Cost of living for a foreigner in Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world. The recent statistics shows that capital of Japan, Tokyo is the most expensive place in the world to live. Japan is the second strongest economy in the world, but the most expensive.

One reason for this high expense is the highest living standards by its citizens. The quality of life is also high in Tokyo. Everything contributes to the expenses.

From the last one year living experience in Japan, let me brief the costs of living in Tokyo. The apartment rent per month is 115,000 Japanese yen. For Yahoo BB broadband internet connection with a land phone the bill be around 6,400 Japanese yen. It is quite reasonable considering the quality of service Yahoo BB offers and the advantages of having a landline telephone from Yahoo BB in combination with Apa Kabar international calling card.

The monthly electricity bill will be around 6000 Japanese yen. I paid the last water bill approximately 3600 Japanese yen for two months. So, monthly 1800 Yen is nominal for a single man. The gas bill will be around 1600 Yen, because I don’t cook at home. This gas consumption is for heating the water for making coffee and water heating for bathing. The NHK television bill will be 1390 Yen per month. Softbank mobile phone charges for a month is around 2000 Yen. This includes the extra calls I make to friends within Japan. For making international calls I use Apa kabar card which costs 2400 Yen. I have to buy at least 3 Apa Kabar cards in a month, thus this amounts to 7200 Yen per month.

Daily commutation charges by train to office and back will be 580 Yen per day. So accumulated for a month and also including the extra travels I make to visit friends and for purchase will total to 20,000 Yen. This kind of expense depends on the place where we live. For others, this amount may be less or high.

For food and snacks monthly approximate expense for a single head will vary from 45000 to 60,000. If I go for eating out together with other friends once in a week, this amount will go further high.

Hair dressing charges are quite noticeable in Japan. My hair dresser charges me with a small bill of 3,000 Yen. This is where I got astonished with the living expenses in Tokyo. Every month I pay 3,000 Yen for hair cutting. I am not going for any beautification of my hair! In my country, for this amount of money, even if I go for a medium luxury hair saloon, I can have my hair cut for full two years! Here in Tokyo, we are not paying for the actual work he does rather we pay the hair dresser to live in Tokyo. He has to live in Tokyo in order to render his service to us!

The clothing and physical fitness charges will vary according to the individual and I don’t want to put any amount, but it won’t be less than 10,000 Yen if we take the average per month.

Then there are vacation expenses for a foreigner. Entertainment expenses another category. Today I went to see a movie. One movie ticket costs 1800 Yen.

Since I have insurance, I have to pay some 30% of the expenses. Monthly medical expenses are approximately 5000 Yen.

Living with family and kids is quite highly expensive in Japan. The lowest international school fee won’t be less than 60,000 Yen per month for one kid. The school bus expense may vary from 20,000 Yen and more. Then comes the other education expenses separately.

All the above mentioned expenses are purely from my own experience and have nothing to do with a national average figure. I don’t want to do a totaling of all the expenses and state a particular amount as the monthly expenses. Some companies will take care of some type of expenses. Again that depends on the individuals agreement with the company and company's commitment to the employees. Therefore Just I have given the breakups of living expenses in Tokyo. There are other types of expenses, which I might have missed out. I will update once I remember those expenses.

While passing through a turbulent and uncertain economy

Today I am little bit out of mood as I could not meet one friend whom I used to talk with at the McDonald outlet. Yesterday also I could not meet him. We are all passing through a turbulent economy, which is overcast by uncertain future. This one is really harder and nobody knows what will be the coming days. It is so uncertain that even companies that performed well in the past are nose diving to declare massive lay offs and job cuts.

My friend from Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany whom I used to meet at the McDonald outlet is an interesting person to talk with on many topics on politics, technology and economics. He has been in Japan for the past 3 years. Since the business has come down and affected the sale of many products from outside Japan, his company is also in trouble.

It is interesting to mention here that I have one more friend from Vienna whom I used to meet at the ‘Makudonarudo’ (McDonald) outlet at Kiba.

Many of the Japanese use the word ‘Shrinking economy’ for the current economic phenomenon. Contraction of the economy another popular word in Japan used for the economic slowdown. My friend from Bamberg has planned for a vacation at the end of this month, but what happened to him today. It is unlikely that he will miss for two consecutive days.

My knowledge about Germany is very limited. He told me that Bamberg is a town area in Bavaria and Bavaria is the largest state in Germany by area. Bavaria is located at the south east of Germany.

He is interested to hear about my place and I will ask him about the places in Germany as if the whole Germany is very small for him to know everything about Germany. Japan’s association with Germany during Second World War is a historic fact, even though not so popularly welcomed publicly by many people.

The juicy chicken setto (Chicken hamburger) or Ebi fileto setto (prawns hamburger) with hoto kohee (hot coffee) is our favorite at McDonald. He also prefers the same. Some days we sit more than one hour with our hoto kohee sharing our ideas on world affairs and recent developments in technology.

If I am correct in hearing from my friend, there is a river named Regnitz. He told in Bamberg smoked beer is famous. It is called Rauchbier in German language. I still keep the tissue paper on which he wrote the spelling in German language.

Economic recession is deepening. I could not meet my friend today at McDonald outlet. I waited there for almost one hour for him sipping the hotto kohee slowly with the hope that the he will come.

I could not see any reduction in sales in terms of number of people at any of the McDonald outlets in Tokyo. This is my personal observation and I am not much sure about the exact number of people visiting each outlet. Before one year and now I could see equal number of people chooses to eat out at McDonald. In fact McDonalds had come down with economic packages like one chicken hamburger set cost 630 Japanese Yen before, is now available for 490 Japanese Yen. This is during 11:30 hours to 13:30 hours. This is the time they get peak business and many Japanese like the McDonald food. These 'stimulus packages' implemented by McDonalds attract more customers even at the time of economic slow down or shrinking economy.

My hotto kohee has cooled down. There is no point in waiting for him today. Economy is uncertain and we don’t know what is there for us tomorrow!