Job Discussion Forums

[tedkarma]

Anyway . . . for bottom-line savings, Korea tends to be the best place.
How you spend those bottom-line savings, on a loan or for travel or investment, is up to you.

[teachme27]

Glenski, I worked out all my bills including credit cards,student loan,car loan etc. I would have to put $800 us into my bills per month. Not too familiar with currency as of yet. Oh and I think now im leaning towards Japan Jet Programme,GOES, and ECC. If anyone has comments about those programs fill me in. I will choose Japan since I wanted to go there first and after reading most of these blogs seems as if the people are friendlier there. As long as I can get a furnished apartment,airfare and medical insurance. Im a young female American would most have a problem with that.. in Japan?

[Glenski]

With entry level work, you will have about 125,000 (or US$1000) to play around with after basic necessities. Depends mostly on rent and what you eat. So, you would have enough, but it might be a little tight until you get adjusted to how to save in supermarkets.

With JET program, you will earn 50,000 yen more per month, and in some cases (totally random, you cannot choose), you might even get discounted or free rent, so that would increase your income!

Careful about spelling. It's GEOS, not GOES.
GEOS, ECC, NOVA, and AEON are referred to as the Big Four eikaiwa here. Do a search and you'll find tons of information easily. They are all roughly the same in terms of what they offer and what you have to do. Small differences may matter to individuals. The usual ranking is AEON or ECC on top, followed by GEOS, then by NOVA. (Note: this does not mean NOVA is the worst school in Japan, just that is ranks lowest of the Big Four.) KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING INTO! There ARE drawbacks to each place.

You are NOT going to get airfare paid by most employer here. JET is an exception.

You are USUALLY going to get furnished apartments through the employers (all secondhand stuff, of course). Just don't let them make you pay for key money, because they've paid for that long ago.

Medical insurance is tricky. NOVA has its own for about 6000 yen/month, but you are essentially paying your employer for it. They tend not to tell you about the ability to get national health insurance, too. As for other places, many will count only your classroom hours as work hours, and use that (<30/week) to label you as part-time when it comes to paying for taxes and such, and that simply means they avoid making copayments into health insurance a lot of the time. But, you can take out kokumin kenko hoken (citizen's health insurance) at 2500 yen/month for the first year, and then it will go up tenfold or so thereafter.

[teachme27]

Thanks for the detailed information I appreciate it!

[denise]

It's far too easy to spend money in Japan. I earned 300,000 yen per month (about 50,000 more than the standard starting salary, which seems to be dropping rapidly...), plus had paid furnished housing and airfare, and I tried to set myself a goal of sending $800-$1000 per month back to the US. It was very hard to stick to that goal. My loan and credit card payments together only totalled about $400, though, so even in the months when I didn't reach my savings goal I was OK. If you actually need to PAY $800 per month, I think you will have to live very frugally.

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