Welcome About Teachers Courses Rates Homestays Other Languages Employment Opportunities FAQ Contact Us Links Blog 日本語

While the cost of living in Japan is higher than in a lot of countries, there are lots of discounts available to those in the know. Here are a few that don’t require much in the way of language skills. If you know of a good deal that we should add to the list, drop us an email with a short explanation and we’ll include it.

  1. If you shop for groceries at any of the local chains, you should sign up for their discount card. These are usually either free or for a nominal fee, and can save you a lot of money.

    For example, the Fuji card costs ¥100 to get. After that you just present it to the cashier whenever you buy something. Fuji keeps track of your points — one for every hundred yen you spend — and when you have amassed 500 of them you get a ¥500 coupon to use the next time you shop. If you don’t buy a lot of groceries this may take a while, but it will still end up saving you money in the long run. Anyone who’s here for a year or longer should probably get a card, since you’re bound to receive at least five or six of the coupons during that time - even if you don’t eat much. Someone who shops for a family of four will get one of the coupons every month or so. Once you learn all the ins and outs of Fuji’s special “point days”, you can amass points quite quickly. These specials, in addition to offering large discounts, also let you have as much as nine bonus points if you have a card. Since one point is equal to one yen, this (plus your usual one point) means a ten percent discount on whatever you buy.

    After you’ve spent enough money you can become a “double point member” or even a “triple point member”, whereby you get two or three times the points you would normally receive per purchase. The point total gets reset each March, unfortunately, but even so for the initial hundred yen a Fuji card will repay you many times over. It’s basically free money.

    Other stores have similar programs. At Tenmaya, they have a machine that you can run your (free) card through every time you visit. It’s an instant five points, even if you don’t buy anything at all. Once you amass enough points, you can get a gift certificate for use anywhere within the store. Furthermore, you can get a Tenmaya card that is actually a credit card (also an option at Fuji), so you can collect points if you use it to purchase anything, not just stuff at their store.

    And these programs aren’t limited to grocery stores. The Wants chain also has a point-card you can get for free and amass points with. And every day that ends with a seven (i.e., the seventh, the seventeenth, the twenty-seventh) you get double points. On July 7th (7/7, get it?) you get quadruple points. Wants is really cheap for stuff like shampoo and so on, so if you have stuff to buy you can load up for the year on July 7th and get lots of points at the same time that you can use to get other stuff either for free or at a large discount.

  2. Your water bill. It’s a fact that people use a large percentage of their water flushing the toilet. With most Japanese toilets, you usually have two choices. Push the handle away from you and it will flush normally. Pull the handle toward you, however, and you get a sort of “mini-flush”, good for getting rid of the odd cockroach or whatever. Using the mini-flush judiciously can add up to a lower water bill at the end of the month.

  3. Buses and streetcars. Most people have seen the bus cards in use. You can buy these from vending machines in ¥1,000, ¥3,000 and ¥5,000 denominations. But what a lot of people don’t know is that there are also “kaisuuken”, volume discount tickets that you can buy on the streetcars, and these are actually a little more cost-effective than the cards. They can only be used on streetcars, however, not buses or trains.

  4. If you’re here more than a year, check with your cell phone provider to see what sort of new programs they have to offer. (This one will require some Japanese.) The phone wars are constantly being fought, and often there are new programs that you can sign up for that are more cost-effective than your old one. It’s up to you, however, to seek them out. Another strategy is to change providers. Moving from one company to another can often net you a free month or two of usage.

  5. Traveling. It goes without saying that this is a country designed around groups of people. Accordingly, if you plan on going someplace (domestically or abroad) it can pay off to check with a travel agency and see what they have in the way of group tours and so on. While this can require more in the way of language skills than signing up for a card at Fuji, the larger offices of JTB and the like usually employ staff who can speak enough English to set things up. It’s worthwhile to at least go in and check out the various fliers, as you can often save as much as 50% on popular destinations.

  6. Like to work out? There are a lot more choices in Hiroshima nowadays than there were ten years ago. The Green Arena sports center is well-known, being located behind the baseball stadium near the Peace Park. It costs ¥600 to use the gym or the pool, but if you go there a lot you should buy a card instead of paying cash each time. Doing this gives you one workout free per card. So you pay for ten, but your card goes up to eleven.

    It also pays to shop around when selecting a gym. The more well-known ones such as Alfee at Hiroshima Station and Oasis up in the Crystal Plaza building are quite expensive when compared to the smaller local gyms. At Champ’s Gym in Hijiyama, for example, a regular membership is only ¥6,000 per month for men, ¥5,000 for women. If you pay for three months at a time, you get an additional ¥1,000 per month off, bringing the price down to about half of what it costs at Alfee. Of course, Champ’s is smaller and geared almost exclusively towards weight-training, but if that’s what you’re into then it’s a much better option.

  7. Discount days. They’re not just limited to Wants (see above). Movie theaters have all kinds of discount days, and most of them are standardized for every theater in Japan. Wednesdays are Ladies’ Day: ¥1,000 admission for all women. The first of the month is special, when everyone gets in for ¥1,200. Late shows on most nights (usually the showing starting around 9:00 PM) are also discounted to ¥1,200. Still expensive, but a heck of a lot better than the ¥1,800 you would pay for full charge. Likewise, lots of video stores have discount days as well. Check with yours and see.

  8. Hot Pepper and other similar magazines. These are available at convenience stores and magazine racks set out in front of many different stores. Hot Pepper is basically a magazine full of discount coupons. It’s free, and even though it’s completely in Japanese there are lots of pictures that will help you figure it out if you can’t read the language yet. Restaurants, beauty salons, travel agencies and lots of other businesses advertise here. No matter what you’re interested in, it’s worth picking up a copy of this monthly magazine and taking a look through it.

  9. Helpful kanji. I know, I know, this is supposed to be for people who can’t read Japanese, but stop whining. A few kanji won’t hurt you and being able to recognize them might help you to spot some sales. So here they are:

    安い This is the basic one to know. Pronounced “yasui”, it means “cheap”.

    激安 Gekiyasu. Really cheap.

    半額 Hangaku. Half-price!

    割引 Waribiki. This is a percentage discount. The first character means “percentage”, and the second means “subtract”. One “wari” is equal to 10%, so ２割引 would mean a discount of 20%. This one is very common in grocery stores, especially as closing time approaches. But be careful to check the expiration dates on any food item that has a waribiki sticker on it!