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  • Hey guys! Today I'm here with Andrew Marston.

  • Hey~ Yay!

  • And we are both kinda cheapy people

  • so we have a lot of experience with trying to live in Japan as cheaply as possible.

  • So today we are going to combine all of our experience

  • and give you the ten best tips for saving money in Japan.

  • Are you ready? I'm ready.

  • Yes!

  • Tip number one is getting cheap stuff.

  • If you move to Japan and you need to furnish your apartment

  • furniture stores can be kinda expensive but there are a lot of foreigners who are always leaving Japan

  • because their work contracts are up and you can get their stuff for super cheap.

  • There are a lot of "Sayonara Sales", that's what they're called.

  • So people who are leaving Japan, sayonara.

  • They sell their stuff really cheaply on facebook or Gaijinpot has classifieds.

  • Sometimes you can just find them on random websites.

  • But check the city that you move to. In Nagoya, we have a facebook group called Treasure Trove. Yes.

  • And that's where you can get cheap stuff from foreigners. I think Tokyo has one...

  • Tokyo Garage Sale. Yeah. On facebook group.

  • You could also go to thrift stores. That's where Jun and I got a lot of our furniture from. Same here.

  • Like our island here, this did not come with the apartment. We got this at the thrift store.

  • Sometimes those are called "recycle shops". Right.

  • And if you want to get cheap clothes, thrift store also have those very frequently.

  • There are two different types of thrift stores in Japan.

  • There are the high-end resale places that sell clothes, brand names... Still kinda expensive.

  • And then there are ones that lower the price every single week and so the stuff is really cheap.

  • Those are the ones that I go to. Sometimes they are called like 'maishyuusagaru'

  • Which means "every week the price falls". There are some really common thrift store chains. Yep.

  • The "Off" series, so Book-off sells books really cheaply. Often they have a clothes section as well.

  • There's Mode Off. I believe they sells clothes and discounted furniture.

  • Like small furniture items. Oh, okay.

  • And then there's Hard Off. (giggles)

  • Hard Off which sells electronics. Save that one for last.

  • Hardware. It sells hardware at off prices. Yeah. (laughs)

  • Why are you laughing?

  • You can get that at Hard Off~

  • Tip number two: A lot of shops around Japan have a sign that says

  • Tax-free Shop and if you have a non-Japanese passport

  • and if you spend over five thousand yen on a purchase

  • then you can get that without any consumption tax added on.

  • Right. You have to be on a visa that's less than six months in Japan.

  • So if you are on a student visa it probably won't work.

  • You also... Sometimes they won't give you the tax off right away.

  • Some times there's a tax refund counter where you have to fill out paperwork there.

  • But, yeah, you can get your tax back for a lot of things.

  • Three is food. Everyone knows about this. You've probably heard it before

  • but if you go to a supermarket right before they close they will often mark down set meals or meats and fish.

  • Or you know, twenty percent off, thirty percent off, sometimes half off. Yep.

  • It's like the sushi plates, the bentos, all the pre-prepared stuff that they have to throw away if it doesn't sell by the end of the day.

  • Number four is how to get free accommodation. Who doesn't like that?

  • There's a website called Couchsurfing.com which is basically a social network where you can

  • request to stay with people who have volunteered to host other people on their couches

  • Often it's better than just their couch. Maybe they'll have a spare room, sometimes it's worse than the couch,

  • it will be the floor. I have couch surfed probably over a whole month

  • if you added it all together, in Japan. I met a lot of great people.

  • People that I'm still friends with today. it's very safe. It's very reliable. I highly recommend it and it's free.

  • That is the most important part. Also if you are desperate and you find a twenty four hour fasfood place

  • like McDonald's or a Loteria then they probably won't kick you out.

  • In fact, I tried it and they didn't kick me out. If you just buy a big meal, sit at the table,

  • kinda fall asleep there and stay there until the first train the next morning.

  • So another option that I've actually just discovered was a website called WWOOF or W-W-O-O-F

  • and I'll post more information about this in the description, well it's your description.

