I sometimes compared the prices of hotels and other types of accommodation on a Japanese website and international websites (in English). Japanese websites definitely tend to have better deals. So if you want to learn Japanese with me, I can send you some Japanese lessons where I teach you the kind of Japanese that Japanese people actually speak. Click here and subscribe bit.ly/3oHVtlO
Do Japanese websites have better deals? I sometimes check but most of the websites are terrible to use and even if they claim they have some discounts or “best price out there”, sites such as Agoda would end up having better rates overall in my experience. That included comparing prices with Relo Club, one of the employee benefit websites, I would rather stay home than use their website again to be honest.
I'm living in the countryside of Japan. (but still convenient) My life is totally different she has! No kids, no car, bike everywhere, and live with friends and I'm very happy! Am I a minimalist?
@@graan1802 Child expenses isn't the part she isn't a minimalist in. Though I know makeup can be important to a lot of women, especially Japanese women, it is an extra expense that is generally the first thing to go. And a beauty salon? Those are not in a minimalists lifestyle. And 2 car loans? She sounds more like a typical household.
Its actually pretty minimalist for their income. A person making over £51,000 per year (£4000 per month) would be living in a lot more luxury here in the UK. Also she is an introvert, and most introverts "by design" spend a lot less than their extroverted counterparts, as they tend concentrate on the small (though sometimes expensive) things that they are interested in. However, these expenses tend to be made every 2 to 3 years instead of every month. So they live a lot cheaper.
Their utility expenses are insane high!My apartment has free internet and Line mobile only costs 3,000 a month too - I screamed when she said 30,000 for both of then 😅
yeah, there are cheap phone plans out there in many countries. I feel like the fact that they can't resist giving into salesmen's pushy tactics doesn't help with their high monthly expenses.
JP¥66,000 (US$660) for FOOD?!🤯 In my country, my family with 5 can spend estimated US$80-US$100 a month. That means with that cost, we can eat for estimated 6 months and 15 days. (I'm single and I'm living with my parents)
Wow it's indeed incredible how the lady says that her husband works 15h a day and that they are still "poor"... the working ethic combined with the amount of expenses per month along with the different types of insurance...it definitely isn't easy to live in Japan...
Working that amount of time is normal in Japan. As you climb the ladder you work less and less hours but get paid more, kind of like 'paying your dues' when you start. If you don't work overtime your boss will think you are lazy and uncommitted
This really depends on where you live. I didn't have kids and was only by myself, but I lived in the inaka from 2010 - 2011, 2012 - 2015. All of my living expenses were cheaper there, including rent. From 2015 - 2018 I lived in Tokyo. Everything was higher. I owned a car when living in the countryside. Cost me 200,000 yen altogether (used). I paid it off in about a year. My rent was equivalent to $500/month. My phone (I actually had two mobile phones) was under $90/month. The salon for me was expensive, but I went every so many months. For me, it was about 50,000 yen when I went because there aren't many places in Japan that deal with ethnic hair types and I wear my hair natural, so straightening my hair an curling it everyday just for it to frizz up time I step foot outside of my apartment wasn't an option, so I kept it in box braids. Don't wear make-up. But yeah, it probably depends on the area you live in when it comes to your expenses. I got by fine when in the inaka, but struggled when getting to Tokyo, especially with the pay not being much higher than what I was making while in the inaka, which is why some of us had to get second jobs to make ends meet. While in Tokyo, I didn't travel around as much because of that.
For real. Like Idk the cost of living in Japan, or how much her husband makes a year but added up in USD, she's spending somewhere around 4 or 5 thousand bucks a month. When I lived with my parents, we did just fine only spending 2 - 2.5 thousand a month and saving the rest
@@thecattermat well, you did live by yourself but holy shit that is cheap. that's almost the price of a family home's mortgage alone in my city. food seems to be pretty cheap in japan too compared to canada
Having to buy the phones if they don't sell them sounds like a scam. The individual assumes all the risk, and I presume they don't get paid for their time spent trying to sell them, while the company has already made money from them so doesn't care. Honestly this couple seems like they just need to spend their money better and it's so frustrating to watch.
