In any trip overseas, spending money is something that has to happen regardless of it being on food, transport, and even shopping for goods/souvenirs. Throughout the entirety of my Japan trip I recorded everything that I spent in a notepad I carried with me everywhere. It’s good to record these type of things to know how much of your budget you are spending but it can also be used for future references. No doubt my trip was pretty epic in many ways I’m sure people want to know exactly how much I spent. Anyway hit the jump to read a breakdown report on my daily expenditure for my Japan trip.
At the start, I would say that I had planned a budget of around $8000 AUD which covered everything. Although when I left the country I had less than that in the bank, but I had accounted for a generous tax return as well as my wages being paid over the course of the month. So all was set and as the days went by, everything was recorded of my personal expenditure. I did also record group expenditure. Essentially what my comrades and I decided was that during times of lunch/dinner where it’s an altogether thing, one person pays the entire bill. At the end of the trip, we calculate the total amount and split it four-ways. Then we work out the differences and even out the bill. The same was also worked out for car expenses.
Moving along, the following values are all in Japanese yen. This way it gives a clearer understanding of value and most people should be able to convert those to their own currency. But first up GRAPHS!! Because everyone loves graphs.
Because of the stupid way that MS Excel limits function parameters, I’ve split them into two sections: 1st-15th August and 16th-31st August. A rather sporadic pattern here but you can obviously tell when I bought merchandise. But even on days where I didn’t buy merchandise it was a moderate amount. Here are just some key points to note about this 1st graph:
- 3rd - Wonderfest: A total of ¥56,600 was spent on merchandise alone.
- 7th-9th - Kyoto: Low spending period since there really isn’t otaku goods to buy, but a lot of money went to food, prayers, and souvenirs.
- 10th - Arrived back in Tokyo and went shopping with friends from Tamarket. A total of ¥44,220 was spent on goods.
- 15th - Comiket 74 Day 1: Now this will be a shocker…. ¥69,075 in total for goods and a mere ¥1,100 on drinks. I tried refraining from spending on the days leading upto Comiket, but alas I’m a weak man.
- Only one package was sent back in this period.
The 2nd graph is what will be the most interesting. At times it was mass splurge, then completely drop off. In a sense this is when one realises that they’ve spent quite a bit in the time span of three days. Some points to note about this graph:
- 16th-17th - Comiket 74 Day 2 & 3: Day 2 was a total of ¥54,145 in goods whilst Day 3 was ¥56,000 in goods. What one person spends to acquire doujinshi.
- 18th: 2nd package was mailed home. I had to do this due to the overwhelming amount of items sitting in the hotel room. I also got myself some nice comfy shoes as well.
- 20th-21st - Car Adventure: Although this graph does show what I spent, it doesn’t cover expenses such as tolls as this was tallied to the group car expense. Also the best time of my trip. Oh how I miss driving on the Wangan Expressways.
- 22nd: More shopping and a 3rd package was sent home.
- 23rd-26th: A break from doing any shopping and just kick back and relax. Also realising coming close to very little funds.
- 27th-29th: Borrowed funds from friends to continue some last major shopping as well as ship back 2 packages during this time. One of them being the most expensive shipping cost of all 5 packages.
- 30th-31st: Burn off any remaining Japanese yen we had left as none of us wanted leftovers.
Quite a feat I must say and when I placed all this in a spreadsheet, I myself was amazed at the frequency of purchasing. But if you take away the spending of merchandise you would probably see an average amount of ¥8,000 - ¥17,000 per day just covering food, transport, touristy items etc. However the foods that we ate ranged from very cheap to very expensive items of course, but I’d like to think this is a good indicator for an average.
The group expenditure was also a surprise. ¥389,825 on the group food expense. This group expense factors when the four of us were together as well as times when we had various friends join us for dinner. The way that my comrades and I saw it was that we were more than happy to say the bill when friends joined us. We were on holidays so it didn’t really matter to us. Splitting it four ways, our share each was ¥97,456, which is pretty darn good.
