Here’s how much it costs to live in Japan.
One of the reasons I came here was purely economical: things in Japan are just plain designed so one person living on their own can live more cheaply and efficiently. This means that for most people, compared to living in the States the same amount of salary will cover more necessities and leave you with more money to save and spend how you want (!!!).
To demonstrate, here’s a rundown of how much I make and how much I’ve been spending living alone in Japan versus living alone in the States. Obviously this is just intended for reference, since everyone moving to Japan, whether you’re working for JET or for a private company, is going to have a different situation.
So, let’s do some numbers…
Salary
Office Day Job in the States: $2,325.00/month after taxes, plus $1,000 yearly bonus and holiday overtime
JET Program First-Year Teacher’s Salary: ¥253,500/month ($2,535/month) after taxes
Winner: Japan
First things first: as an American teaching with the JET program, a handy-dandy tax agreement between Japan and the States means I don’t have to pay national income taxes for my first two years here—and the same holds true for JET teachers from China, Ireland, South Korea, Germany, the Philippines, and France. (Everyone, however, has to pay the nasty Japanese local inhabitant tax, though that won’t really kick in until next year when I’ll have gotten a raise anyway!)
Tax stuff aside, what I really want to point out is that the amount of money I made at my old job and the amount of money I make as a JET is so close that it’s barely even worth posting about. The big news (as you’ll see) is that in Japan I’ll definitely be walking away with way more money at the end of every month.
With that in mind, chew on this: is the prestige of a fat weekly paycheck REALLY worthwhile if you’re shelling out a ton of money for super-high rent, expensive cars, commuting costs, a lot of taxes, and a lifestyle that otherwise makes you spend more than you would otherwise? Doesn’t it make more financial sense to consider your end result over how many K’s worth of salary you can brag about?
Of course, I DEFINITELY don’t advocate moving to a new country or starting any other kind of new life solely for economic reasons—in my case, I also wanted to get back into teaching, live abroad again, and get away from my crooked former boss, so my incentives were pretty varied.
Also, for the purposes of this post I’ll be using the conversion rate ¥100 JPY = $1.00 USD because the exchange rate’s fluctuated around that for the past decade or so—plus, it means a lot less math for me. (As of this writing, though, the conversion rate’s more like ¥100 JPY = $0.88, thus making my current salary worth more like $2,200 per month. Here’s hoping the rate goes back up!).
My apartment living room and bedroom. (The closed door on the right leads to a really big closet.)
Rent
1-Bedroom Apartment in New Hampshire: $725/month
1-Bedroom City-Subsidized Apartment in Toyama: ¥11,000/month ($110/month)
Winner: Japan
Rent is hands-down the biggest reason my setup in Japan costs me a lot less—my current apartment is over six hundred bucks a month cheaper than my last one! In this respect I definitely lucked out—rent costs vary a LOT in Japan, and even within the JET program, since some city organizations (like mine!) subsidize their foreign teachers’ rent to varying degrees while others don’t.
To site a few different examples: at JET orientation I met some new teachers who were headed to Tokyo and had to find their own apartments at a cost of around ¥100,000 ($1,000) per month—ten times more than what I pay! The private conversation school in Yamanashi where I worked a few years ago subsidized my rent so that I only paid ¥52,500 ($525) per month, and several other JETs I talked to around Toyama are paying between ¥20,000 and ¥30,000 ($200-300). So yeah, rent costs can be all over the place.
Size-wise, my place has two rooms with Japanese-style tatami mat floors, two big closets for storage, a small kitchen with appliances and cabinets, a bathroom with a separate shower room, and a balcony. This is really all I need, and not only is the smaller size easier to clean, it also requires less furniture to make it feel livable, which means less junk to worry about!
Health Insurance
Bronze Health Care Plan Partially Subsidized Through the Affordable Care Act in New Hampshire: $256/month
Japanese Employees’ Health Insurance: ¥13,700/month ($137/month)
Winner: Japan
This is another big one—whereas back home my old boss took full advantage of American laws stating that businesses under 50 employees don’t have to offer health insurance, every employee in Japan pays into a health insurance system that’s been around in some form since before World War II. Not only is the Japanese system more affordable than health care back home, it also saves all the hassle of choosing a plan, dealing with insurance companies, and switching plans if you move or change jobs—an especially big deal for someone like me who moved a lot and had four different insurance providers in three years!
