Which currency should I use in Japan?

June 30, 2015 10:23 PM

I am going to Japan soon, and will be there for a month. The answer is yen, obviously. But I have American and Australian dollars/bank accounts and can't figure out which one I should use.

In America, I have a Bank of America debit card, and I leave very soon and won't be back here for an indefinite length of time. I have the same amount of money in the bank in Australia, a debit card, and will be going back there after my trip. The Australian dollar isn't doing so well at the moment (1USD=1.30AUD=123JPY). Based on this question I think my best option for cash is to just use ATMs occasionally and eat the $5 withdrawal fee. Either account has enough money for my whole trip (hopefully).

But should I use my US or Australian dollars? US because I may as well use it because I won't be back here for a while? Australian due to something weird about exchange rates which I don't understand? Anything else I should be thinking of? Thanks!

posted by flora to Work & Money (4 answers total)

If you knew the future, I would say use the currency that is going to go down more (or go up less), but you don't. The current relative values don't really matter too much; your AUD are worth what they're worth, and your USD are worth what they're worth, and wherever you spend them, you'll get the advantage of the strong US dollar or the penalty of the weak AUD. But since you're going to be in Australia, maybe save your AUD for there; if you run out, you'd have to spend USD there, which presumably would have some kind of fee to exchange them.
posted by aubilenon at 11:08 PM on June 30, 2015

In general you're going to lose money on conversions, so I agree --- use your USD in Japan, and save the AUD for Australia. Otherwise you end up converting the AUD to JPY and the USD to AUD (it seems). Like aubilenon says, with hindsight you might be able to see "oh, I should have converted the AUD because the currency changes after that..." but right now you don't know the future (and if everyone did, it would essentially be priced in already).

As for ATMs, the easiest way to find an ATM that has both English menus and takes your American card is to find a 7-11, which is ubiquitous in Japan (much more so than America). The other place would be JP Bank / JP Post.
posted by thefoxgod at 12:55 PM on July 1, 2015

Over a short time like a month, it's unlikely that the difference will be that significant. The only thing I'd suggest is to estimate how much JPY you will need and exchange it in small increments as needed. The big loss you'll take (and even that is going to be small) is the unnecessary double-exchange where you get too much JPY and then have to exchange it back to USD or AUD later.
posted by ctmf at 1:35 PM on July 1, 2015

I lived in Japan for two summers, and using ATMs seemed to be the best way for me to get money from my US bank account. Japan is very cash-heavy, most everyday transactions won't accept plastic, much less foreign plastic. In order to maximize the bang for my buck for the $5 foreign withdrawal fee, I withdrew as much as my daily allowance would let me from my account. (This also sort of solves the problem of having to find those few ATMs that do accept foreign cards.) Carrying a huge amount of cash in Japan is no problem; the country is so safe that even carrying around 50,000 yen in my wallet in the leg of my cargo shorts didn't bother me at all.

As for exchange rates, short of a huge shakeup in the market that affects one currency but not the other, I don't think it would matter too much which currency you use. Since you don't seem likely to be going back to the USA, maybe using up as much money there as you can isn't a bad thing.
posted by the_wintry_mizzenmast at 3:51 AM on July 5, 2015