One of the first things I actually did after arriving in Japan was make a spreadsheet to keep track of my spending. Here's a link to a sample document I made (without numbers).
This was for two reasons: |
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It's easy for receipts to pile up and it's even easier to lose track of what you spent where. And because Japan is primarily a cash-based society, I don't have a digital record either through a credit card. Additionally, not all places have receipts, especially when you're splitting the check between friends. I have a system now where I input the receipt total into my spreadsheet (with a note on the location), mark the receipt as checked, then store them all in chronological order. For times where I have no receipt, I quickly note the price in my memos to add later.
Furthermore, I've separated my spreadsheet into different categories, such as... |
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Originally this was for my own interest to see how much I spend on different things (everything here seems expensive because there are no decimals...) but this works two fold because I can also provide these numbers for future students. Then they can know exactly how much I spent on food, rent, etc. as a student rather than general estimates from "cost of living" sites.
This is the best because not only does the spreadsheet do all of the maths for me, but I also got to color code it!
So far, my goal is to spend less than ¥80,000 each month; with a $1.00 = ¥100 ratio, that'd be $800 per month. The first couple of months are a little off because rent was double and I had to buy some things to make my room a little more habitable, but I hope I can stick with this budget.