Hello everyone,
I apologize in advance if this kind of post is not allowed. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter.
Last month, I received an offer to work as a preschool English teacher in Tokyo with a monthly wage of ¥230,000. I am not familiar with the cost of living in Japan, but I have learned that there will be significant deductions from my salary. Could anyone provide an estimate of my take-home pay after all these deductions? Additionally, do you think the wage is acceptable?
I would also like to mention that the salary will not be solely for my personal expenses, as I plan to send money to my elderly parents back home. Moreover, I don’t think the company will cover other expenses like housing, meals, etc.
Note: I am a non-native English speaker and do not have an Education degree (I have a degree in Psychology).
Thank you for your insights!
by Substantial-Figure99
34 comments
If rent isn’t provided by employer that’s a rough fuckin life
It’s not much. Especially if you are planning to send some money to parents.
Around 180.000 I think, which is very low for Tokyo depending where you live.
Yeah. Tokyo rent is a killer.
But if you have people you can share with
Or are a young buck and just out for shits and giggles it can be done.
When I first washed up in Tokyo I usually DJed at night to supplement my main income
Never again though….
230,000 after taxes will probably be closer to 190,000 maybe?
Housing will be anywhere between 30,000 to 80,000 a month.
You need to ask the company if they have dormitory housing and if they don’t you need to start searching for a place to live and decide BEFORE you enter the country.
Utilities will be about 8000-15,000 a month.
Internet is about 4,000 a month.
Cell phone can get down to about 2000-3000 a month if u go with Aeon Mobile, UQ, or one of the other cheap options.
Food expect to spend around 20,000-40,000 a month.
At most your monthly bills/daily life will be about 142,000 yen a month.
The least will probably be about 90,000-100,000.
This leaves you with not very much. You should probably save enough money for an emergency fund. So you might need to hold off on sending money to your parents until your own safe living is guaranteed.
Your salary will be subjected to national income tax and resident tax in addition to pension and health insurance premiums. With your current salary, the national income tax will be 10% (of gross salary-95000¥). The residence tax is fixed at the 10% of all your gross income. Tokyo’s rent is on average around 70k-90k depending on where you are located. So if you’re not being paid bonuses or housing allowance, I would say it will be pretty tight financially. Go find another offer.
230,000 is rough to live on without a secondary income. I’d be looking for a better paying job.
I lived on that my first year here. It’s basically minimum wage. You can’t save much and you have to be a little frugal, but it’s totally doable. If you really want to save money, there are cheap rents all over in less popular areas.
It’s fine if this job is temporary and just a way to get you into Japan to pursue a career in something else. If you have no other future plans, you can expect to be stuck on this minimum wage forever so you might want to reconsider.
I mean there are llenty of resources online with all the info you need. Its a poor salary.
If you are young, single, and just want a way to get a visa and enter Japan, I say go for it.
Plenty of Japanese people earn around the same. You won’t be living in luxury or going out very much, but you can use it as a stepping stone for a better job. It’s probably a good chance to tell your parents they need to care for themselves for a while.
You have to realize that non-native speakers working as English teachers (mainly Filipinos, as I assume you are) are kind of treated as second-class teachers, so it would be hard to find a better job in the English conversation industry.
To get a better job in Japan, you would have to rely on your other skills and Japanese proficiency is pretty important. Unfortunately, your Psychology degree is not so useful unless you can somehow pivot it into the nursing or elderly care field.
youre gonna be eating cup ramen for your meals with that salary, especially if that is BEFORE taxes and everything yu need to pay. I make 300K and its sometimes a struggle
Rent can be different depending on where in Tokyo you’re going to live, but you can’t afford to live in the city center or somewhere covenient with that salary… It’s very low, I think you’d better look for another job.
This wouldn’t be enough you’re looking at around 33% to be deducted from your salary. Additionally, you will want to rent somewhere relatively close to your school. Move-in cost will vary but plan for a single apartment expenditure around 500,000 JPY to move-in. Rent can be around 70-100,000 JPY per month not including, lights, water, internet, and food + commuting budget.
