Job Discussion Forums

stacyrb · Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 8

Good Evening!

My husband and I are looking to move to Japan, most likely to teach English for 2+ years. We will both have Bachelor's degrees, his in East Asian Studies / International Business Management and mine in Accounting. We both are in our early 30's with good work histories.

The problem we seem to be running into is that we also have 2 children (3 and 1) that come along part and parcel. We can handle living in the small space, but we can't handle living on one income.

Is it possible, or does anyone have any experience, for a couple to teach in relatively close proximity. Also, exactly how hard is it to find daycare/preschool in Japan?

Any information would be helpful.

Stacy

Quibby84 · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 643 Location: Japan

(SORRY IT IS ALL CAPS, THE COMPUTER AT SCHOOL IS SCREWY AND I CANT GET IT TO CHANGE..UGH)

ALTHOUGH I DONT HAVE ANY DIRECT EXPERIENCE WITH THIS, I KNOW A FEW PEOPLE WHO DO. IN ONE OF THE COUPLES, THE DAD IS THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKED, AND IN THE OTHER COUPLE THEY BOTH WORKED. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE AND YOU THOUGH IS THAT THE WIFE WAS JAPANESE.
I THINK THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WOULD BE FINDING A GOOD SCHOOL TO WORK AT. IT SEEMS THAT MOST COMPANIES DO NOT CARE WHETHER OR NOT YOU NEED TO BE HOME AT A CERTAIN TIME. YOU MAY BE OK IF YOU DID ALT WORK BUT WITH AN EIKAWA I DOUBT YOU COULD FIND A DAYCARE THAT WOULD TAKE YOUR KIDS THE CRAZY HOURS THAT THEY EXPECT YOU TO WORK. ALSO IF YOU DID EIKAWA YOU WOULDNT HAVE MUCH TIME FOR YOUR KIDS. ABOUT DAYCARE, I HAVE RESEARCHED MY TOWN AND FOUND THAT THERE ARE PLACES FOR KIDS TO GO. AND WHEN THEY GET TO KINDERGARDEN AGE, THEY WILL KNOW ENOUGH JAPANESE TO SURVIVE.
ANOTHER THING YOU NEED TO THINK ABOUT IS MONEY. YOU WILL NEED LOTS OF START UP MONEY. EVEN PAST HOW MUCH THE PLANE TICKETS COST, CHILDCARE CAN BE EXPENSIVE TO BECAUSE THEY MAKE YOU BUY SO MANY STINKIN UNIFORMS AND HATS AND BAGS AND ETC ETC ETC. THE COUPLE THAT I MENTIONED EARLIER SAID THAT THEY PAID A FORTUNE ON THOSE THINGS. ALSO YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LIVE IN A NORMAL APARTMENT FOR TEACHERS (LEOPALACE). UNLESS YOUR COMPANY WILL GIVE YOU AT LEAST A 2DK YOU WILL HAVE TO FIND YOUR OWN. BUT THE PRICES ARENT SO BAD NOW IN SMALLER CITIES, WE JUST GOT A NEW PLACE AND IT DIDNT EVEN HAVE KEY MONEY..AND IT IS HUGE. BUT WE DID HAVE TO BUY FURNITURE AND JUNK.
SO I WOULD SAY FIRST FIND A REALLY GOOD JOB THAT WILL HELP YOU (WITH DAYCARE ETC) AND THEN GET LOTS OF MONEY...AFTER THAT I DONT SEE WHY YOU WOULDNT BE FINE...
YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SAVE LOADS OF MONEY SINCE YOU WILL BE PAYING DAYCARE FEES AND SUCH BUT IT WOULD DEFINITELY BE AN EXPERIENCE TO REMEMBER.
ALSO SOMETHING YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO, I HAVE READ SOMEWHERE THAT PEOPLE WITH CHILDREN GET A MONTHLY ALLOWANCE FOR THEM...YOU SHOULD LOOK INTO THAT.
I THINK YOU SHOULD COME. YOUR KIDS ARE AT A GOOD AGE NOW...ITS PROBABLY THE BEST TIME... Wink

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Planning to have just one parent support a family of 4 will be difficult for a newcomer. Entry level wages would be very roughly 250,000 yen/month.

More than half of that would go to rent, utilities, groceries, phone, and insurance. Kids' daycare would be expensive. Top end for us in Sapporo was 30,000 yen/month for half days (actually, it was for a total of 90 hours per month). There are private ones and city ones. City ones may have long waiting lists just to get in (and are cheaper than most). Costs will depend on your salary. Maybe someone else with experience can give their figures.

However, you are going to have to deal with daycare staff, probably all in Japanese. Not much of a problem for the kids, but how about you when they explain their policies, when they leave daily messages for you, when there is an event or a medical emergency?

What is Mom going to do all day long while Dad works? That 250,000 will barely get you by as a couple, so the kids will really make it difficult to impossible to live on. Most people I know usually figure that 300,000 to 350,000 per month is the lowest salary for a family of 3 or 4.

A lot depends on the rent, too, and that will depend on location.

