Most people can tell you what the “old” Three Rs stand for: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Lately, however, I’ve been thinking that ‘new’ 3Rs are equally worthy of our attention: reduce, reuse, and recycle. While this mantra might seem a little faded some 30 years af [ ... ]
No, I’m not channelling ‘Oliver,’ nor about to break into spontaneous song and dance – I’m just excited to share a few frugal grocery shopping tips with my loyal readers. Grocery, or food shopping, is one area where everyone, I think, can learn to save a little money. O [ ... ]
Summer in Japan always makes me nostalgic for .. summers of Japan past? Not really, but it was a shock when I realized a few weeks ago that it had been precisely 10 years since I first set foot in the land of the Rising Yen. As an impressionable university student, I had zero financial [...] [ ... ]
With a public debt equivalent to roughly 150% of GDP, there’s no question that the Japanese government is borrowing (and spending) itself into the ground. While the majority of the money appears to go to publicly financed road projects used mostly by deer and monkeys, the Japanese government i [ ... ]
One of the funnest parts of living in any large Japanese city, or Japan for that matter, is experiencing the multitude of restaurants available. With the exception of deep rural Japan, most Japanese cities offer an abundance of dining options. The tricky parts are, of course, finding these restauran [ ... ]
Food is expensive in Japan. For most people the grocery bill makes up a large portion of their weekly expenditure. One way to reduce this outlay is to buy in bulk when items are on special. With the limited space in many Japanese refrigerators though, buying easily spoiled items in bulk can take a l [ ... ]
Last week, I asked Frugal Japan readers of the male persuasion to offer up some advice that would be useful to the men among us (to counteract all the stuff that I usually write about). While the response for manly frugal advice has yet to bring in a tidal wave of information, I was happy [...] [ ... ]
Having just about entirely exhausted the frugal grocery options in my local area (and on-line), I thought I’d tell you about a new type of discount grocery store: the “gyomu suupaa,” or wholesale supermarket. A wholesale supermarket is simply a supermarket that stocks its shelves [ ... ]
ShopInPrivate.com is a unique website that delivers certain necessary (and sometimes embarrassing) personal goods that cannot be purchased in Japan. This is the only site I have found that will ship certain personal care products to Japan. Check out the website for a full range of products, but here [ ... ]
Have you taken the time to look at your shoes lately? For the frugal foreigner in Japan, shoes can be a huge headache — from the lack of sizes available and high import taxes on leather, to the wear and tear Tokyo streets take on your feet. What’s a Frugalite to do? The first problem is [ ... ]