The Bare Necessities

That’s why a bear can rest at ease

Picture


I was talking to my wife the other day about our finances. They are looking good at the moment, but I am not expecting that to last. At some point we’ll have a stock market pullback or crash and our numbers will not look as good.

Quite apart from that though, we talked briefly about what we would need to have a basic but still happy life.

Our flat currently costs us about 50,000 yen (utilities, etc.). The mortgage is 30,000 yen on top of that.

If we weren’t working, a lot of our expenses would also disappear: things like cars, eating out, dry cleaning, etc.

I need internet and coffee. Once I have those two I am pretty happy. I also enjoy walking and reading, and there are a few libraries nearby I could use if I needed to cut down on my Amazon consumption (did you know you can look at everything you have ever ordered on there? I bought five books in 2001 apparently).

My wife enjoys growing things and swimming. The public pool costs 580 yen per session.

So basically we could have a pretty decent life with 200,000 yen a month or so. We’d cook all our meals at home, walk a lot, and spend time reading. We might even start inviting people over to eat again (hard to do when you work 6-7 evenings a week).

Given that I can find part-time work at 5,000+ yen per hour pretty easily, even with no other sources of income we could get by with me working about ten hours a week, or two hours a day on weekdays.

Fortunately we have a couple of decades of living expensese saved up though, so I probably won’t end up running around teaching private students…

This is the source of our financial progress. If you can set the baseline low and try to grow your income while not spending it all you can accumulate assets quickly.

As long as you can pay for the bare necessities, life is pretty much okay. The trick is figuring out what they are (and what they aren’t).

I’ve been trying to write a post with that song in it since I watched The Jungle Book with my granddaughter over a year ago. Here’s that scene on Youtube. And here are the lyrics: 

“Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
That’s why a bear can rest at ease
With just the bare necessities of life“

What are your bare necessities? Do you really need all of them?

14 Responses

  1. what kind of part-time work pays 5,000+ per hour? are you talking about editing English or teaching it?

    1. I don’t teach private English classes anymore, but when I did I charged 8,000 yen an hour.
      Teaching a group of children you could easily charge 12,000 yen an hour (8,000 yen per month, 6 children in a class).
      I would probably do that 2-3 days a week if I wasn’t doing other work.

    2. Stickman21 I share your pain regarding mortgage payments in Tokyo. But are you sure that you have the best deal available. I was able to cut 30,000 yen off our monthly mortgage repayments by remortgaging (with Sony bank, completely all online). Just a thought…

  3. As for the bare necessities, who was that woman who wrote a popular book here on clearing out your accumulated junk? A guide to throwing things away.

    1. Marie Kondo, The Magic of Cleaning Up. I read it a couple of years ago. She’s very odd, but it’s a good read and a good system.
      Might make a good blog post. Thanks for the inspiration!

  4. Just watched this song on Youtube, along with the entire Tarzan soundtrack. Memories~~~
    But yes, I agree with the importance of this post. I’ve saved up enough now to where things are in autopilot and I can handle most financial emergencies.
    Taking a step back to evaluate feels really good.

  5. Would be interesting to see a Japanese version of the ASFA retirement standard and budget:
    https://www.superannuation.asn.au/resources/retirement-standard
    I read in the Times recently that an annual pension of £40,000 would buy a luxurious retirement lifestyle in the UK. “People targeting this level of income would be able to buy a luxury car and replace it regularly. They could afford to go shopping for designer clothes, eat out regularly, including the occasional meal at a Michelin starred restaurant, and go on long-haul holidays and cruises”.

    1. I think it would be interesting, but ultimately not very useful. So much depends on your personal circumstances and goals.
      The best thing to do is to be aware of what you spend money on and project that forward into retirement.
      You can find some general projections online based on surveys etc.
      This one says a normal couple needs 270,000 yen a month in retirement: https://allabout.co.jp/gm/gc/43923/

  6. > Our flat currently costs us about 50,000 yen (utilities, etc.).
    Besides utilities what is included in the Y50,000?
    On average we spend roughly Y30,000 a month on gas, electricity and water, but we’re in a biggish house, not a condo. No mortgage payment (yay!). Our biggest monthly expense (by far) is for groceries.

    1. Manshon fees! (currently just over 20,000 yen a month and trending upwards), monthly property tax (annual/12), internet, etc.
      Our electricity bill is larger than usual because we use electric oil heaters in the winter.