The group car expense worked out to be a total of ¥33,237 and this included items like tolls and petrol. So each of us had a share of ¥8,309.
The grand total of Comiket 74 expenditure was ¥179,220.
As mentioned before I had shipping a total of 5 packages via EMS shipping. Here are the details of each package:
- Package 1: ¥10,750, Weight: 6.87 Kgs
- Package 2: ¥12,650, Weight: 12.675 Kgs
- Package 3: ¥17,850, Weight: 12.855 Kgs
- Package 4: ¥22,850, Weight: 17.560 Kgs
- Package 5: ¥10,700 (this was the Jumbo Grade Zeta), Weight: 6.575 Kgs
- Grand Total: ¥74,800, Total Weight: 56.535 Kgs
Now here is what everyone wants to know. The grand total I spent on merchandise. Some people have had a guess at the grand total and only a few have come close. So here it is: ¥516,423 is how much I spent on merchandise alone. If you consider the average exchange rate during August, $1AUD = ¥94, that comes to around $5493 AUD.
When you add everything all together is becomes quite a large figure. So adding all the food, transport, car expenses, merchandise spending, tourist expenses the overall Grand Total is ¥866,497. However I must admit that all the figures you see are based on all the receipts that I have collected and what was written down in my little notebook. I would give or take ¥1000-¥3000 yen give or take for items that I have no records of.
That pretty much covers my expenditure report. I hope this will help those who plan on heading to Japan in the near future for a holiday. Keep in mind that I went for an entire month, attended 4 events, hired a car, ate at a few expensive places, and did a lot of shopping. In the end I did go over my budget but only by $600 AUD. Some may think that I’m rich, but rest assured, I’m not rich. This was all the result of hard core saving in the 6 months leading up to the trip. I know that many want to go crazy and buy as much as they want but do remember your limits as I’m sure you at least want to have enough money to get back to the airport. Thankfully this trip I had more than enough for that.
Oh for those who think I’m a pretty big otaku. Well yes I could be classified as one. But there is always a bigger fish. The amount of merchandise that I have is NOTHING compared to my friend Roobar. Below are just some photos I ninja’d when I went over the day we arrived back in Australia:
A bit of a mess, but most of the mess is from his Japan trip merchandise sitting on top of other merchandise that came in during the month of August. One day I’ll take photos of his entire room for the world to see! And just to compare my purchases to his, I bought more than he did and it weighed a lot more (due to a lot more doujinshi), but in total value, Roobar had spent WAY more than I have due to him buying more expensive items than myself. It’s a never ending battle between him and I.
Thanks for the post! It actually gave me an idea of how much I should spend for my future Japan trip! (Although I am not sure when, but hopefully soon as I earn some money)
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time to do cleaning up ^^; and wow $8k for a month.. if otaku stuff not bought, you can last way longer but that’ll defeat the purpose
pp’s last blog post..Lets spend and rev up the economy!
A huge mess I say!!!!!!
$8000…WOW!!!!!!
Looks like I have to bring around that much when I head there next year and have to bring a small note book to make sure how much I spend…
Still…seriously….that is a lot of money…
I see a lot of figures…be expecting some figure shoots soon…
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You spent around what I spent total when my brother came over for 15 days to Japan just in merchandise. Not bad.
I like that glass case that your friend Roobar has. When I get my own place I’ll have to see about getting one as well.
You didn’t mention what the Roobar debt is!
I want to know! =)
Did you exchange your aussie dollar into yen early? The days of 1 to 94 seem like a distant memory. 1 to 59 *facepalm*.
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pp: If I didn’t buy that much otaku goods, I would’ve been living the high life by going fine dining EVERY night.
Rin: $8000 isn’t all that much to me. I would’ve had more if I was getting the salary package I’m getting now but that’s life. Don’t expect any figure shoots anytime soon, still busy with other things.
