Job Discussion Forums

[vanland]

Hi there,

I know this topic has been done before. I have just done searches and from what I dug up, what I am looking for hasn't really been discussed much recently and to satisfy my curiosity and that of many others (probably), I was hoping to find out more specific info on the current cost of living. I know there are many variables regarding lifestyle, location and the people themselves, but I want to keep it general, in a way that could also help people get an idea of what they could save based upon their actual income, for example, topics like.

Rent costs (rural / city)
Supermarket shopping costs (generally)
Eating out costs (good restaurants / 7/11 foods)
Alcohol (beer, spirits, local, imported, wine, at a bar, 7/11 or elsewhere etc)
transport (trains / buses / car)
home phone
mobile phone
internet
cable / satellite tv

I am very intersted in this myself, but I am sure to many others also. A good topic to update every few years also.
Thanks

[Glenski]

You're going to get quite a variety of answers.

Rent depends on where one lives (city, suburb, rural area) and what you live in (house, apartment, mansion).

Supermarket costs depend on whether you are vegetarian or carnivore, and whether you take advantage of sales or not. I could send you an Excel list of exact prices on a variety of things if you like. PM me if you're interested.

Eating out costs. Can you average these in your own city? I can go to a sushiya here and spend 3000 yen for my wife, son, and myself, yet a similar family seated next to us will easily spend twice that much. A Royal Host or Victoria Station restaurant (equivalent to American Denny's, IMO) will run 1000-1500 yen/meal, but dinners are more expensive than lunches, and sets are more than individual plates. Any other place will be more expensive, and it all depends on where you go (foreign food vs. Japanese food, too). Convenience store foods. Yuk! Are you actually considering these as meals? The bentos run anywhere from 250 to 1000 yen per box, depending on what you buy. Onigiri roughly 150 yen each. Bottled tea, juice, or soda is roughly 150 yen.

Can't help you with alcohol prices. I don't drink.

Transportation. Buses can be privately run (like in my city) or city owned. Fares will vary. I know a whole route in Sapporo that costs only 200 yen, but there are other routes where the starting fee is about 150 yen, and it increases the farther you travel. Taxi fares just went up, I think to about 650-700 yen for starting fee, but be advised fees double after midnight. Car fees. Geez! Gasoline is 150-160 yen/liter. To own a car, you must have a parking space, which could cost 8000-15,000 yen/month. Then there is the mandatory safety inspection, which could be every year or other year depending on age of car, and fees vary. My used car runs about 150,000 yen each time.

Mobile phones have a gazillion options for services. Figure 5000-8000 yen/month. Home phones, 3500-8000 yen/month, plus installation.

[Apsara]

Cell phone service seems to have been getting cheaper and cheaper. I used to pay about �5000 a month a few years ago, now I pay �3700 a month for the same service (emails, internet access all included) after taking advantage of various discounts offered by au. au does seem to be about the cheapest, most people I know with Docomo pay at least twice what I do if not more.

[Mothy]

Some people may be able to help with alcohol more than me, I don't drink that much, but I can give you some idea about prices. Beer I haven't bought for awhile (a teacher I work with keeps giving me free bottles of his homebrew) but it seems like the last time I did buy some it was around 200 yen for a can in the store. I think this was for some middle of the road stuff. There's cheaper beer than that and more expensive beer than that. As for other drinks... I get a bottle of kahlua every once in a while for about 700-800 yen. Also some pretty good rum for about the same price. Drinking at a bar can get quite expensive and they sometimes have a disappointing selection. But if you find a good place the prices should be the same as you're used to. Also as far as imported drinks go, I haven't bought any imported beer here yet, my wife has but I wasn't paying attention to how much it cost. I have gotten some other imported drinks such as Schmirnoff Ice and Sky Blue that were about 220 a bottle. I'd imagine a similar mark up is to be expected on other drinks.
Internet- The internet service I have runs me about 5500 yen a month, but I get really nice internet because I do a lot of internet gaming. Cheaper services are available although I don't know their prices.

[Wintermute]

Rent costs (rural / city) - Depends on the area. In the city (Osaka) a 1DK apartment (about 25 metres squared) will usually set you back about 50-60000yen a month, more the closer you live to a station and/or the centre of the city. I've seen 1LDK apartments go for 80000yen a month in Umeda. If you live in the countryside you could probably get something for about 30-40000yen or a larger apartment (2LDK) for the same price you pay in the city.

Supermarket shopping costs (generally) - I eat well and generally spend about 1500yen a week on food at the supermarket. I take advantage of the late night sales though, all perishable food (sushi, Chinese food, sandwiches, salads etc.) is half price after 8:30pm.

Eating out costs (good restaurants / 7/11 foods) - A good restaurant will start you at 5000yen easy and take you upwards of 20000yen. 7/11 is only there for stuff you run out of. I recommend you buy the bulk of your food at the supermarket.

Alcohol (beer, spirits, local, imported, wine, at a bar, 7/11 or elsewhere etc) - Japanese beer averages around 250yen a can. Imported beer about 350yen. I love Hoegaarden and that starts at 398yen a bottle (worth it though)/

transport (trains / buses / car) - Buses usually increase in price the longer you ride them but the city buses usually have a fixed fare (210yen in Osaka). Trains vary in price depending on the company. In my experience JR is the most expensive. Hankyu in Osaka is (generally, considering the distance you travel) the cheapest. I wouldn't bother with taxis unless you miss the last train and can't stay out all night.

mobile phone - Average is about 5000-8000yen a month. Watch the calls and internet use though as fees for packet transfers is quite high. I use Softbank and have found it reasonable.

internet - ADSL is the more expensive option, about 6000yen a month. Cable is cheaper at around 4000yen. It's up to you which you prefer.

cable / satellite tv - I use JCOM and it's fairly cheap. It has a range of options. The cheapest package starts at about 3100yen a month. I opted for the Standard package plus the Star Channel set, costs me about 5500yen a month. They throw in a high definition HDD recorder for that price too.