Lowkey valuable financial advice in there, Yuta! About investing rather than paying off a loan with a low interest rate ;) nice. Feels risky, but you're right - you can make money off of the money you'd otherwise be spending to pay off the loan, and then have excess to pay off the loan eventually. I recently watched a video about a physician who has a financial advisor who suggested that she do this rather than paying off her student loans from medical school...
HA! love it at 14:41 how she mentions the average amount a Japanese person her age has saved and then Yuta makes a note 'not true'. It really isn't true, a large number of Japanese young adults and even middle aged people are just scraping by on their incomes. Incomes are quite low in this country...her husband is in the minority for sure. I'd say the average salary for someone around 34 years old is 3.8 million yen a year before tax. Keep in mind, this salary is typical for professionals such as pharmacists and accountants around 34 years old. I know from personal experience.
@@Momonga32 well in USD, 3.8 million yen is like 36k. I think the "average" salary here is like 50k, but with my job (electrician) I'm making in between 70-100k a year. It all just depends on how viable your work is. It just sucks that in japan, jobs that normally pay like 50k in America, only pay 20-30 million yen
3.8m Yen (USD35,000+) in my country is considered the upper percentile. Average salary here in about USD4200 annually. Expenses here is probably 1/3 of Japan's. So yeah, I think both countries are struggling :O
Some of the things that were called "insurance" in the subtitles sound more like retirement savings plans. In the US we have the IRA, 401k, and a number of other types. Basically they're all about taking money and investing it now, without paying income taxes. Then when you use those investments after retirement you pay income tax on the money you withdraw. Is that some of what she's describing, or is it literally all insurance (benefits paid in case of a property loss or death)?
Good observation. In Japan there are tax advantages to things that are legally classified as insurance, so a lot of products that would be savings in other countries are (technically) insurance here. And since companies present them that way, it's how people tend to think of it too.
The "savings-type" insurance policies sound to me like a fixed term Life Assurance policy. You pay in for 15-20 years and at the end of the term, you get a lump sum payout comprising of sum of all of the premiums paid in + the comulation of all the bonuses that the policy has earned throughout the term.
I'm a foreigner living in Japan with one toddler. My husband salary is only a half of her husband but we can still manage our savings about 1/3 :))))))
It really does depend on where you live in Japan! I think you can live in the countryside with just the half of money you need in Tokyo! Or maybe even less!
Compare it to the inflation and interest rates. Keep in mind the Japanese yen is also a "peg" currency like the US dollar. Most currencies are simply pegged to the US dollar. You will quickly realize it is not that easy to compare
i'm actually scared of these expenses, since i'm planning to work as an 3-D animator in japan. I mean, the salary for animators might work out just fine with me, but what i'm planning to have a house and a family in the future? that's something that most people would think about.
Don't take this video as a guide in any way. She seems like a really well to do person. My husband works in the same field that you want to and we are living comfortably in Tokyo with almost half the salary of her husband.
Yeah I've lived in Saitama (where she lives) rent was 65000 per month for a share house 3 bedroom which was bills/internet inclusive. I had a bike and was close to a station so didn't need a car. She spends so much on insurance that seems like a scam, I honestly wouldn't worry too much!
The cultural difference is important, it's nice to see how one in Japan can think about this topic. In France you're less impacted by education fees for your children, or health insurance, or even retirement, as those are relatively collective costs managed by public services. We end up with less immediate earnings, but the counterpart is being incentivized to see those things as planned from the start. Every time I see the cost of managing those services in the USA or Japan etc. I'm struck by how very expensive those are outside of France... Note: If anyone's interested, in France my wife and I pay around 2 months of both our net salaries in "core" taxes (which only leaves VAT and fuel taxes in our every day life, depending on our consumption), as a quite upper middle-class household (between top 20% and top 15%). With that amount of taxes, no health fees, no education fees, standard retirement (we are incentivized to save more by ourselves though, but by default with 43y of work that will bring a retirement pension of 50% of the mean salary we had the ten last years before retiring), everyday services (trash management, city infrastructure including roads and subsidised public transportation, etc.). And when using public transportation our employer supports 50% of the remaining costs.
@@earlysda I don't know if you're being sarcastic or if there is a misunderstanding... I'll guess it is a misunderstanding, and I'll clarify: I find it very nice that 1/6th of my revenue covers so many important things. And I'm also very happy to contribute, not only for myself and my family, but collectively.
