How much would 2 people need to live in Japan comfortably for 3 months?

Question:

im in my first year of college and im going to get a part time job soon. i dont plan to go till probably summer the summer of 2013 cuz of unfortunate financial circumstances aka im super broooke...haha...okay, but the point is my best friend and i are going to go for as long as we can which is 3 months so could i get a rough estimation?

no im not being lazy im going to start looking through hotel prices and plain ticket prices and all that and yea i know its going to change between now and when i actually go, but having a fairly good estimate from people who probably know what theyre talking about would really help.

thanks ^^

the point of going is sightseeing and actually putting our years of sometimes selftaught language practice to use cuz we love japan! so we do wanna move around as much as possible and see as much of the country as people can in 3 months..

well go as many times as the amount of money we can scrape together allows heh.

Answer:

Samurai Japan is heading in the right direction but you might also want to add some other items he does not take into consideration. Specifically,

telecom costs: everyone has a cellphone and you will need one. Also Internet cost (might be included in the hotel bill)
clothes washing/cleaning: you will need to do some laundry at one point
transportation: between large cities (Tokyo to Kyoto) will set you back by about $300 per person round trip.
drinking/going out: I assume you intend to visit the occasional bar
sightseeing: entry tickets, etc.
basic personal needs: haircut, tampons, condoms, aspirin, the occasional soda

Some of the costs can be mitigated. For example, you could lower your hotel costs by finding furnished rooms for rent but the amount he stated for food is serioulsy low. Sure, there will be times where you can find places to eat for 500 Yen per person (e.g. Ramen) but assuming that you will eat on the cheap every single day is unreasonable. I'd say add a bit more!

Worse yet, the Yen keeps strengthening against the dollar and that 110 Yen coke that was worth about $1 a couple of years ago now costs $1.40

and you have not included the price of the air ticket in your analysis

What would I do? work out how much you can save first, decide what places you want to see and THEN decide on the amount of time you want to stay. If your heart is set on 3 months, I'd say aim for 5 thousand per person per month or 30 thousand dollars (yes, a big ouch)