Savings and investing

You pay living costs out of the take-home pay you earn, and what's left becomes savings. Savings sit in deposits, stocks and other assets, and grow or shrink with prices and investment returns. All amounts in the game are in "today's money," excluding inflation.

How much real households save

In the Statistics Bureau of Japan's Family Income and Expenditure Survey, Savings and Liabilities (2025 average, households of two or more), average savings were ¥20.59 million and the median was ¥12.64 million. The average is pulled up by a few households with a lot, so the household in the middle has about ¥13 million.

Take-home pay, spending and surplus

In the same survey's Income and Expenditure section (2025), working households of two or more had take-home pay (disposable income) of ¥532,000 a month and consumption spending of ¥346,000 a month. The share of take-home pay spent (the average propensity to consume) was 65.0%, leaving a surplus of ¥186,000 a month (35.0%).

In the game, living costs in working years never fall below 65% of take-home pay. But if you simply added up the survey's surplus, you would end up with more than twice the actual savings balance. That's because part of the surplus is drawn down later for things like replacing cars and appliances, home down payments, help for children and parents, weddings and funerals. So in the game, part of the surplus does not stay as savings: 15% under age 40, 65% in your 40s when education costs pile up, and 55% from 50 on. For unmarried people, we add 20 points, since their living costs tend to take up a larger share. This brings savings close to the age figures in the table above (these shares are calibration values fitted to the statistics and have no source).

For single people, the Japan Financial Literacy and Education Corporation (J-FLEC) Survey of Household Finances (2024) shows that single-person households in their 60s hold average financial assets of ¥16.79 million and a median of ¥3.5 million (including the 27.7% with none). In the game, unmarried people at 65 have an average of about ¥14.7 million, a median of about ¥10.3 million, and about 25% have ¥0. The average is close, but the median still comes out high.

Four ways to hold your money

At 32, you choose how to hold your savings. If you don't choose, you hold about 20% in securities, about 20% in insurance and the rest in deposits, based on the breakdown of savings in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey.

The deposit rate is 0.45% for one-year time deposits and inflation is 1.8%, from the Japan Finance Corporation's Economic and Financial Data. Expected returns are 5% a year nominal for stocks (volatility 14%), 1.5% for bonds (volatility 4%) and 4% for real estate (volatility 10%, slightly correlated with stocks). Expected returns and volatility are assumptions without a source, set with long-term track records in mind. If you have ¥15 million or more in assets at 50, you get a chance to rethink your investments.

On the results screen chart, the net worth line is smoothed with a three-year average (including one year before and after) so that year-to-year investment swings don't make it hard to read.

Related: Work and wages / Retirement and pensions

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