If you want to avoid being weighed down by a bulging purse, get into the habit of using up coins whenever you transact in cash. Consider yourself a failure if you're carrying more than 1,000 yen in change, or 100 yen in brass.

If you feel awkward counting out coins in shops and restaurants, convenience stores are your friends. They often have cash registers that allow you to feed in fistfuls of coins - and when you hit "pay", they return change in as few coins as possible.