the details, 1000 yen is not going to make a difference, but if your phone contract is too expensive then it is already 5000 yen a month. A couple of drinks, snacks from the convenience store or vending machine every week. Another 5000 yen per month. Eating out with 5 people even at a cheap restaurant. 5000 yen per month/per time. Going to an amusement park with 5 people from time to time. It all adds up.
In general to live comfortable you need to make about 8-10万 per person without rent. So in your case that is 40-50万+rent or mortgage. If not you will need to budget as you are not comfortable. If you make this but you are spending too much anyway, you should also budget.
2 kids.
Seem to spend around 630k
4 people, food is less than 50.000.
Counting a lot of fruits. We buy most organic in 商店街. Also futusato nozei for meat.
My wife and I spend 100-120k/month on food, tho that’s all our food, and we rarely eat out (and that’s a separate row on the budget sheet).
I’d think it’d be fine for a family of five to eat on that amount, and I wouldn’t worry about that at all. Especially if the kids are bigger and likely eating adult portions.
Phones. Mentioned elsewhere here–make sure you’re all on a cheap plan together, _not_ one of the biggies like softbank.
Dam, this makes me happy I don’t have any kids 😅
Why is public school so expensive here in Japan?
Literally paid nothing that I know of going to a shit public US district. What do parents need to pay for other than supplies once including that expensive backpack?
Family of 5, 100000 each, sounds right, but 129000 for health?? Strewth mate…
It’ll go up every year.
Hell I spend 1000000 a month just on my factory, my living costs are much lower as I live in a small rural village. This is the way.
But your expense sounds fine other than that health bill, Jesus…. One month??
Family of 3 here. Monthly expenses including rent(210,000) averages to around 450,000-500,000
Think you’ll probably have to be more specific, maybe give examples of what kind of meals and portion sizes you’re doing? Your most common go-to meals and drinks?
The food seems a bit high, but then again I ate quite a bit as a high school kid. There’s a fair bit of variance in consumption if you have say three active boys who play rugby vs three sedentary kids.
But without any other information, I can only give my rough tips and hope you find them useful.
I buy large packs of chicken, thighs are like 90yen/100, and breast is like ~50yen. Split it up so some get cooked that night, others get marinated for the next two nights, and the leftover is frozen.
I have a couple of recipes that use flour from Gyomu Super, which ends up super cheap per serving/meal. Mostly because I like making my own fresh bread/pita/wraps/pizza/noodles.
If you cook stir-fries and use classic Chinese recipes they tend to be really cheap, buying a whole Chinese cabbage, sliced meat, and lots of eggs (even at their current price they’re super cheap for protein), and increasing your rice portion sizes can really bring down costs.
Anyway, you deff need to give more information for more specific advice…
But as an example, Flour is say <300yen for per kilo, 100g is about one large portion. So that’s 30 yen. Only takes about <50g of chicken for one portion, that’s ~30yen, cabbage for one portion is like.. 30yen, add some sauce, maybe moyashi, onion, carrot etc. Still only about 100yen per large portion per person.
Love me some TKG as a snack, that’s like… <100yen a portion etc, some biang biang noodles… etc
Even Pizza is <100yen a portion, most of the cost is in the cheese.
Variety is the spice of life. You have to adapt your cooking abilities based on season/sale/deals and ability to bulk up meals. We used to eat salad everyday but then lettuce shot up to like 398/head and tomatoes are crazy expensive and even cucumbers aren’t really reasonable. But on the other hand squashes, pumpkins, and stuff are now in season and super cheap so I replaced the dinner salad with the dinner veggie soap. Eggs are prohibitively expensive and not worth it these days.
I invested in an Instant Pot. Less than 10,000 hut has saved SO much money and time because I can throw random things into it and have a meal or a way to fill up everyone cheaply. You gotta go less meat heavy though. Gyomu has so many cheap frozen veggies, add in some protein like tofu or beans or the cheapest meat, some spices or even premade soap bags, and then you have a giant stew or soup or potage that will keep everyone’s bellies full.
Do you eat lots of breads? Bread tends to be expensive per piece and it adds up if everyone eats a few slices a day, that’s like 300~400 yen a day everyday. So we made bread a treat. Buy in bulk and buy canned or dried goods or frozen that tend to be cheaper per gram than fresh.
Balance carbs and protein. Carb heavy and processed foods and sugar might cause insulin crashes and more craving and not feeling full. So no junk food or at least limited. Mixing white rice with genmai brown rice and beans, not eating the sugary yogurt but the protein ones, bulking up miso soup with starchy veggies and tofu.
