The supreme shopping secret

LIKE most Filipino expats arriving in Japan for the first time, you've probably experienced sticker price shock at the cost of the basic necessities (see last month's article.) Unfortunately this tight fisted reflex lasts only until your second paycheck, and then you find yourself loosening those purse strings. Worse yet, as the novelty of living in this strange new land wears off, homesickness and other imagined ills of the expats creep up on us. To offset this daily sacrifice, you develop the one great vice of living in Japan: impulsive consumption. Once bitten by the shopping bug, your only salvation will be to marry someone and surrender all control of your monthly wages to a Higher Power. The only vestiges of your past as an economic animal will be a measly allowance for that daily can of coffee during your afternoon break.

You're probably wondering if my wife has gone on vacation otherwise how could I have written this far. It helps that Benny, the former chief editor but still owner of this monthly paper, is a close friend of mine (and probably suffers the same marital fate.)

So you're not yet prepared to give up your single status, and consider yourself capable of adopting a more disciplined domestic fiscal policy without being yourself domesticated. Do you dread the prospect of belt tightening? Before you pack your bags and head home to the land of the devaluating peso, read the rest of this article to learn how to spend your yen and still have some left over to, well, spend another day.

Rule number one: know what IS cheap. Whenever my wife and I go on a weekend tour of our fave shopping places, we list down not only the items we want but also how much we're willing to pay for them. And what we're willing to pay is absolutely the cheapest price on the market. It's just like buying stocks: buy low and sell high. You've just got to know how low does it go. If it isn't priced at the lowest my wife and I know, then we move on to the next kill in our shopping safari. Ground chicken at 55 yen a hundred grams? Nah, it's been known to hit 35 yen per hundred grams. That stand fan for 2,480 yen? No way unless it's 1,980 yen.

"Honey, that was summer last year. Yesterday's chirashi had a stand fan at 1,680 yen."

Ah, the sweet voice of wisdom. Where were you, Hon?

"Shopping!"

I thought so.

Rule number two: read chirashi. These are the advertising inserts that come with the morning paper. Even if you don't read the Japanese rags, you'll recoup the monthly subscription (Yomiuri is the cheapest, but also has the trashiest articles) just from the savings in your monthly grocery bill. Our paper boy (who happens to be a guy past sixty) gave me a funny look when I insisted on chirashi with my morning copy of The Japan Times.

Chirashi put out by supermarkets tell you what's on sale what day of the week. Department stores' chirashi inform you not only of the latest fashion (in color too!), but if you make comparison shopping using the chirashi of different stores, you also save time.

Which brings us to rule number three: timing is everything. As you further your education through a daily reading diet of chirashi, you'll begin to notice a pattern, more specifically a seasonal pattern. Especially for clothes, the best buys are to be had a few weeks before the season ends. Most of you already know this. But did you know that not a few stores get stuck with unsold merchandise that has to be held until the same season comes around again a year later? Once the next opportunity comes, old stock is disposed of with a vengeance. If you don't have to be strictly fashionable, last year's fashions can be had at half to a third of the original price.

On a daily time scale, the nearer to closing time you shop for fresh foods, the more discounts you get. Going out late one afternoon to the supermarket for dinner ingredients, my wife came home almost past seven. I was half crazy with worry that she had met an accident or something. It turned out she had played a game of bluff with the guy in charge of the fish section. Making sure he was watching at the side she would pick up a package of fish and put it back as though changing her mind. The guy would then move in and slap a discount sticker on the package. Not satisfied, my wife would pick up the package again, put it down and then move a discrete distance away to hide perhaps among the soy sauce and mayonnaise aisle watching his next move. Sure enough, he would slap on another discount sticker. By then the fish would be half what my wife would have paid if she had shopped earlier. Back at home my wife shows me what another round of this game of bluff finally got her: 75% off the original price. Not bad, I told myself before I remembered dinner was gonna be more than an hour late!

Rule number four: shop around. Before I got hitched, I shopped for groceries at a posh department store. Ah, the good old days of my wanton consumerism. Mrs. Lee soon fixed that. From her network of amigas, she found out that meat was cheap at a small local supermarket that had grown from a butcher's shop. We also discovered that Daiei supermarket operated a discount grocery called Big-A. To cover our nakedness, we shop at the apparel discounter Sanki. There might not be a Big-A nor a Sanki in your locality, but I'm sure your local marketer has not forgotten how bargains draw in droves of shoppers.

My wife was at such a gathering of compulsive consumers drawn to Sanki by that morning's chirashi. Toddler shirts list priced at 500 yen would be up for grabs at 200 yen. How could my wife resist? She had alread paid for a few nifty shifts for our little daughter when our Japanese neighbor slithered up to the cash register beside her.

"Gooh moaning, Ree-san!" she greeted cherubically, ready for every chance to practice English.

"Ohio!" responded Mrs. Lee, just as ready for a free Japanese conversation lesson.

"Aah, kawaii! Is it for your Ojo-san?"

"Yeah sure, it's for Jasmine." Why can't this woman ever get it straight in her head that it's "Jasmine" and not some silly Ojo? "What do you think of this price? Yasui (the third word in my wife's dictionary) deshou?"

Vigorous nodding.

And then my wife notices the big plastic shopping bag the other woman is clutching. The bag is absolutely bursting with children's clothing, albeit a bit rumpled. "Ikura?" the first word in my wife's dictionary, followed by the second "Takai?"

Vigorous shaking of the head from side to side. The unmistakable smile of the victor parts and the coded words of the Supreme Shopping Secret flows seductively pass the lips of a native pro: "Second-hand bazaar (flea market in the local lingo) in a nearby park this morning."

Ikura?

"Ten yen each!"

Happy shopping!!!!*

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