Tokyo on Nothing
The first time I looked at Tokyo restaurant menus, I was convinced I’d come with the wrong amount of money. Everything looked expensive until I realized I was reading it wrong—or maybe I just needed to know where to look.
Austin at Tofugu had figured most of it out by living there long enough to notice patterns. Some of his tricks were specifically for people staying months—knowing electricity is cheaper during off-peak hours, joining supermarket loyalty programs that actually matter, ordering water online and cutting it with bulk tea. That’s the kind of thing you only discover by being somewhere long enough to get bored with the obvious moves.
But Tokyo rewards tourists too, if they pay attention. Around nine at night, supermarkets clearance prepared food at prices that make no sense. McDonald’s coupons are just sitting there in an app, waiting. And the weird one: Japanese food costs more in Tokyo supermarkets than imported stuff does. American beef, Philippine bananas—that’s where the actual savings are. The strange arbitrage of a global city.
What got me was that it’s not about generosity. Tokyo doesn’t care if you’re broke. It just works the way it works, and if you’re paying attention, there’s money in the margins. Plenty of it. The wealth is obvious, but so is the infrastructure for getting by without much.