世論 What Japan Thinks

The best way to save money before payday, or any other day of the month, is of course to read Nihon Hacks, but just in case you can’t get enough ideas from there, here is goo Ranking’s look at top ways to economise before payday.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of December 2007 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private online questionnaire. 45.6% of the sample was male, 8.8% were in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 10.7% in their fifties, and 9.0% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

For some reason, Google didn’t properly index last November’s story on tightfisted techniques, so hopefully this link will give Google a kick in the right direction! Actually, I don’t think I do any of the below – if I run out of cash I just use my credit card more…

Ranking results

Q: What do you do to economise before payday? (Sample size=1,094)

Rank	Method	Score
1	Don’t eat out	100
2	Spend days off around the house	78.9
3	Only buy cheap ingredients	63.7
4	Eat stockpiled food	59.6
5	Come straight back home	42.3
6	Buy half-price bread, side dishes, etc just before closing time at the supermarket	40.9
7	Choose the cheapest route when travelling	40.4
8	Use points saved up on point card	36.6
9	Live off instant ramen	35.6
10	Cook for myself	34.2
11	Bring my own tea to work, etc	31.1
12	Use coupons, discount tokens	29.0
13	Go to bed early	26.1
14	Don’t use taxis	25.9
15	Make my own bento lunch box	25.2
16	Don’t drink	24.2
17	Don’t snack	23.8
18	Buy foodstuff at a 100 yen shop	23.3
19	Don’t use toll roads	13.8
20	Spend days off at library, other free public facilities	11.9