Going to the doctor in Japan was also pretty easy, language barriers aside. At my last teaching job in Yamanashi I got sick with a really bad cough and a coworker brought me to the city hospital to see a specialist, get a chest x-ray, and pick up some medicine. We didn’t even have to make an appointment—and when it was over I showed the receptionist my health insurance card and paid my portion of the bill, which was some unrounded number under ¥3,000 ($30).
Sometimes, seeing another country’s system gives you a new perspective on how we do things back home ;-)
My new bike…and it actually fits me!
Transportation
Back Home
Car Registration (NH): $200/year
Insurance (NH): $518/year
Maintenance on my ’99 Volvo: $800 ~$1,200/year
Gas: $70 ~ $100/month ($800 ~ $1,200 year)
Other Bus and Train Tickets: $100 ~ $200/year
Total: $2,400 ~ $3,300/year
Japan
New Bike: ¥45,000 ($450)
Accessories for New Bike (Pump, Light, Crossbar): ¥12,000 ($120)
Flat Tire Fixes & Other Repairs: ¥5,000 ~ ¥10,000/year ($50 ~ $100/year)
City Bus Fare: ¥200/week, ¥8,000/year ($2/week, $80/year)
Gas Money for Friends: ¥10,000 ~ ¥20,000/year ($100 ~ 200/year)
Other Bus & Train Tickets: ¥200,000 ~ ¥300,000/year ($2,000 ~ $3,000/year)
Total: ¥280,000 ~ ¥395,000/year ($2,800 ~ $3,950/year)
Winner: This one’s complicated…
I did a LOT of estimating to get these numbers—and the biggest uncertainty (and highest cost!) on the Japan side involves travel outside my city. Basically, I plan on taking a bunch of trips this year but I’m not sure how many…or how much they’ll add up to. The shinkansen (bullet train) line runs from Toyama to Tokyo and takes just over two hours at a round-trip cost of about ¥26,000 ($260), though there’s plenty of other express trains, local trains, and buses I could take for cheaper depending on my schedule, my mood, and my bank account status ;-)
The biggest point I want to make, though, is that owning a car and paying for insurance, registration, and repairs back home was a BIG drain on my finances, and that’s with a car that I owned outright and wasn’t making payments on! In contrast, the base costs of getting around my city by bike, bus, and local trains is WAY cheaper, and anything beyond that is just me taking cool trips that I consider expendable income. There’s also something incredibly liberating about not having to drive or worry about car repairs anymore, especially when I can relax and pull out a good book on the train.
As far as basic transportation goes, during the week I work in five different elementary schools, a different one every day. Two are within easy walking distance, one’s farther up in the mountains and requires my taking a city bus, and the other two are in-between and require me to get there by bike.
My salmon-colored mamachari.
Most people in Japan get around using these cheap, solid metal bikes called mamacharis—a Japanified version of the phrase “Mother’s chariot,” so-called because so many moms and grandmas use these bikes to carry groceries, heavy bags, and even babies! My predecessor left me this salmon-colored one, and while it was a HUGE boost to have a bike right out of the gate, I ran into problems with a flat tire and some loose brakes after only a month of riding (hence the repair costs above…).
The bigger problem, though, was that I’m a tall guy (6’3″) and my predecessor was…not so tall, so that even with the salmon mamachari’s seat raised all the way up, pedaling any farther than a mile was leaving me an exhausted, sweaty mess. Not the best way to start the workday…
Buying the new bike made sense from a comfort standpoint, since I’ll be making these bike commutes twice a week for at least a year, in addition to other places I might want to go. It also felt financially sound, since I’m saving so much money here by not having a car. The new bike is about a million times more comfortable to ride and I can go twice as far while getting half as tired, and not paying for gas every week is also pretty awesome :-)
Yeah, I’m confused too.
One day a week I also take the city buses, which cost ¥100 ($1) to go anywhere on the line. This feels astoundingly cheap since some of the routes go all the way across town, and every week I ride with a bunch of old people coming down from the mountains into town. The ride takes about 18 minutes, which is pretty comparable to the time it would take to drive—and it’s even quicker in the morning since I’m the only one headed into the mountains at 9am ;-)
The bus schedules are all in kanji, so figuring out where I needed to get on and off required a lot of map-checking and asking around to make sure I understood the route, though now that I know more of the kanji for places around the city I feel way more comfortable traveling on each route—all without having to pay for gas or registering a car.
Stay Tuned For More…
This list ran so ridiculously long that I decided to break it in two—watch for more insights into Japanese cooking, WiFi, and even laundry next week!
(And if you don’t want to miss my other updates, don’t forget to keep in touch!)
But I Also Have a Day Job on Facebook
Occasional Email Update List (with cool bonuses!)