One way to keep a little more cash in your wallet is to earn a Tokyo salary but pay a Kanagawa Prefecture rent. Save money by living in Kanagawa and working in Tokyo The average of these three figures is ¥55,533. It drops to around half in Osaka, at ¥44,800, and further still in one of Japan’s most rural areas, Hokkaido, where it’s just ¥32,300. Data from Japanese real estate leasing company Apamanshop tell us that average monthly rent for a one-room (1R), or studio apartment in Tokyo is ¥89,500. Tokyo is home to Japan’s most expensive properties, as all realms of real estate – offices, shops, housing – compete for space in the metropolis. Other monthly expenditure figures include ¥9,992 for furniture and household products, ¥8,264 for clothing and footwear, ¥14,071 for health care supplies and equipment and ¥49,395 for miscellaneous spending such as beauty services and entertainment.Īll these expenditures add up to a total of ¥183,119 for two people. Or ¥91,560 for one person if we half that and round up. To that, we need to add the sizeable sums of rent, taxes and social insurance.
The post also gives some hints on how to reduce transport and communications services, which the data estimate at ¥15,608 a month. Check out our tips on saving money in Japan article for ways to do that. Although we can’t do without these services, we can conserve our usage and trim our expenditures that way.
Utilities, including electricity, gas, and water, cost ¥19,795 on average per month for two. Other vegetables, seaweed processed products That included ¥5,326 for cereals such as rice, bread, and noodles, ¥11,977 for meat and fish and ¥8,692 for fresh fruit and veg. The latest data on food spending from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications shows that between January and May 2019, average national food and drink expenses for a household of two was ¥65,994 a month. Calculating these will give us a figure for the cost of living in Japan.
So, what do you spend your money on? Although we all have our own unique spending idiosyncrasies, we also have many common expenditures, such as food, rent, utilities, health care, and taxes. What is the average expenditure for a household in Japan? Our calculation is based on local data, so that you can work out what it costs to live in Japan, not just on the glossy surface of its capital. “ High costs for expatriate consumer goods” is one of the reasons it gives for Asian cities leading its 2019 Cost of Living Survey. The problem with Mercer’s calculation is that it is based on the expat lifestyle, complete with steak dinners and Big Macs. It goes without saying that the higher the cost of living, the less money you have leftover.
The cost of living measures the balance between how much money you need to spend to live your daily life and the amount of money that you earn. For the second year in a row, it picked Tokyo as the city with the world’s second-highest cost of living (behind Hong Kong).įor many people who are thinking about moving here, this kind of press hampers them with the question, “ Can I afford to live in Japan?” The answer is “yes!” You can afford to live in Japan if you live like a local Japan has gained a reputation as having a high cost of living, possibly due to surveys such as this one released in late June by global consulting firm Mercer.