[chinagirl]

Both AU and Softbank are foreigner friendly. My husband and are linked on our Softbank plan so all of our calls to each other between 1-9 PM are free, and its always free to text other Softbank phones. We use the phones lightly and only use the web for train schedules and the occasional map check and so between the two of us its never higher than 6000 a month. That's cheap!

[Quibby84]

I live in a rural area, Tochigi-ken, and these prices are for two people and two cats

Rent costs: 68,000 yen for a 4LDK apartment
Supermarket shopping costs: we spend about 5,000 yen to 7,000 a week on groceries, I cook, but we eat out on weekends
Eating out costs: we eat out on Friday night, Saturday and usually once Sunday, it cost around 10,000 yen (depending)
Alcohol: dont drink..sorry
transport: to get to my job it cost about 10,000 a month for me (about 30 min away) and 9,000 for my husband (about 20 min away). We go by train, our company only pays for half of that
home phone: we use skype, it is super cheap
mobile phone: we havent got the first bill but hopefully it will be around 2,500 yen each a month
internet: we got a special deal, we get two months free and then it is 4,300 yen a month for a year. Yahoo BB is super cheap and always has specials
cable / satellite tv: we pay about 3,000 yen a month for 15 channels

(I am adding some)
Utilities: at Leopalace it was outrageous, like 10,000 for gas (only hot water, hot plate is electric) and about 7,000 for electricity. We are hoping that our new apartment (the price that is listed) will not be so stinkin expensive.
Health Insurance: for the first year it is like 2,000 yen a month
School lunch (if you are a ALT): 4,200 yen a month, if you are not an ALT it might be more unless you are dedicated enough to make yourself a cheap lunch or unless you eat the really unhealthy food at 7-eleven

So in the end we spend around 250,000 a month on bills and such, but since have two people we are able to save about 230,000 a month.
Money in Japan goes away like water, you have to set money aside or it will never be saved.

Cheers!

[gaijinalways]

Quibby, your company pays only half your transportaion cost? You guys need to look into another employer, most people make money on the transportation costs covered by the employer (i.e. using your commuter pass for personal trips)!

[Lyrajean]

I live in Okinawa (main island urban low-income area) so costs are perhaps very specific to my area, rent is cheap but everything else is expensive, probably because I'm on a tiny island!

Rent: I pay 37000 but I have a very small 1LDK. Most of my fellow JETS in the area pay 4-5man a month but have much bigger apartments. My parking is included in the rent.

Food: about 5000 a week, i have no problems with most Japanese food and eat a mix of Western and Asian. That said some Western specialty items are significantly more expensive here.

Alcohol: drinks at a bar or restaurant run from 300-800, with beer being the cheap end and shochu c*cktails being the high end. At a store decent wine from Austraila or Chile is 800-1000 a bottle, Kahlua is 900-1100 a bottle (the same as at home!) My favorite variety of Kirin is 178 yen per large can.

Transport: by car gas is less than 1000 a week (kei car), everybody drives here...

Mobile phone: mine has been running about 2800 a month, but I'm a low user, and I got a 2 year contract w/ docomo.

Internet: ADSL phone line is about 3000 and ISP is about 3000, so 6000 total, expensive but worth it. As I use skype for all my international calling. This may change as I think I'm on some sort of "start-up" special at the moment

Eating out: I rarely do this by myself. If I do Starbucks and the local noodle/sushi shop are about as fancy as I get and it rearely runs over 1500. Work related-parties at the local izakaya usually run anywhere between 1500-3000yen each.

School lunch: I can bring bento but I rarely do 'cause of the time involved. I can get bento at my base school for 350 each. So about 1500 a week, or 6000 a month.

Health Ins. : on the National Health Care plan, never paid more than 1500 for anything DR. visit or meds. at one time. I did pay out of pocket for an ER visit for an ear infection on my arrival and never managed to get reimbursed cost about 13000 in Tokyo.

Electric: 3000-5000 per month, lower from Nov. to April higher w/ aircon use in the summer. Heating costs n/a. this figure goes way up for my friends with the larger apartments a large 2ldk can cost up to 1man in the summer 'cause of air conditioning.

Gas: about 3000 more or less.

[Apsara]

Wow, a 4LDK in Tochigi is just 68,000 yen? We live in a 1DK not too far out of Shinjuku and pay 112,000 yen. Brand new and 3 minutes from the station, but it still gives you an idea of the discrepancies there, huh. I'm glad I don't have to clean a 4LDK though

We just got some whopping electricity bills- 9000 yen in December and 16,000 yen for this month- we have a fan heater in the living room which I know consumes a lot and we use our air conditioner for heating in the bedroom, but don't often have them both running at once and otherwise try to conserve electricity, so not sure what happened there. That is an indication of how high the bills can be though, in Tokyo at least.

[vanland]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Its so intersting and informative, including a pm with more info.
When the topic appears to be dying I might gather some of the info and try and post a general budget based upon average responses.

By the way, I would be a potential JET, so I realize in that alone there is a variety of variables affecting my expenditure.

[Quibby84]

We have found a new employeer, we will start as soon as this contract is over. We havent quit (once we found the new employeer) yet because if we do we have a pay a big fine and if we dont we may get the bonus (we are the last ones at that company that get a bonus, so I dont want to lose it)

Aspara, our apartment is awesome! I guess we did get a good deal because even around here people cant believe how little it costs for how awesome it is. The cats get their own room! It is a lot more to clean than before but I do it with pride...hehe. Our old apartment was 1/3 the size of this one! If you are in the area, come and I will show it off! haha.