Name: How I SAVED MONEY to live in JAPAN & TRAVEL
Uploaded: 2025-10-21T18:29:54.000Z
Duration: 38 min 45 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

In today's video, I'm going to do something a little bit more chilled out, just chat to you guys because it's been a very long time since I've done a video like this.

A few days ago, I did an Instagram story where I asked you guys what you wanted to see on my channel.

A lot of you actually asked me to make a video on how I save money and how I was able to travel so much.

And because I want to make videos that are helpful and useful to you guys, that's what I'm going to be talking about today.

If you guys like videos like this and want me to make more, then let me know in the comment box down below what other topics you want me to talk about.

Because, yeah, I really like these videos where I can just chat to you guys because I feel like I'm able to open up more so you guys get to know me better.

But also, I just want to say before I start to follow me on social media, because I can interact with you guys easier that way.

I get asked almost every single day how I'm able to travel so much and how I was able to move and live in Japan.

Usually I just respond with the generic, oh, I just worked and saved up, because that's literally what I did.

So I thought in today's video, I'm going to start from the beginning and tell you guys what exactly I did to get to, I guess, where I am now on my YouTube channel.

I do post a lot of videos of me traveling and shopping, which kind of creates this misconception.

That's what I do all the time, which is far from the truth.

Before I started vlogging regularly, I used to travel to Japan multiple times a year and no one ever said anything.

But as soon as I moved to Japan and I started posting more on my vlogging channel, all the questions started coming in, which is not an issue at all.

Realize that there are a lot of people that support what I do and generally want advice on how to save money, which is why I'm making this video.

I would eat really cheap food to save money.

I would share food with my friends when we go to restaurants so we can halve the cost.

I'll spend hours hunting down coupons so I can get the cheapest price possible for whatever I bought.

Let's start from, let's see, when I was 14 years old.

So when I was 14, this is when I was really starting to get into anime and J Pop.

And it was one of my dreams to go to Japan.

Of course, being 14, I couldn't do much about it.

I couldn't really work because my parents wanted me to study.

So it was just kind of like a dream that I wanted, but

Now, back then, did I do anything that would help me get to Japan?

Now, fast forwarding a few years because that was when it started my interest in Japan.

But my interest in Japan wasn't to the point where it was that strong at that time.

But I didn't really think much or act upon it.

I graduated high school when I was 17 years old.

From the time I graduated high school to the time where I would start university, I had about four months that I had as a holiday.

So I remembered that I started my first job.

My first job was working in an embroidery factory.

I was earning minimum wage, so I was earning $9 an work from 7am and finish at 3pm this was like the first time I started working and first time I started seeing money go into my bank account.

I remembered my first purchase was a Nintendo DS, which was probably about $250 at that time.

I treasured that thing so much because I knew how hard I had to work to save up to buy that for myself.

So since then, that's when I started realizing the value of money and how you had to work hard to get something you wanted.

As soon as money went into my account, it would go out just as fast.

I was really into cosplay then, and I never made my own costumes.

And if you guys didn't already know, cosplay is super expensive.

I was living from paycheck to paycheck, but I wasn't really saving for anything in particular.

I was only 18, so saving didn't really mean much to me.

So I started university and I couldn't continue with the factory job, so I quit that.

For the most part of my first year during university, I was jobless, so I was living off whatever I made at the factory, which really wasn't that much because I was just really bad at saving.

When I turned 19, I found a job at a fast food restaurant.

it was the only job that I could find at the time because finding a job in Australia is very difficult.

So because of that, I decided to make my own job from the money I earned working at fast food.

I decided to invest in a DSLR camera as I was really getting into photography back then.

This was back in 2009 where I met a bunch of people that were really into photography and they taught me so much.

I then took what they taught me and launched my small business doing photography.

A ball is a prompt, but in Australia we just call them balls.

I don't know if it's different outside of Australia, but

for balls, usually you would go to someone's house, meet up, and

then you'd go together in like a limousine maybe, and then you go to locations to take photos.

One of my friends was having her school ball and she approached me and asked me if I was interested to take photos for her.

Since I was interested in shooting portraits, I said yes and I did it for free because this was going to be the first time I've done something like this.

I gave them the pictures and I asked them in return, can you spread the word about my business?

And pretty much every single bore season I was booked out.

I managed to save up quite a bit of money from all those pre bore photo shoots, but

still I was really bad at saving because cosplay and photography are two very expensive hobbies.

I turned 20 in 2010 and this was the year that I had the opportunity to to Japan for the very first time.

Now I had this opportunity because my university and a high school in Japan had this exchange program.

The way it worked was a Japanese high school would send over 10 students and they would come over to Australia and experience Australian lifestyle.

They would be paired up with a host family.

So I had a Japanese exchange student over my place for two weeks and then we'd swap.

So people that hosted the Japanese students would go to Japan, stay with their family and go to a Japanese high school for two weeks.

I took part in this program because this was the year I decided to study Japanese as an elective for fun.

Since I knew I was going to go to Japan for this exchange.

This exchange was going to take part in February of 2011.

So the year after I was still working in fast food, but I was earning minimum wage.

I was booked out for ball season, but that was only for about two weeks a year.

So obviously it wasn't stable enough, I knew I needed something more.

So I applied for a bunch of and eventually I got a position as a Santa photographer at shopping malls during the Christmas season.

I worked for about six weeks during the Christmas season and overall I was able to save up, I believe around $5,000 to go to Japan.

I then went to Japan in January for six weeks because I wanted to do the high school exchange.

But because it was my first time in Japan, I wanted to spend a good amount of time.

I then went to Japan for six weeks at the start of January in 2011.

My first trip to Japan was my very first trip alone without my parents.

And honestly, I didn't really know what I was doing.

I was trying so hard to save money so I would stay in the cheapest hostels.

I would refuse to spend more than $5 on one meal just so I can save money because I was so scared that I would run out.

Now I'm not going to go into details on my first trip to Japan because that's not what this video is about.

But towards the end of the trip I had a lot of money left over because I was being so stingy at the start.

Now because I didn't think that I would go back to Japan anytime soon.

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How I SAVED MONEY to live in JAPAN & TRAVEL

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