@ I'm sorry you don't live in a free country where you can decide for yourself what you wish to spend your money on.
3 года назад
@@earlysda What you call a choice isn't one. Not being able to afford a cure for yourself or your children isn't a choice; not being able to send your children to college and university isn't a choice. And yet, that's what happens to anyone by sheer random events, since you're not in command of the vast majority of events in your life, especially the wealth you're born with and the health issues you're dealt with.
overall an interest insurance is a fraud, they just giving a big hope & dream at first but in the end your money just pop out to the unknown ex. their kids Ed. Insurance 250.000JPY/ year for 18year they just got 3.000.000 JPY but if you calculate 250.000 JPY x 18 = 4.500.000 JPY even if they start when their kids 2 y.o it still deficit
Her husband selling cell phones he has to buy if he doesn't sell them reeks of an MLM pyramid scam. Those are the tactics of Amway and Herbalife scams. Someone should warn her unless I misunderstood something.
@@leesalt Could just be a case of japan. Like I just saw a video of a dude living there where you have to ASK FOR PERMISSION to leave your apartment for more than x weeks. Like this building literally controls your life, and that's how it works.
@@icepenguin7278 I worked 72 hours a week between 2 jobs, both a few bucks over minimum. Got turned down for a studio apartment ($1k/month) because I didn't meet the income requirement (3x rent/month)
I lived in Fukushima one year long, and just my water cost was 6000 yen/2 month. And yet I just took a shower and saved water, I didn’t allow a big tub of water. She said, their water cost is same for 3-4 person.
@@dycedargselderbrother5353 Yeah but it was hard to tell from the subtitles and what was on the bottom right corner which numbers were correct or how it fit together.
Most managed Investmentfonds are not worth it just get an etf like the msci world index you will get about 7 percent return per year and statistically you will always make profit over ten years leveled out and you dont have such high fees. A math example. If you start with 10k and put 200 a month in this investment then you will have after 30 years around 280k but you only paid a small portion of it
Edward. C .Munsk etf s sind wirklich ziemlich das beste zur alters Absicherung von 1000 Euro rente kann keiner leben. Schau mal bei den Kanälen talebox oder finanztips vorbei wenn du mehr dazu wissen möchtest. 8i
Wtf are you talking about? This women (probably you as well) spends far too much on frivolous expenses. Why would you enter into a 10 year solar panel loan when utilities are so cheap at the moment. Same goes for the house loan; Japan is notorious for earthquakes, tsunamis and cyclones. Again, same goes for the multiple life insurance policies; you can't claim those if you commit suicide. Even if you could claim it, you would be better off either putting that money into a high interest savings account or buying tech stock. Furthermore, never, ever, ever get a car loan. Unless you're buying antiques, cars are terrible investment. Purchase a second hand Toyota Camry (preferably 2010 or newer) and you'll be fine.
@@deviantd.6740 Solar panel will save more money in the long term. It's a good investment if you plan to live your whole life in the same house. Cars in Japan are really good and durable. Car loans are very affordable and you can buy a brand new car with a 10 year loan for example. By the time you finish paying the loan, you will wanna get a new car, so it's convenient. But her biggest mistake is the life insurances indeed.
3:25, LOL @Yuta, you should have tried selling her your English course :) If she doesn't buy it, then...you need to be more creative. :) If she buys it, then it still doesn't say much.
Did he get her age? I was trying to compare what she percieved as average savings at her age, but I don't actually know how old they are. I think she said savings of $182k. Her husband's wage is rather high for Japan if I understand correctly. Maybe that has an effect on her perception of her financial status
It was an interesting video! I was so happy when she mentionned being kind of vegan and went to see her channel..sadly she is not at all :( but her cooking looks good tho :)
maybe she wants to be vegan but can't do it right now because of her family. I tried going vegetarian for a year and it was such a pain for my family to eat separately so I had to stop :/
Yeah, very confusing. Is she a minimalist because she doesn't have any assets? That is kinda of what I was thinking. Maybe she doesn't care about traveling or a fancy car etc and she mostly enjoys the internet and free media/public events.
