Explanation and Living Cheaply

I feel as though I need to explain my recent explosion of blog posts. Hopefully, I will become an exchange student in Japan. This means I'll be living abroad for about 11 months and I really want to try to keep up with blogging while abroad. That said, another bout on living cheap in Japan.

First off, I overestimate everything. That way, I avoid surprise costs/change in exchange rates AND if they do happen to come up, I can use the extra as a buffer. For instance, I've budgeted $175 a week on combined food, transit and additional expenses. This is roughly 13,000 yen (remember, they don't have a decimal place). Of that, roughly 360 yen a day is for transit to school (5 days a week) with about 1600 yen for food a day. That sounds high, but again, it's better to have some left over if I want to buy something additional.

Stick to the budget and don't budge. So if I overshoot, I don't just withdraw more. The first month or so will have more spending, obviously, because I'll need to buy things like a cellphone and clothes. I'm not staying in an apartment, so I don't need to buy furniture or anything like that. I will probably need to buy sheets, hangers, and other things.

Here are some places and websites for wonderfully cheap every day items:

Gaijinpot (http://www.gaijinpot.com/)
Think of it kind of like the classifieds. Ads for Sayounara sales and moving sales are frequent. I've seen an ad for a free refrigerator (you pay for transit), cheap furniture, cell phones, etc. People usually have an aversion to buying things used (me included) but they usually aren't selling the stuff because it's broken - they're selling it because they're moving or returning to their home country.

Craigslist.jp
Same deal as Gaijinpot

100 Yen Store (http://www.daisojapan.com/)
The 100 yen shop is similar to our dollar store, but they tend to stick more to the 100 yen part. While yes, the quality isn't the greatest, who cares if it's only gotta last a year? They sell things like towels, Tupperware, bento boxes, snacks, kitchen sets, slippers, socks, school supplies, etc. The one near where I stayed has 2 floors (it might have been 3) so this is just an overview.