WARNING – BORING INFORMATION AHEAD – Just before we hit Friday and another J-Babe Of The Week i thought i’d tell you about my 30% payrise … will kind of.
The economy is up the shitter at the moment and the Australian dollar is taking a beating, luckily for me i have financial interests on both side of the equator and it times like these that it makes it really easy to fix up the bills and put some money away back home.
In the last 2 months there’s been a good 30% shift in the value of the Australian Dollar versus the Japanese Yen, so if you’re in the same boat as me, cross your fingers we can benefit from this for a few months at least.
This sort of a shift in exchange rates can make for a massive difference come pay day, and as always, it’s better in my pocket than theirs. Here’s how the AU has looked against the Yen for 2008 … it’s gone further down today and is sitting at 66 cents. When it comes to the Cost Of Living In Japan this sort of a fluctuation makes it very beneficial come pay day when i send a few bucks back to Australia to cover credit cards and investments.
For more historical information on all global currencies and how they compare against each other you can visit the Reserve bank of Australia website, it’s actually quite interesting if you’re into maximising your finances.
OK, enough of the sensible stuff, sorry to have bored you, back to normal Friday.
Update: 23rd November, conversion still sitting at AU$ costing 65 yen which is great for me. Reading the papers it looks like this could last for 18 months and we haven’t seen the lowest levels yet.
Update: As of the close of business on Friday the 25th the Yen was the best it’s been in many years against the Australian dollar.
It costs only 58.55 yen to buy 1 Australian dollar, this is seriously life changing stuff when it comes to funding investments back home while earning the yen, happy days indeed.
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so how are you going to celebrate your 30% payrise?
I’m getting sensible these days Ken, I’ll save it while I can buy AU cheaply.
I envy you! My income is nearly all U.S dollars, so if nothing changes before the end of the month, I get a 10% pay cut. Not only that, my savings in the U.K are plummeting in value against the yen.
As long as I don’t draw on my savings from Australia Im not recognizing any loss. It is expensive to pull it out and use here at the moment, I only do so when it’s close to or over 100.
You earn yen for your salary, then you buy cheap AU money with it at the cheaper price today? If the price of AU money rises, then you win right?
In short, you only win if you do the change now, then over time it goes back to a natural equilibrium. correct?
I don’t make a point of buying AU, but each month i send back X money to Australia, that X money costs me considerably less in Yen at the moment … or the same X amount in Yen ends up buying me a whole lot more AU. Anything less than $1 costing 100 yen is a win, when i moved here i did the maths on what money i needed to earn to be in front of my position when in Australia based on those numbers. History has shown it will go back closer to 100 … but for every payday that it’s considerably lower than 100 it’s a massive win for me. Your right about the equilibrium though …. It does return to the normal, which is fine and it’s what i expect and what i’ve budgeted for.
Win – win. You buying more australian dollars will lead to more demand for aus dollars, thus bringing it naturally up to equilibrium. In a way, you are causing the rise yourself. and then when you dont buy aus dollars, the value drops – awww economics at work.
but what I dont get is that you live in japan – so gaining profit on aus dollars is only good once you go back to aus. also inflation devalues your profit.
anyhow – this post just shows that on the surface of things, it would be smart to do what you are doing and buy buy buy!
i just called lloyds tsb to maybe buy some canadian dollars.
“so gaining profit on aus dollars is only good once you go back to aus” – Gaining profit on Aussie dollars is good for whenever you need to pay for something in that currency …
I have been buying gold for the last 8 years and have been doing awesome “overall”. It was around U.S. 250 when I started and it goes between 800-900 currently.
I think Gold will get very strong as investors look for safety.
My opinion.
It’s all fine and dandy for you guys..but all my money is in $AU and i have pre-orders coming up T_T..everything since i pre-ordered went up 30%…
The Australian dollar has been VERY lucky of late, getting as high as it has …. just remember the good times where it was almost 1:1 with the USD …. for the majority of my life it’s always been closer to 65 cents. I have no doubt it will get back up there again, just a matter of when.
I just hope it stays exactly where it is for a couple of pay cycles…. and I hope the bank moves the price down somewhere close to the official rates…but I expect they will screw us..
Hey I don’t really have anywhere to ask this and this place looks like a good spot to ask the question as you fellas look like you know your stuff..
I often travel to Japan to stay with my inlaws caus the mrs is Japanese.. Money wasn’t really a problem just using an international bank account and no big loss in exchanging from aus$ to yen..
I have a 1 month training, living trip in February next month to Kobe and ALL my money is in Aus$..
So with this huuuge drop I am going to loose thousands of dollars if i just change it all..
The only options I know of doing woud be
1. Go to Japan with no cash and borrow all the money we need from the in-Laws to use in Japan while we are there.. Then come home to Aus and pay them back when the dollar rises stronger again.. hopefully around 1:1
2. Just change it all and loose shitloads of cash then use what we use and when we come back buy back aus dollar (it probably wont be much buying back caus we will have little money left so we wont gain and we will still loose alot.) This is the worst option I dont want to do.. Borrowing from inlaws wont be a problem i dont think.
And thats about all i know of doing.. What should I do!?? Feedback will be highly appreciated from anyone!!
And if I do option 2 how long is it predicted that the aus $ will get stronger again? we obviously dont wunnu wait years and years to pay them back.
Thanks
-Billy
I’m no expert Billy …. but i definitely wouldn’t change anything until i had too … i.e wait till you get here and if that’s the exchange rate then that’s what it is. History tells me it will be a while before the dollar is back to 1:1 … check out the RBA website for that info. http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/HistoricalExchangeRates/index.html
I guess it depends on what sort of cash you think you’ll need when you’re here as to whether you can borrow from family and pay back in a timely fashion.
Vague answer mate, sorry … but not area of expertise!
Cheers for the feedback atleast mate!
You got a good blog here!
Does anyone know how you can borrow Japanese yen as a loan to buy property in Australia? I live in Australia.
Thanks
You need to be living here to borrow Yen as far as i can tell. If you’re earning AU it will cost you a fortune to pay the loan back in Yen. It works for me if i buy in AU and pay it off in Yen. It’s possible to refinance an Australian mortgage in Yen and pay it off like that.