一ヶ月一万円生活
November 20, 2005
Another cool show that’s on TV often is the 一ヶ月一万円生活. It means living a month under 10,000 yen. This show pits two almost popular ‘celebrities’ against each other in a mega frugal competition.
They’re put into apartments beside each other and are given 10,000 yen in cash and nothing else. That’s roughly about $100. They must try to survive with this amount by cooking ultra cheap meals and thinking of ways to economize. They have to pay for electricity and gas as well!
This show gets a bit repetitive but it shows a lot of good ideas to save money if you’re an ultra cheapo. There’s some easy stuff like taking the lightbulb out of the fridge or cleaning the heating elements on the stove to make it more efficient. Some of the better cheapos find strange ways to save on utilities. One fellow took a ‘bath’ in the sink… for some reason.
The best part of the show is when people are cooking dinner. They can prepare a decent looking meal for under 100 yen. It’s amazing what some people can do when starting with ingredients like bread crust, some vegetables, and an egg, and a few slices of meat. I haven’t recreated any of their meals because I’m not a cheapass but it shows me that it’s highly possible to survive even in an expensive country like Japan on a super tight budget. Here are some of the recipes from the shows (in Japanese).
The show was last on on Thursdays at 7pm on channel 6 but I think it has moved to Sunday afternoons now.
November 21st, 2005 at 23:17
I often watch it,too. I was surprised at good cooking and ideas to save money every time. It meal seem to be be delicious. I try cooking with the recipes from the shows because I wanted to eat it when I watched the show.
November 22nd, 2005 at 06:05
Mayu, do they taste good? I always thought they would taste horrible. My favorites are Bobby and Hamaguchi – they make the strangest foods.
January 19th, 2006 at 17:56
I’ sorry, I didn’t read your reply. I thought I try to cook with the recipes but I did’ t… Bobby and Hamaguchi are very amusing.