Punynari: I have the exact same display case as him. It’s a really good one and not some crap one like the Ikea Detolf case.
evilaznchris: The Roobar debt has no value. It will always be there.
hiero_yo: I exchanged about $1000AUD before I left the country. So i had a pretty good rate of $1AUD = ¥98.
Gosh you really need to do some major cleaning. My mum gave me a major scolding before when I left my stuff like that in Perth.
Anjerasu’s last blog post..Anjerasu Meishi
Man, this shipping costs are -very- scary…thanks for that, Adun, and for the graphs.
Definitely have to budget if going to Japan…and yeah, I’d say 80-170 a day for travel expenses is around normal/low-end for a few other places too.
@Anjerasu: Pahhh that’s why I wanna move out! XD
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hehe I spent less than half from your total
quite alot tho, since my shopping list was only NTSC-J X360 
ron~’s last blog post..1/7 Yagami Hayate ~ Alter
Wow…you really didn’t hold back on your spending when it came to merchandise!
Sheesh, I could travel comfortably in Japan for a good three months on that kind of budget and still have money for anime goodies. =P
Well, as long as you had a good time it doesn’t matter.
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that’s not bad for only 6 months of saving, it’d probably take me a lot longer to save that much up, i’m weak when it comes to saving.
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Anjerasu: That picture of the bedroom isn’t mine but my friend’s Roobar.
jenn: If you work out even a rough budget you’ll be fine when you goto Japan.
0rion: Oh I could budget for 3 months as well if I could. Of course I wouldn’t have as much merchandise as I do.
Persocom-san: It was quite difficult I must say as I still have everyday things to take care of as well as bills. The trick is to cut back on a few things and you’ll get there.
For the people trying to budget off this, please keep in mind the figures included within this post do not include costs for getting there or hotel fees. You will need to factor in air fares and ~8000-9000 yen a day for a decent hotel.
Oh wow, this is some nice work. Very helpful indeed.
If I were you, I would’ve spent at least 300,000 yen during day 3. And for the rest of the trip I would live on cold stale bread while admiring all the garage kits I bought.
Johnson Huang’s last blog post..Finals Week (FMGT 1st Term)
Oh my crazy spending but then you were there for a month so I can say your spending is expected from otaku’s point of view. Not to mention, you were saving up for 6 months for this trip so your $$$ are very well spent lol.
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Oh wow, that’s a lot. Looks like your friend bought more figures. I really need to start saving money but it’s hard to do when you don’t have a job yet. T_T
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WOAH!!
Wow, that’s A LOT there.
$8000, no kidding..
But I know that it’s worth every cent.
Now that’s how much a person should spend on a Japan trip. ^_^
Better start saving money now then. >_<
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Oh wow very nice statistics indeed. I think this would be very useful for planning my trip next year. Thanks
Nice!
I spent a total of about $10,000AU (at the time 100,000 yen) when I went to Japan for a month in December 07.
But that amount included what I spent on accommodation, food and so on. But I know a huge proportion was spent on buying preowned figures, doujinshi, electronics and so on. But yeah, it sounds a lot like what you did.
I recall mailing back 2 boxes about 40kg worth of manga and novels (from book off), about 6-7 boxes full of figures, about 3 voice alarm clocks, two bags full of garage kits from WHF and one box of C73 doujinshi. I also got a 60GB Japanese PS3 when they still had them in stock (lucky!).
I also have a bunch of pics too, but haven’t uploaded them to a blog or anything.
I should upload some pictures one day but my blog is currently only written in Japanese.
I think I spent my entire years savings in that trip. It was a great experience. Although I ran out of money by the end :D.
Any Aussies here that want to be friends feel free to contact me.
I can’t seem to find any other hardcore Aussie otakus.
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OUCH $8000 lol thats more than half of what my mom make in a year OUCH