Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Budgeting my money is not something that I am terribly good at. Ironic really, considering I have a degree in Accounting & Finance. Having this kind of cavalier approach to ones capital is a bad thing in Japan.

Japan is a cash-based society. In the UK I could happily get by with only a £10 note in my pocket, using my debit card for everything else. The situation is very different in Japan. Debit cards and credit cards are not commonplace. Even paying for expensive items like stereos and holidays etc is usually done with cash.

Once, a lady infront of me in the supermarket queue tried to use a credit card to pay. This totally dumbfounded the poor clerk who probably yearned for the good old days of paying for things in gold or some sort of sexual compromise. She had no idea what to do with the credit card and comically darted around like a mad financial hummingbird, thrusting it into all the available slots in the cash register before giving up and apologising profusely.

The amount of coins that you end up with in Japan just after a days shopping is quite remarkable. This is understandable due to the fact that a consumption tax of 5% is levied at point-of-sale in Japan. Thus, that tempting 100-yen packet of crisps is not 100-yen, but 105-yen, resulting in an inevitable fistful of change thrown back at you after you make your purchase. I have a feeling that there is an enormous amount of frozen capital in Japan, that is just sitting around people’s houses in the form of huge piles of 1 and 5 yen coins.

This combination of cash perpetually lining my wallet and my own impulsive disposition is a match made in hell, forged on an anvil of evil by a demented blacksmith on crack. You don’t know what its like to be broke until you have seen how I live the week before payday.

For the coming paycheck, I have decided I should attempt some control of my cashflow. Hence I have now created a monthly budget plan. It will be largely ignored. If by some impossible feat of genius I actually manage to stick to this, it will mean that out of my monthly pay I will have saved around £400. Quite a handsome amount, and much needed if I don’t want to be sleeping in a storm drain when I go to Singapore in December.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 18th, 2002 at 2:39 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.