How much per month to live in TOKYO?
 

Is Tokyo as expensive as I hear it is. I would love to visit sometime. :o

Since I don't live in your brain, How expensive do you hear it is?

Well actually, I would like to know which is why I'm asking. I just hear its "EXPENSIVE".

Compared with Holland, where I live, it's not really expensive. Everything is about the same or cheaper. Only coffee and alcohol are quite expensive, but the basic stuff, food, water, clothes, rent are decently priced imo.
It is expensive if you compare Japan with other Asian countries though, like China.

I see, lets say I visit for 2 months. Would $3000 us be enough?

2 months in a hotel and eating out? No, not at all.
Living in a one room apartment and eating cheap home cooked meals? You could pull it off, I`m sure. The thing is, unless you`re a student or have someone to look after your affairs, the chance of arranging that is pretty low.

I was looking at apartments in tokyo and they didn't seem that expensive. My idea of expensive is not being able to find things below 2500 in a nice area. I was hearing things like "tokyo is the most expensive place to live in the world" but compared to new york city. At lesat in apartment prices they had a range from high to low in seemingly decent areas. Versus nyc where you can have really nice places for 5-17,000 a month, but, in a less desireble location you can get things for like 1300-1500 (i'm speaking strictly about Manhattan here).

I think that there are a lot of underlying costs which you simply don`t see when looking at the price of rent alone. For the same level of lifestyle as most other places, you`d have to dish out a whole lot more. But if you just want to look at the cheapest you could get by on, while discounting what that entails - then you will be able to find things for cheaper.

You also need to keep in mind that searching "Tokyo" is not necessarily going to only give you the prices in Tokyo city (the 23 wards that make up what people think of as Tokyo), but also in the whole Tokyo area (Sort of like if I were to search for "New York" without specifying city, I`m sure I could find something dirt cheap somewhere in New York state far from the city.) Tokyo is the name of the area, and Tokyo city is just part of it. There are other cities in Tokyo (26 others!), which are going to be cheaper than inside Tokyo city itself.

I don't think that's enough. Maybe if you live on a tight budget, but I recommend to take enough money with you to "experience" Tokyo, go to musea, have some nice meals, go to an onsen, go out a couple of nights, etc.

Well that is around 275,000Yen. When I spent a month in Tokyo it cost me probably around 150,000-200,000Yen taking into account rent / food / transport / "extras", that is not including flights though. If your feet were your main carriage and you lived in the cheapest place you could find, never ate out for lunch or dinner. Then you MIGHT just be able to get by, but I wouldn't recommend it.

With that cash go for 1 month and have a much more action-packed and enjoyable time than living on the breadline for 2.

You could live for two months on $3k if you were staying at a gaijin-house type dormitory, and there are plenty of such places located around the city.

Prices vary dramatically in the city depending on location. You can rent a 3 or 4 house in Nerima-ku for 150k yen, but that much won't even get you a studio in Chuo-ku. Outside the city the rents get even cheaper; my 3 room house in Chiba is only 60k yen per month, whereas my GF's 3 room apartment in Shinkawa cost more than 5 times that much.

There are apartment buildings in Roppongi Hills which rent large apartments for 3 million yen per month ($30,000). A penthouse apartment will cost quite a bit more than that.

They have boards that have studios for rent all over Tokyo.
The prices are reasonable as well.

The rent prices might seem reasonable, but you then have to figure in move-in costs. A couple months refundable deposit, and 1 to 3 months of "key money", which is not refundable. Your 90k yen studio could cost as much as 500k yen to move in. I had to pay the equivalent of 3 months rent in addition to my first month's rent, meaning that my move-in cost was about 250k yen. Not cheap.

$2,000 you can live on but with $3,000 you'll be a lot more comfortable.

The question I always ask...why move to a foreign country to live like a hobo?

Yes the deposits are really the biggest downside to renting in Japan.
I think it's just a little too much money up front.

and it's a damn good question !

It was something I definitely took to heart during my trip planning.

Maybe to experience something different? Maybe because it sounds challenging or adventurous?

If you want to experience a different country or culture, I'd imagine that you'd learn the most by living at their average living standards.

There isn't much to gain by learning how the poor scrape by in a foreign country.

Nobody, at least not me. Want to live like a hobo. Thats why I'm asking the question about price. I'm assuming $5,000 would be a bit more comfortable. In the end, I want a fun experience not a struggling one. :D

I don't think it's that expensive.. it's the fact that japan is too fast-paced that bugs me.

Yeah, $5000 sounds much more like it. On this last trip which was three weeks (I got home last weekend) I spent $2000 on airfare and accommodation alone and then another $1500 on food, drink, public transport, shopping and even managed a trip to Disneyland and Disneysea. So I spend $3500 in total for less that a month. If it wasn't for the fact that I have friends in Tokyo that I could spend time with I would have spent more but most of my socializing was done with friends who got me into clubs free or we just spent the evening talking crap over a glass of wine.

On my trip last year I spend about a $4500 because the airfares where higher and the hotel I stayed at was only like 15 min walk to Shinjuku.

Anyway, $2000 in my opinion is not nearly enough to have a good time in Tokyo for any amount of time longer than maybe a week or two. $5000 is good for a month to two months but you'll want to make sure you don't buy to much crap and opt for accommodation with a kitchen so you can at least have breakfast and the occasional dinner in your room rather than hitting a restaurant for every meal. Although AM PM and 7/11 (i 7 & holdings in Japan) do have some nice ready to eat stuff that can feed you for less that $5 a meal.