Next few posts will about Japan.
HOWD IT HAPPENED.
One average day at work, during lunch break i was checking out Australia’s cheap website, (basically its a website which people post cheap stuff) as i was scrolling down, majority of the stuff posted is junk until i came across “JAL return tickets from Melbourne for $700”. First thing i did was contemplate, does this fit with my current budget? or should i YOLO? i YOLO’d. I sent my best mate a link and called him up, next thing you know it, we bought the tickets and started looking into what we should do, and where to stay.
PLAN.
Our trip plan was, Tokyo – Kyoto – Osaka – Mt Fuji – Tokyo. Except, i visited family after staying in Tokyo for a few days.
PREPARATION.
So how did i prepare for Japan? Well easy, I had a budget in place already, instead of diverting $520 a week to my savings, I started allocating it to a holiday instead! Paying for the ticket was probably the only thing i was not prepared for. My budget did not leave free money on the side, every fortnight i get paid, a portion of it goes to straight to the share market. My best mate paid for my ticket, and i just paid him back, which was all apart of the budget of coarse. If anyone has about 10 minutes free per week, and would like to plan out their finance, i highly recommend creating a budget and stick to it. Teaches discipline. As for myself, i semi stick to it.
Packing for Japan, pretty easy. I over packed, best method of packing is a combination of rolling my clothes or having them folded flat. My recommendations for traveling is wear your most comfy outfit before flying out! track pants, what ever, who cares what other people think about you, cause its unlikely you’ll see them again! Do yourself a favor and buy yourself a neck rest as well, it does wonders. I had also had all my tickets printed out, AirBnB guides printed out, it prevents time wasting in case shit happening. Rather than spending 10 minutes going through email and finding the Check-In instructions, we would just take out the guide and read.
EXTRA.
Here is a break down of budget for those who are interested:
I almost every week update/maintain my budget. Its on excel. Basically when i first moved up to Melbourne for my job, I’m living on my own. I made this budget to prepare for anything, and most importantly, save money.
So how does this work? first few weeks when i moved up, i would record my weekly spending for a fortnight before creating this budget.
Section A – Anything in column “B” has the End-of-year balance (till end of December) which reflects the accounts in column “A”, so “$2,883” is my estimate on my bank balance at the end of December. Column AA, AB, AC etc shows bank balance as end of that week. so in column AA, “$743.3” reflects my bank balance as of that week.
Section B – Income obviously indicates my fortnightly pay, other income is from other income such as dividends or reimbursements. Anything under that is allocations of my Income. Savings and Rainy Day, i allocate $520 to my savings ever paycheck and i also try to build up emergency money, which is named as Rainy Day.
Section C – Fixed expenses, a guesstimate how much i spend per week, to food, fixed bills, other expenses etc.
Section B and C is used to make up Column A. After using some addition and subtraction, this is how i came up with Column A, which reflects my End of Year Balance and also Weekly Balance of the each account.
Majority of week end (Sundays), I would update this budget, filling out my actual expenses. Fixed expenses never change, but my spending/food are always dynamic. One week i could be spending $60 on food, so i would change $70 to $60 etc. Updating the actual spent amount helps me estimate what my bank balance would be at the end of the year.
Anyways, thats it for the first post. Not sure what im going to write out for my next one.
Duy T Duong 