When I lived in Japan I was do surprised as to what my Japanese colleagues thought was normal spending. Trying to live economically but not being ridiculously frugal our monthly spending would be around 50,000 yen total (excluding rent) not having a hot bath every day probably saved me and my husband over 1,000 yen. Japanese people love to eat out, and women are expected to west makeup at work so they have to buy a lot. I never bothered with makeup but I only got away with it cause I was a foreigner
Is the electric bill so low because of the solar panels or is that typical for Japan? We paid just under $500 last month here in the US. That's high because it's summer time, but we still average about $300/mo year round.
That’s crazy how big is your house? Live here in Vegas and during our hottest months of over 100F on average with our AC and working from home with multiple devices for a 2BR 2BT Apt was $100~
This is why I had to move back home. I was burned out. I'd leave super early to avoid rush hour traffic and crowded trains/buses (I had to take one bus one train, or two trains one bus, depending on the route I chose) just to get to work. That was tiring and sometimes, I'd be at work doing prep and other stuff late into the night since I needed the computers to work on my students' files as we were not allowed to take such sensitive data home. We only had three. I'd leave after 6, get to work at 7:30. My hours were 10:00 - 6:00. Sometimes I would leave close to 11 at night. One time I was so swamped, I couldn't leave until so late, I almost missed the last train and bus. I was exhausted while living in Tokyo. When living in the country side, I didn't feel as overwhelmingly tired....just got sick of the job I had. With the job I left, I enjoyed it, but was overworked.
"I don't know if I should say this, but [...] if he can't sell [all his phones] he needs to buy them himself." 😟 BRB, off to watch a bunch of Shu's videos to help her get that sweet, sweet youtube ad revenue. ... Honestly though, that... sucks so much... :( Edit: "I don't actually want to make a living [off of youtube, ] I want to donate [it]." Well. there goes that plan. I'll still send her some views and hope it increases the sometimes pittance of ad revenue that people get from youtube up to a certain point. But dang... Fair enough. Pretty stand-up position to have, actually...
I live in a share house in Tokyo. 460 dollars for rent, electric, internet, water, and trash. 300 for the train every 6 months. 4-10 dollars a day on food but I don’t eat a lot. Everything else is optional like hanging out with friends. Tax is usually deducted out of your pay check. Health insurance is decided based on your income.
I live in Osaka, below would be a typical month: 55,000yen on rent in a share house including water, electricity and wifi (you can get a flat for cheaper, but share house is easy to move in and out of contract wise) 1,500yen on netflix 3,000yen on my phone 8,000yen on gym 60,000yen on food and house supply (toilet paper, tooth brush, etc.) 30,000yen on "entertainment" (karaoke, cinema, bar/restaurants, etc.) Savings, depends on the month but usually I can save around 50,000yen Commuters pass gets paid by my job and I also use it in my free time, as it covers the heart of Osaka, so I can basically go to the city using my pass. Tax etc. all gets directly deducted from salary, just like insurance.
I lived in a dorm in yamagata city, rent with internet and cleaning service 90€ Food and necessities roughly 30 a week, so 120 a month. Playtime.. 50 a month Max, water 50 every two months, insurance 20 a month, I worked parttime in a restaurant ,earned about 10/ HR, about 50-60 hrs a month
Basically the worst minimalist in the world, I also live in Japan and cost of living of me and my wife is around 150 000 with our rent food and commodities included. I do not consider myself a minimalist at all, let me be clear having a car in Japan is a LUXURY. Come on Yuta even you would have realized she isn't a minimalist at that point XD
It depends on where you live. Having a car in places like Tokyo is a luxury. I lived in Yamagata. For my job, I needed a car, so I leased a used one. Altogether, it came to about 200,000 yen. I forgot how much I paid per month, on it though. I did pay it off, though...but by that point, I didn't get everything transferred over to be in my name since I ended up moving to Tokyo. Had to leave the car behind.
Man that interest rate is insanely low man. Though I have a question do you have to pay a poll tax to drive around the country in Japan? I drive three hours just to get to a real city and there isn't any form of public transport where I live at.
Go to some map site on the web and look at Japan. The big, usually green lines, are all toll. For example, from Osaka to Tokyo, around 460km, the normal charge is over 11,000jpy, but you can reduce it to around 8,000 with an ETC card.
