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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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 Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| And how did you feel about making less money as a result of that loan? |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:36 am Post subject: |
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I still made the same amount of money, I just received some of it earlier than I would have otherwise. It was very useful, actually, so I was quite happy about it.
Salaries were a bit higher at the time (11 years ago) than they tend to be now, so I still had plenty to survive on while the advance was being deducted. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:40 am Post subject: |
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| Apsara wrote: |
| I still made the same amount of money, I just received some of it earlier than I would have otherwise. |
I wonder if others would have such a rosy outlook living on a salary with 120,000/3 = 40,000 yen less on it per month due to repaying the loan. |
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Apsara
Joined: 20 Sep 2005
Posts: 2142
Location: Tokyo, Japan
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| Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Like I said, it was the norm at Nova those days to take out the advance. Since we made the decision to do it, we could hardly then complain about it later. The pay in greater Tokyo for new teachers at the time was about 240,000 yen after tax, which meant that while we were paying off the advance we received about 200,000 a month- not really poverty level for a young single person, even after the rent was deducted. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:17 am Post subject: |
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Just because it was "the norm", that doesn't mean people liked it. You are avoiding the whole point.
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| Since we made the decision to do it, we could hardly then complain about it later. |
If someone needed the loan, that's reason to complain in general right there. Trust me. I've been on these forums for over a decade, and that's exactly what we hear.
"Oh, woe is me. I don't have enough to get started in Japan. What can I do?"
Loan...
"Oh, woe is me. I have taken out a loan with my employer and now have less to live on."
Yes, not poverty level. About 40,000 yen/month less than a full paycheck, as I wrote before. But that's less money, period! People have/had student loans to pay off and other reasons to want that 40K, and we heard many of them complain about it on this and other forums. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:55 am Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
If someone needed the loan, that's reason to complain in general right there. Trust me. I've been on these forums for over a decade, and that's exactly what we hear.
"Oh, woe is me. I don't have enough to get started in Japan. What can I do?"
Loan...
"Oh, woe is me. I have taken out a loan with my employer and now have less to live on."
Yes, not poverty level. About 40,000 yen/month less than a full paycheck, as I wrote before. But that's less money, period! People have/had student loans to pay off and other reasons to want that 40K, and we heard many of them complain about it on this and other forums. |
Granted I haven't been on forums as long as you, but I have been around long enough to see a couple of intakes. The last year or so has seen quite an unprecedent number of people coming over and excepting these types of loans because due to a number of factors including (but not limited to) high unemployment rates in many of our home countries, companies making people redundant and the fall in value of our currencies, many people simply don't have the savings necessary to set up over here and I've yet to see this type of complaint here or elsewhere yet.
At my training session I was in the very small minority of people who didn't ask for a loan. I only know of one other new dispatch ALT that didn't need a loan in my area. And the one who came from another branch at the same time as my arrival even asked for a second loan to set up here. And again it isn't at the top of their complaints list. Reason being, there is a wealth of information avaliable about costs of living and all the responsible people would have calculated whether they could afford to accept the loan and still cover any payments they need to make back home before hand. |
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Threnody
Joined: 13 Nov 2009
Posts: 26
Location: Pennsylvania
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| Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 1:58 am Post subject: |
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I ended up taking a 100,000-yen interest-free loan similar to Apsara's shortly after I began working at ECC. I did have a cushion of several thousand dollars, but miscalculated something and went with the loan after asking around. Like Apsara's, my repayment was deducted from the following three paychecks. (My normal monthly pay was around 250,000 yen.)
The loan was handy for my situation at the time, the company was forthright and honest with me about it, and I still saved $400-600 US from each "lean" paycheck despite a not-particularly-frugal lifestyle.
Due to the ever-present possibility of unscrupulous bosses/lenders (in any company), a loan like that isn't something I would unconditionally advise or tell people to expect. However, neither was it remotely inconvenient for me to take and repay one.
The other teachers I spoke to who had taken the loan were also pretty unperturbed about having done so. |
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Just Another Guy
Joined: 22 Jan 2010
Posts: 3
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| Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| From memory when I interviewed with Interac they were offering a loan of 100,000 yen. No interest, paid back in installments (?). If I did go with them I would have taken it because the currency variation and the high likeliness of a better currency situation in the future would have been worth the risk and short term loss. It certainly would have protected my savings. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:36 am Post subject: |
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| Just Another Guy wrote: |
| From memory when I interviewed with Interac they were offering a loan of 100,000 yen. No interest, paid back in installments (?). If I did go with them I would have taken it because the currency variation and the high likeliness of a better currency situation in the future would have been worth the risk and short term loss. It certainly would have protected my savings. |
It's kind of an advance. They'll give you 100,000 up front if you agree to a salary of about 240,000. The exact figures depend on the dates for your contract and how much you are supposed to receive in holiday pay. The problem is that you are tying yourself to a one year contract by accepting this. If you quit early, you will need to repay whatever they have not reclaimed through your salary decrease for the year. Obviously, you'd take a double hit if you had also accepted an actual loan that you hadn't completely paid back yet. |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| seklarwia wrote: |
| Granted I haven't been on forums as long as you, but I have been around long enough to see a couple of intakes. The last year or so has seen quite an unprecedent number of people coming over and excepting these types of loans because due to a number of factors including (but not limited to) high unemployment rates in many of our home countries, companies making people redundant and the fall in value of our currencies, many people simply don't have the savings necessary to set up over here |
Sadly, this is happening.
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| and I've yet to see this type of complaint here or elsewhere yet. |
That people don't have enough money to set up here? Or that they have to take the money?
In the past month alone, I've seen plenty of the former!
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| And again it isn't at the top of their complaints list. Reason being, there is a wealth of information avaliable about costs of living and all the responsible people would have calculated whether they could afford to accept the loan and still cover any payments they need to make back home before hand. |
Perhaps it wasn't something they complained about when they got the loan (when you saw them). Perhaps they felt differently later. We'll never know for sure either way. |
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seklarwia
Joined: 20 Jan 2009
Posts: 1546
Location: Monkey onsen, Nagano
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| Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 2:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
That people don't have enough money to set up here? Or that they have to take the money?
In the past month alone, I've seen plenty of the former! |
Actually I meant people complaining because they had less money to live off after taking the loan... I guess it's kind of a given that if you borrow money, you are going to have less money out of each pay cheque until it is repaid.
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Perhaps it wasn't something they complained about when they got the loan (when you saw them). Perhaps they felt differently later. We'll never know for sure either way.
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Since I am in contact with a fair few, I know for certain that some at least did do their homework before signing on the dotted line and are sticking to a proper budget that means they are not suffering because of loan repayments.
As for the others we'd never know about:
Whilst I'd feel sympathy for anyone who suffered a costly unexpected emergency which then threw their budgets way off, I feel nothing for anyone who borrowed money without carefully considering whether they could afford to and any possible cut backs they might need to make to pay it back. The latter are just as bad as the idiots back home who purchase lots of luxury goods on credit cards despite being unemployed or on low incomes, then start crying when the baliffs come a-knocking. |
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