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm taking over her desciption

  • It's okay, I'll share. If you want to volunteer to work on...

  • There's a lot of farms post on there, there's some inn, there's some cafes.

  • If you want to volunteer to work six hours a day six days a week then in exchange you can get free room and board.

  • It's actually a really great way to kinda have a home-stay experience and have free room and board in Japan.

  • And the last free option would be camping.

  • And there are camp grounds all throughout Japan that you can pay money to stay at

  • but if you're feeling adventurous usually if you pick a place that's out of the way

  • and you're not bothering anybody then you can usually pitch a tent kinda... almost anywhere.

  • Number five is transportation.

  • And one of these actually kinda leads into accommodation as well,

  • the night bus or even day bus can be one of the cheapest ways to travel in Japan

  • if you have the time to sit on a bus.

  • And if you take the night bus then you can try to sleep on the bus while you're getting from city to city

  • so you don't have to pay for a hotel that day either. So it's kind of a trick.

  • And the longer the bus route, usually the more comfortable the seats are. Right.

  • Some of them are not that bad actually but some of them are... not fun.

  • Nagoya - Tokyo, Tokyo - Nagoya

  • That bus is pretty uncomfortable. We have taken that bus many many times.

  • We mentioned rail pass recently on a previous video, if you're a foreigner coming to Japan

  • before you get to Japan you can apply for a rail pass which gives you JR trains for free for a certain number of days.

  • After you pay for the rail pass which is pretty expensive itself.

  • If you want details they will be down in the description box.

  • Another cheap way to travel if you are hitting a lot of stops in one day is an 'ichinichiken'

  • which we also talked about recently on our channel.

  • It's an all-day pass for certain cities taking certain train lines and maybe metro buses, city buses, as well.

  • Just keep in mind which rail company you bought that 'ichinichiken' for because you'll only get access to those lines.

  • Like if you buy JR you can only go on JR Rails but not Tokyo Metro so keep that in mind.

  • One of my favorite ways to travel on trains cheaply is using what's called the 'seishun jyuhachi kippu"

  • or like, 'seishun eighteen tickets. And what that is is you pay a little over a hundred US dollars

  • and you get a pack of five tickets that let's you ride as much as you want on JR lines

  • but only the two slowest train lines. Like local trains.

  • So no shinkansen. You are not getting anywhere quickly. You could travel from northern Japan

  • to southern Japan but it's going to take you all day. One cool thing about this ticket pack

  • is that you can split them up among friends.

  • So if you have five friends who want to take a one day train trip together for cheap

  • then you buy the 'seishun jyuhachi kippu". Everybody can take a day and you all take this one day massive day trip together.

  • Or you could just you yourself use it for five days in a row.

  • But keep in mind that this deal is only available seasonally

  • so make sure you're going to be in Japan while it's valid. Right.

  • Number six is ETC cards.

  • So if you rent a car here in Japan or if you live here and you own a car

  • and you want to take the express ways, they are tolled which are pretty expensive, the tolls.

  • But you can get a discount if you use an ETC card and it's easier to go through the toll booths

  • because you can just drive slowly instead of stopping at a window.

  • You normally, if you live in Japan, you have to apply through a credit card company

  • but if you are visiting and renting a car a lot of rental shops will let you rent an ETC card.

  • The list of how you get discounts with it is very long and complicated so I'll link the PDF down in the description box.

  • It's like six pages. And if you're travelling with multiple people it's almost always cheaper. Right

  • to rent a car. and then you have full control over what time you leave, you can take your luggage

  • and just leave it in the car which is so useful. It is not fun travelling on the trains with luggage, trust me.

  • Number seven is talking about airfare

  • which is notoriously. My biggest and best tip for finding cheap airfare to and from Japan

  • from where ever you are in the world,

  • is to just sign up for the promotional newsletters from the major air carriers

  • that would take you from your nearest airport to Japan.

  • Sometimes throughout the year they'll be promotions which you can get discounted tickets.

  • You said one of your friends got tickets from Atlanta, Georgia to Tokyo for four hundred and fifteen dollars for a round-trip.

  • Yeah, a round-trip. That's crazy.