Would be nice to have an average earning person interviewed later, maybe someone from a countryside or simply having less income than presented in the video. Just to compare. I have a strong impression (forgive me if I'm wrong!) that buying items which are considered a luxury here, in Europe, in Japan is completely obvious. My Japanese friend from the outskirts of Sapporo often says she's poor, but from the amount of money spent on goods related to our favourite actor monthly she could make quite a decent living. And she still can afford beauty salon, hairdresser, etc. Don't give me wrong, in European society there's also the tendency to buy unnessessary goods and electronica, but it's still considered a luxury. Perhaps Japanese point of view is quite different from ours, maybe the general standard of living is simply higher than ours and therefore spending 300 euro on "household items" per month is no big deal at all. No offence intended, I'm simply curious if that's the thing. As usual, very interesting video, Yuta. Arigatou!
5:23 WTF, he has to buy the cellphones if he cannot sell it. I would probably kindly tell my boss to shove those cellphones up in his ***. I am not buying them.
Hello from Brazil! I was wondering if moving to a smaller city is an actual option that people considerate doing (to lower expenses), or if it is a good option You're videos are great!
Wow, it's so different than living in the US. Even now that we live in Japan our thinking is different. I think this family makes more than the average family in Japan. I see all the paper she keeps. Where is the computer? Everyone I know keeps their financial records on a computer (mostly in spreadsheets and scanned documents.) I do like the 0.84% mortgage rate! In the US we paid about 7%.
There are a few very interesting points to take from here and the best is, in my opinion, investing each month (in her case the 5k allowance). That is such a smart decision. Even if, they could surely optimize their money further, it does look that they have some financial education or intuition.
Ok, it's quite informative video. Despite some people in the comment start comparing with their respective home country, I don't think it's fair judging her badly on her spendings and her financial plans. You can't compare countries way of life, lifestyle, or whatever "apple to apple." Bottomline is, this is adulthood life, granted there are many ways to manage your money, some say she should see financial planner, but at least she and her husband taking leap of faith in their life. While others only able to judge negatively on youtube comment, and still nervous with their future. Kudos to her and her husband, I hope everything goes well in their future, especially during these tough times, we could use all positivity that we can get, instead of pecking with each other.
Good to know Japan still has energy companies that allow you to put power back into the grid and get paid for it, a lot if not all of them here have stopped doing that
From her estimated savings of only ~40k/month, I can see why she says they don't have much savings in cash. An average of 10-20 mil yen at age 33 doesn't sound too crazy. If you look at it from the other side, without having that much saved, it's going to be hard to enter retirement later on. Or maybe I'm confusing actual cash at hand saved vs total net worth including investments.
Usually a lot of Japanese ppl just go inside a konbini or expensive supermarket chains and pick up the first things they see without checking prices or just following what they saw on TV's ads. In fact, some of them even use the millions of convenience stores here for their grocery shopping, where 1 banana can cost around ¥200, while you can buy 4 for ¥98 if you search around a bit. ¥30,000 on phone + internet bills? C'mon!¥67,000 for a cars loans? For how many years? Let me guess: I bet they got a 7-seat car like a Toyota Vellfire because it's what they think they need since they have one children and because it's what their neighbors have PLUS a smaller car for her, maybe yellow plate... Maybe! They live here and have a lot more money than a typical Japanese family, like Yuta correctly observed during the video, sorry but with 7 millions yen per year they are poor (according to her husband) just because they want. If they stop accepting all the rip-offs that are offered to them whenever they are buying something, be smarter when spending their money, they will be surprised about how much money in fact they have. And they wanna live in Tokyo... Spending like that, he will work 15 hours a day forever.
@@milica7522 Japan has an amazing public transit system. With the exception of the pandemic, and depending on which city they live in, there is no need for 2 cars in Japan.
So, $600 a month on food, $370 on household items, $40 for the kid, $90 on the beauty shop, $950 on the home loan, $170 on solar loan, $670 for car loan, $20,000 to install the solar system which works out to $160 per month, $500 for insurance on the husband, $450 for the wife's insurance, about $200 for the college fund, that's $4200 so far. How is that minimalist?
