Japanese Economy
Okozukai (お小遣い(おこづかい)) is the word for "pocket money". Thought it would be interesting to see roughly how much pocket money is being allocated by the average Japanese house wife.
A research being carried out by GE Money since 1979 on how much pocket money the salaryman receives per month reveals the following.
Salarymen in their twenties get 56,100 yen, the thirties get 45,500 yen, forties get 42,100 yen while the fifties get 51,300 yen.
So what are they spending their pocket money on? 55.6% of salarymen spend their money on food, 35.8% on hobby stuff (must be gundams, figures and eroge), 29.6% on drinking out with the lads, 27.6% on drugs (smoking, coffee ^^;), 25.8％ on magazines (ero mags and megami I guess).
While my wife does manage the money (she manages the accounting for the company too), I dont have a limit on my spending which is nice ^^; Another reason why she manages the money is because much of the figures and mags I buy are required by business and get expensed accordingly. Read this post on how you should be expensing your stuff.
As a student at university, I didnt get pocket money and earned it by working after class at a Japanese restaurant in Chelsea London - you can read about that in this post.
BTW, the 2,000 yen note has been out for years and is accepted at all establishments but it only lands in my wallet only once every few years. They must have printed a really small batch of these.
