Souvenires 35%
Food 30%
Transportation 20%
School Supplies Maintenence 15%
This is a very rough graph but represents fairly solidly my expenses thusfar in Japan. A few things have been suprising.
Food
I've only eaten of campus about six times, but that adds up rather quickly. Additionally, trips the grocery store have pushed that pecentage up. If you know me, having my second highest expenditure being food shouldn't be that suprising.
Souvenirs
Souvenirs is a little higher that expected, but I did decide to buy a new external hardrive. Additional I've got most of the specific souvnirs that I wanted for myself, and a few for other people already. Otherwise I think souvenirs is set about right.
Transporation
Transportation was a lot higher than I expected. Granted that has the bus trip between airports included. But a round trip bus to the mall is three dollars, and a round trip to Akita City is 8 dollars. Additionally, on an early school trip to Managa Soko there was a mild fiasco with a taxi cab and a bus that turned out a lot higher than expected. Note: If you come to northern Japan, commuter travel is a lot more difficult.
Exchanging Money
It didn't make it onto the graph but exchanging money has been quite costly. Using the basis of 100 yen to a dollar, exchanging money has cost about $65. Granted the dollar is really weak right now, but I've been looking for a place to exchange money that charges a flat fee as opposed to a percentage of what you take out. I havn't found one yet, but it has still been a little frustrating to see that much money fly out the window for no real good reason.
Laundry
I don't know if it's a Japanese thing, or just an AIU thing, but laundry costs a dollar per machine. So a dollar to wash and a dollar to dry, per load of laundry. The machines aren't very big either, nor powerful. Jessi and I have been doing laundry cooperativly, but for our normal laundry load together it costs about 6 dollars. 3 dollars to wash three loads, 2 dollars to dry, 1 dollar to re dry one of the loads.
The dryers are actually pretty weak. We put the whites in one machine and the colors, jeans, and towels in the other machine, but it never gets dry. In fact after two cycles they're still a little damp. So for this month we've spent about 16 dollars. Two big loads, and one smaller one.
If it makes you feel any better, at CSUN it's like 75 cents for a wash and $1.25 for a dry. Needless to say, I take my laundry home these days.
ReplyDeleteAlso, awesome that your camera is working again. Beating things up is always the solution. That's how I got my broken iPod to last for 5 years.