First off, how much do you save? Well ideally, you should figure that based on your plane ticket(s) and expenses plus how much you budget yourself for a day times how many days you'll be gone. I've seen that some people can get by in Europe for $25 a day, but that was by a guy that got by camping and hitchhiking and saw food as more of a necessary evil than a gastronomic experience. After some research I'm seeing that $45/day seems more realistic for one person on average, but advantage couple: we get to share lodging costs! How much will that help? Time will tell, but anything below the $45 mark will be gravy... wonderful, delicious gravy. I'm sure the savings will go straight to our bellies.
And down to brass tacks, how much did we save? Living in Japan, our goal was 2 million yen each for a shared total of 4 million, which should hopefully be more than enough to last us a year considering the favorable exchange rates. I've seen others guesstimate that $20,000 USD should be enough for a solo traveler, depending on your choice of destination, of course.
So next question: how to take money with us? This was one question that was much easier to answer on the American side than the Japanese side as most any major town will have an ATM that accepts a CIRRUS/Allpoint card, and most banks will be on one network or the other. That and a whopping $1 fee per transaction for my US bank mean I'm set on that front.
The Japanese card was a different story. Japanese banks have this strange aversion to making their ATM cards usable overseas, but then we are talking about the country where banks actually close their ATMs at a certain hour and for days over New Year's break. Choosing a bank offering such cards limits you to a handful of options: Risona, Rakuten, Suruga, Shinsei and Citibank. If you can get a credit card then it opens a few more doors, but that's about it as far as banks. To top it off, these aren't always the default card options, so they'll basically make you pass a credit check just to get an international ATM card. This is not necessarily a trivial task for a foreigner here on a working visa listing himself as self-employed, which doesn't exactly scream stability to them despite my stable (for now) income. Go figure.
Long story short: if you're a foreigner earning yen, just go with Shinsei Bank. Not only does Shinsei make it easy to set up an account, they are known for having quality online banking and don't make you jump through any hoops to get a card you can use anywhere in the world. On the Japanese side of things, she did the math and Risona came out the winner as far as minimizing fees (2.5% over the going exchange rate with no additional fees). For those interested, Shinsei charges 4% on withdrawals with no additional fees, while I believe Citibank charges 3% and a 210 yen fee for each withdrawal.
For more on money concerns, check out the following:
- Travel Independent - Daily travel costs and how to take funds
- Art of Backpacking - How Far Could you Get with 10,000USD?
What did you do for money on your trip? Have any questions on money in Japan? Drop a comment.
Last updated: 8/1/2012
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