Japan is Expensive!

Last year The Boy and I were afforded the opportunity to travel to Japan as part of our city’s Sister City organization. It was a wonderful experience, truly once in a lifetime, and even though we are in debt, I’m so glad we went. This year, The Daughter is going on the same trip.

The program is actually a home exchange program, 10 Japanese students travel to America for 9 days in March, and then our 10 kids travel to Japan in June. This past weekend we hosted a student from Japan. She was wonderful! I loved having her and it we made so many wonderful memories. But, they weren’t frugal memories.

Although they spend 5 nights at our house, we really only “get” them from Friday night to Monday morning. The Sister City Association calendars the rest of their time.

On Friday night we took her bowling and to In’n’Out. Cha-ching!

On Saturday, we took her to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Blaze Pizza. Cha-ching!

Sunday was more frugal and we spent the day at The Daughter’s dance competition and we only had to buy food that day. Food for 5 people… cha-ching!

We also bought her many souvenirs: several tee shirts, many different candies, a small-stuffed animal, and a couple gifts for her to bring home to her parents. Cha-ching!

She was beyond appreciative and gracious but it was a spendy weekend to say the least!

I don’t know how much debt we are going to pay off this month! I think we are going to come very close to breaking even on our credit card, which, in a way, is a win. We should be able to pay off everything we charged on the card, but we won’t make much headway on our debt.

In addition to treating our foreign exchange student, we are sending our daughter to Japan in a few months. We are fundraising for the trip but we pay all the fees upfront and then get reimbursed if we fundraise over our need. We also pay for airfare, spending money, and gifts for The Daughter to take when she goes to stay with her host family.

Her airfare was $1500 and we will send her with (at least) $250 of spending money. Since we found out she was accepted into the program to go to Japan, we have been buying gifts for her host family, so we are mostly done with that aspect of it.

It has been a wonderful experience for my children and I’m so grateful they have this opportunity, but it is expensive; both the hosting and the sending!