80,000-100,000 for rent
15,000-20,000 for utilities
5000 for phone (and more if you have a second one, a cell phone)
50,000-60,000 for food (depending on your lifestyle)
2500 for national health insurance the first year (not sure about families, this is for individuals), and it goes up tenfold or more in subsequent years
20,000-30,000 for daycare total for both kids (rough estimate)

Total = 172,500 to 217,000 just for bare bones basics

Does not include the insurance raise, haircuts, security deposits (2-5 times your rent, if you have to pay this, should an employer not provide you housing), local transportation for Mom to /from daycare, long distance calls, emergency medical care, trips back home or sightseeing, cable/satellite TV, magazine/newspaper subscriptions, etc.

That 250,000 could easily be 100% depleted leaving you in the red. You are only talking about a potential buffer of 33,000 yen per month, and that is only with the average figures I've presented here. You might have higher rent, more expensive daycare, etc. Certainly, the second year of insurance will wipe out that buffer. Heck, trips to daycare alone might do it! Quibby has it right about additional costs once kids hit kindergarten. My own kid is entering this year. Ouch.

Trying to support a family on that meager wage is going to take a heckuva lot of scrimping.

Moreover, if Dad gets an eikaiwa job, he will be gone 5 days a week, but not necessarily consecutive. His weekend might be Sunday and Tuesday. His work hours could easily be noon to 9pm (pretty standard for eikaiwa), which means getting home after 10pm. With no experience in TEFL, I would suspect a wee bit of stress in getting up to speed. And, then there's the time the both of you might want to devote to learning Japanese.

markle · Joined: 17 Jan 2003 Posts: 1316 Location: Out of Japan

Quibby, hit shift and caps lock at the same time. Your post gave me a headache.

stacyrb · Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 8

Here is some more information that might help.

My husband already speaks Japanese and is currently working as an ESL tutor privately here in the states. I speak some Japanese, although not as fluently. The language barrier for things like daycare wouldn't be an issue.

Also, I *want* to work. Staying at home is not an option. Also, we are used to paying high fees for daycare/preschool. Here in Detroit, our full time preschool for one child is $800+ a month (or about 94,400 yen)

Stacy

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Knowing Japanese probably won't help much in the way of landing a job for either of you, but it obviously won't hurt, and it'll certainly help when it comes to daycare and daily affairs.

If even one of you gets a work visa, the other (and the kids) can get dependent visas. You need special permission to work on a DV, but that's easy enough to get, and it takes the pressure off getting 2 work visas. Work under a DV can only be PT, by the way.

I guess the next 2 questions are in order.
When do you want to be here?
Where exactly do you want (or not want) to live?

stacyrb · Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 8

Glenski,

Thank you for your response!

We could go any time after August/September. We know that we might end up having to wait until NEXT Feb/March because most of the teaching jobs come up for the school year starting in April.

We really don't have a location preference. We'd like some where in the middle or south of the country, but we do not have a city/country preference. We'd like somewhere on the warm side, as we can handle a small apartment (2dk or the like) as long as we're not stuck inside for a really long winter.

Stacy

Quibby84 · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 643 Location: Japan

(I know, it gave me a headache to, but I tried shift and caps and it didnt work, I tried as many combinations that I could think of...but somehow it is fixed today)

To stacy, I think you could do it, we live in Tochigi prefecture, which in my opinion is beautiful and is in the perfect location (about 1.5 hours from tokyo). We pay a lot less that what Glenski talked about (apt, etc). You may never be able to survive in a really big city; but where I live is not super small but is not super big, perfect if you ask me. Things are not cheap by any means, but they are not unmanagable. Many ALTs may leave around August, I know that most start in April, but August is the end of a semester and many ALTs leave then. I dont see why you would have trouble finding a job in August.
Next semester I figured we will need 300,000 yen to survive for one month...this includes everything...even a 4LDK apartment. My husband and I made more than that last year and were able to save about half. Next semester my husband will be going to school though so it will be me working full-time and him working part-time...we will survive!
I think you should go for it!

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Quibby84 · Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 643 Location: Japan

we NEED 300,000 sorry, we make about 480,000 together. Which means that even with the lowest salary out there (240,000 is what we each make) we have about 180,000 extra which is plenty enough to cover daycare.
We plan to add to our family this year and I have figured out much we would need...300,000 is what I decided was good enough. And if they had two people working then they would have more than enough in a smaller town...

Vince · Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 559 Location: U.S.

With Japanese ability and a background in East Asian Studies and International Business, I'd strongly suggest forgetting about TEFL and instead focusing on landing a position with a home-country company that has significant operations in Japan. Get the job at home, then express interest in transferring to Japan while developing skills and demonstrating potential. Depending on the company and position, you could very well find yourselves with a nice expat package that pays for your housing and even your kids' daycare and schooling. It's a longer route than getting TEFL positions, but would put you in a much better position.

If your husband has a passion for TEFL, I'd suggest looking into graduate work in TESOL or applied linguistics. It still won't be as peachy as the situation above, but you'd have a somewhat more secure situation than you would with a conversation school. Finally, I'd warn him that a bit of TESL work back home probably won't be very similar to what he'd experience in Japan.

chan_konabe · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:57 am Post subject:

In my prefecture, we've had a few ALT's with the JET Programme who've brought children along. Their respective BOE's have been very supportive - finding suitable accommodation, enrolling their kids in daycare and addressing any other concerns they might have. This could be something worth considering. Applications for the JET Programme are due in the fall for the following summer's intake. So applications for the 2009-2010 year would be due in fall 2008.

stacyrb · Joined: 01 Feb 2008 Posts: 8