anoisette

Get Rich Slowly just featured a guest post by blogger M on her frugal habits. This has inspired me to write about something I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I’ve developed some frugal habits here in Japan that have really surprised me. I never would have imagined I could live this way if I didn’t find myself doing it out of necessity. Granted, it’s not 100% necessity, of course, but rather frugality and adapting one’s habits to the context of their current life.

So here is my list of things I do now that I think are pretty frugal:

• Live in a 200sqft apartment. Yes we could live in something bigger, but it would cost a lot more. Our apartment may be small, but it’s well laid out and designed which makes a world of difference.
• No clothes dryer. All our laundry is hung out to dry on the balcony. At first I couldn’t imagine living like this, how does laundry dry outside in the winter? Or when it’s raining? But I learned to deal with it out of necessity and plan my laundry days around the weather forecast.
• Minimal furniture. Having a small apartment really limited what furniture we had to buy. Basically the only furniture we paid for was our kitchen table and 2 chairs. The only other furniture we have are some shelves that the boy picked up for free on gomi day (garbage day where people put all kinds of perfectly fine stuff on the curb).
• No TV and no cable subscription. This is because we wouldn’t really have a place for the tv. And even if we did have a TV, I don’t understand Japanese well enough to be able to understand what I’m watching.
• No landline phone. However we both have our own cell phones. When I got my first bill I had a friend translate it for me and discovered that I got signed up for some kind of handset insurance service that cost a few dollars a month. So I promptly canceled that. I mostly use text to contact friends, since minutes are pretty expensive. And to talk to family and friends back home, I use Skype for free.
• Pretty much all I drink at home is filtered tap water or home made unsweetened ice green tea. Unsweeted ice green tea is something I’ve acquired a taste for here in Japan, it’s a very popular drink and at first I thought unsweetened ice tea was too bitter, but I got used to it. And I’m glad I did because that’s that much less sugar I’m consuming. And in the winter of course I drank hot tea.
• No microwave. We didn’t buy one right away because we were keeping our eye out for a good deal or a used one and then we realized we got by fine without one.
• Cook meals at home. It’s actually not very easy for me to eat out here in Japan because of my being vegetarian (unless we specifically plan to go to a vegetarian restaurant). So we eat at home a lot. When the boy has to work the next day, we’ll cook extra so there are leftovers he can bring for lunch.
• Buy local in season veggies. Fruits and veggies can be really expensive here. I try to buy local veggies (and have had to learn to cook with them), which tend to be cheaper and also stuff that is in season. Learning to cook local food is a big one if wanting to save money on food in Japan. Imported foreign foods that we’re used to back home can be really expensive here.
• Borrow books from the library or borrow/get them for free from friends. I was lucky to find a small international library near our place with a small selection of english books.
• No car. This doesn’t seem like a stretch to me since I’ve never owned a car and don’t plan on it any time soon. And it’s easy here in Japan since public transit is excellent. I also bought a cheap bike that I use to get around and that occasionally saves me on train fare.
• Discount train tickets. A happy discovery was the discount ticket shop. They are quite common near large train stations and full of discount train tickets for both local and faster trains like the shinkansen (bullet train). Apparently one can also purchase movie and event tickets there. For the local train to Osaka or Kyoto that I take quite often, there are extra discounted tickets that are only valid between 10am-5pm week-days or all day week-ends and holidays.
• Compare train fares. I’m lucky that I live near a station with access to 3 different train lines and a subway line. The 3 train lines all go to Osaka but the fares are different. JR is the most expensive and fastest, but if I’m not in a rush I can take the Hanshin line which is ¥100 cheaper (one way, so ¥200 cheaper for the return trip). Same with going to Kyoto, the Hankyu line takes a bit longer and I have to transfer once, but it’s a ¥600 (one way) versus the regular JR fare ¥1050 (one way). It may not seem like much, but a few hundred yen here and there ads up. Hypedia is a useful website for getting information on train schedules and costs.
• Didn’t join a gym. A lot of people I know here have done so and it’s quite expensive here in Japan. For exercise I just go running. I’m lucky that the ocean is a five minute walk from my place and I can run along the dock.
• Avoid ATM charges. I try to only use my own bank’s atm to avoid the service charge from the others, and only use it during regular business hours because evening and week-ends there’s an extra fee to withdraw money.

I’m sure that if my Japanese was better I would find more ways to save money on things, or take advantage of special sales or discounts, but the above is what I’ve been able to do so far and it works. It’s definitely been very interesting to realize what modern day niceties (like a clothes dryer or microwave) one can give up and not feel deprived.

Recently Financial Jungle blogged about the advantages of renting in Vancouver, where housing prices are ridiculously high right now. While researching housing in Vancouver I came across the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC website and was reminded that housing co-ops are third option in addition to the usual renting or buying. From browsing the site and listings for various co-ops in Vancouver, rent prices for a 1 bedroom seem generally cheaper than what I’ve seen on sites like craigslist, which definitely makes them seem appealing for someone wanting to save on housing expenses.

However, one would have to chose a co-op carefully lest you get taken for a ride like this unlucky gal did when she bought in to a housing co-op in downtown Toronto.

Most co-ops want members to participate in the running of things, which makes sense since that’s how they keep costs down, so they’re a better fit for people who would have the time and inclination to participate.

From the looks of it, applying to live in a co-op seems to be a bit of a process. Most have waiting lists, and then once there is an opening, applicants go through an interview process after which the co-op decides which applicant is accepted.

Regardless, I’m definitely interested in looking into housing co-ops when I move to Vancouver. When browsing the listings, I saw quite a few with community or roof-top gardens, which is awesome.