What do you drink? We are pretty much only tap water, but also will make big jugs of tea. Milk is getting expensive and honestly is a taste and preference instead of a necessity, so we treat milk a bit like a treat too. Maybe a small cup with breakfast or at dinner or with a snack but not drinking big glasses everyday. Brew our own coffee, dont drink soda, no smoking.
Are medical costs not covered by insurance? there should be some form you submit for medical financial hardship once you spend more than like 100,000/year and some adjustment for taxes too.
Phone service? Now there are a ton of alternatives with unlimited GBs for less than 3000 yen. Same with reconsidering your internet provider.
Check for leaving lights on, things plugged in, running AC unnecessarily, TV on with no one watching, always charging electronics, etc.
Before taxes and deductions (aka 基本給 on your pay slip), do you make more or less than 515,000 yen? This is important in regards to your medical bills.
If less, then you are missing out on the govt. program for people who have excessively large medical bills. AND if you utilize that program 3 months within the last 12 months, your cap on medical expenses goes WAY down. Your city hall will pay the hospital directly. (These caps are 80,100 per month and 44,400 per month respectively. if below 515k)
If more, then you still have caps but they are 2x-ish of below 515k. (167,400 and 93,000)
Read this info. The page is actually very friendly to full-page translation services like Google Translate.
https://www.kyoukaikenpo.or.jp/g3/sb3030/r150/
Honestly looking at it monthly isn’t great because my 2 biggest individual expenses are tuition for college and a private high school and clubs and international trips and everything else which comes to about 3.5-4m a year.
Food we’re usually less than 200,000 a month.
Electric is about 19,000 a month
Water is huge at around 30,000 a month
Mortgage is only 200,000 a month
Insurance is about 60,000 (each) for the cars and bike annually but we have no parking expense since we live in a single family rather than shared space community. I self shaken though and do most of my own maintenance.
Gas is cheap since my wife rarely drives and the cheap Kei I bought since work has forbidden me from riding the bike in after the accident (kidding my boss and wife teamed up and asked me nicely to please drive so I don’t die) basically gets better gas mileage than the bike did
On my way to spend 100,000 on food, restaurants and coffee in the first month.
Solo, central Tokyo.
I should learn something from you, OP
What exactly is ‘taxes and insurance’?
93,000 a month seems… a lot.
Food seems about right, maybe a tad high but not crazy high.
The only thing this thread has shown is that people here either spend way too much and live outside their means or make ridiculous amounts of money.
The average pay in Tokyo is like 4.5mil a year. Even if both parents work the average pay there is no way in hell they would afford to have children according to these estimates by people here.
Yet Japanese people seem to have no issues with these things… so something isnt adding up, or no one is being as frugal as they could be
Family of 6. We spend about 200k on food alone.
Family of 4, but kids are only 2 and 6. Grocery budget is 70,000 a month but that’s because we have special dietary needs. Else it would be 60,000. We do spend 20,000 a month on eating out though. And I spend 10,000 a month eating at work.
Not sure how useful this is, but if you can, try to work Furusato Nozei monthly boxes. It’s a higher upfront cost, but then deducted from your taxes next year.
I have a monthly vegetable box and over the next few months about 8kg of fish will be delivered. My net spend after tax adjustments is ¥2000.
OP: You are doing great. You are a caring parent who is striving to do ever better.
It is a pity that certain posters on here are more interested in scoring points than contributing good advice.
To those posters:
1. It is obvious than the OP buys seasonal produce, so why try to make a big thing of it? You aren’t super smart for suggesting it.
2. Do you realize each person’s situation is different? Do you know about the OP’s family members likes and dislikes and food requirements? Do you know what shops they have access to?
3. The OP seems to be striving to provide balanced meals. Just because you live on rice and nattou and spend 3,000 yen a month on food, doesn’t make you a better person. Actually, your miserable diets are reflected in your personalities.
OP your family is lucky to have you. Gambatte!
I know different situations for every household. But, the majority’s food spending seems a bit too high for me. Family of 3 here, and we’re about 40-50k/month. But then that can grow exponentially if we’re 4.
Remember that healthier food may save expenses and lives in the long run.
There are some health issues that the government offers extra assistance for. There’s also a yearly medical costs cap for non-elective healthcare costs. You can also claim some medical costs on your taxes to reduce your tax burden. You should go to your local ward/tax office and ask around, they should be able to help you out.