  • Yeah, well it did that just because they monitor those promotional newsletters and the latest deals and

  • it just happened to come up. And traveling domestically within Japan,

  • especially if you are going between two cities that are quite far apart

  • it can be cheaper if you get one of these good deals by flying, as well.

  • Yeah, a lot of people don't know this but there is a lot of budget airlines that operate only domestically within Japan.

  • A couple of examples would be Peach Air, Jetstar, Skymark, Spring Japan.

  • So instead of taking a shinkansen from Tokyo to Sapporo, Hokkaido, for example sometimes it's cheaper to fly.

  • So just check the deals when you're going to be in Japan.

  • Number eight.

  • This isn't unique to Japan but just so you know that they do do this here.

  • When you sign up for big contract purchases, not always but sometimes like internet,

  • they will let you pick out a free or heavily discounted appliance from a certain website.

  • So when we signed up for internet at our apartment we got a choice to pick between fridges

  • that had hundreds of dollars off or all kinds of different appliances.

  • We got a three hundred dollar vacuum for free.

  • just because we did a one or two year contract with our internet provider.

  • So that was pretty awesome. Yeah.

  • So they have similar deals sometimes if you sign up for credit cards or bank or cellphones

  • so just see if they are offering a campaign promotion when you're signing up for something.

  • Jun's dad got a free tablet when he got his cellphone. Really?

  • So he got a smartphone and a tablet at the same time. Which is pretty cool.

  • Japan loves it's promotions.

  • Number nine deals with how to sight see for cheap.

  • Japan has osme very notoriously expensive seasons to travel. Sakura season, the cherry blossoms,

  • Obon, Golden week, Silver week is now a thing, sort of, during the New Years holidays as well.

  • Rates for hotels will often be a lot more expensive during those times. So if you want to travel cheaply

  • then maybe travel off season, a little bit.

  • The trade off though is that the reason those are prime seasons is that there is a lot of cool stuff to see here.

  • On the flipside there's almost always a lot of free stuff to see and do in Japan.

  • A lot of local, seasonal matsuris, festivals. There's a lot of temples and shrines

  • like Meiji Jingu in Tokyo, parks like Yoyogi. So a lot of these sort of government run facilities

  • are almost always free and are some of the hot spots that you would come to see anyway.

  • Right. So make sure you take advantage of those types of locations when you're visiting Japan.

  • Number 10 . If you want to take home souvenirs to your family

  • make sure you check at the hyaku-en stores. I know that sounds really cheesy but actually

  • hyaku-en stores like Daiso and Seria have a lot of really cool things

  • and I swear the foreigners who first come here and shop at Daiso, of which I know that some of you

  • have in your own country now but not you people who haven't been to Daiso before, they're amazed.

  • I was amazed. Oh yeah. All the foreigners they love it.

  • And there's always a lot of really cool things. Daiso is the largest collection of things

  • you never knew you needed and you can't live without.

  • Yes. So cheap souvenirs, I mean you can get more expensive stuff, too, if you want for your family.

  • But it's worth it to check first.

  • So these were our ten super cheap tips for coming to Japan.

  • Thank you, Andrew for helping out.

  • If you haven't seen Andrew's channel Happy In Japan before, you should!

  • He makes really amazing travel videos. Seriously if you haven't seen them you will be impressed.

  • So make sure you check out his channel and thank you for watching.

  • See you later. Bye!

  • We get... yeah... a tax... duty... back...

  • Number six. I think I almost hit you in the face.

  • Oh god.

  • I could put up five and you could put up five. Jazz hands.

  • Okay. We'll try. We can do it together.

  • It may not.... (laughing)

  • We'll say one, two, three and then we do number ten. Are you ready?

  • Yeah. Jazz hands. Okay.

  • The best part of the video here.

  • Okay, one, two, three. Number ten... No, you have to say it with me.

  • Oh, we're saying it at the same time?!

  • I'm so embarrassed. Okay. One, two, three.

  • Number 10!

  • Jazz hands.

Hey guys! Today I'm here with Andrew Marston.

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