Will all the expenses you will have little to no money left over for yourself let alone to support your parents? (Keep in mind I am being frugal on rent projection) I hope this helps. My advice seek another opportunity.
Barely enough. You might be able to save a small amount for pocket money for eating out once in a while, but forget about sending money back to your home country. If you still want to go through with it, start looking for a better job as soon as you can (unfortunately, I don’t think your psychology degree will help… unless you start teaching yourself programming or any other skill that’s relevant to a higher-paying industry)
Given how weak the Yen is right now compared to most currencies, you’ll probably be overpaying on that money you send back, so you won’t be left with much after that and taxes.
If you’re young and single then it’s probably doable. I’ve lived on peanuts in the past just to be where I wanted to be. But nowadays, I still don’t feel entirely comfortable on double that. No money worries as such, but I wouldn’t want to be giving any away to overseas family lol.
If they provide commute allowance or housing, you will be living an ok life with some savings. Otherwise it will depend on where in Tokyo it is, some areas are just not ok with that salary. Places with 130k rent or 70k rent but 2 hours of commute which cost 20k per month.
That’s really low for English teacher pay in the Tokyo area. I would just look for something else. At least shoot for ¥250,000 in Tokyo.
That’s basically minimum wage, like McDonalds or conbini worker.
It will be rough, but as others said, if you just want to get a visa as a way to get to the country, it’d be an option.
It is minimum wage but if you are young, and single… the company I work for pays around that to new grads and inexperienced people. And the one I worked for before did the same. Nothing related to English teaching, so I’m not sure about career growth opportunities in your field.
There are English teaching jobs that pay ¥255,000 plus and that little extra could help a lot
Bro tbh, continue your search to find a better offer…
Hi!
Are you an employee or an independent contractor?
In my case, I have the same salary as you, and I’ve been working here for 2 years now. I’m an independent contractor so there is no chance for a salary increase. I also send money to my parents and siblings but I’m still able to get by for now. However, the longer I stay here the higher my expenses will be. I pay for my own place, my meals, my health insurance, and my taxes. If the yen value increases then we can save more for ourselves here.
If your plan is only working and no traveling or having fun here then I think you can save some.
In absolute terms it’s low and I think it’ll be tight to do what you want confortably, especially sending money back home, considering the historically weak yen.
Now in your situation (that I shared with you when I first arrived), it’s not a bad starting salary. I started for like 160k a month (and nothing during holidays…) back in 2017. It was really too tight and I had to use money from my savings.
Eventually I was making about 350k plus bonuses, but I put in over 50hrs a week plus freelancing on weekends. This however, was a very comfortable salary for Tokyo IMHO. So that gives you an idea of what 230 could feel like.
If you go for it, aim for a very cheap apartment. There’s all kind of prices, but you can find some in the 40k range fairly easily (though 1year visa and no Japanese will make it harder) or sometimes even 30k range. They will be tiny, but not necessarily far outside of the city. My last place was 32k in kokubunji and Ioved it.
It’s a shit salary
Locals earning that wage will be at home living with their parents, paying no rent, utilities or for groceries.
our new graduate hires get more than that. 230k ¥ is surviveable but don’t expect to do much.
you can buy no shit with that type of salary
I tried to google how much salary is left of 230k yen, which seems to around 180k. Then asked ChatGPT to make a budget… Something like the below would roughly work I guess, but I think there will be some upfront cost for an apartment for example. OP should definitely clarify regarding support on finding and also probably renting an apartment
|Category|Amount (yen)|
|:-|:-|
||
||
|Rent|50,000|
||
||
|Utilities|10,000|
||
||
|Internet and Mobile Phone|8,000|
||
||
|Groceries|30,000|
||
||
|Transportation|10,000|
||
||
|Dining Out and Entertainment|12,000|
||
||
|Health and Personal Care|6,000|
||
||
|Savings|30,000|
||
||
|Miscellaneous|23,169|
||
||
|**Total**|**179,169**|
I’m sure I read this post before a few months ago.
You won’t have much to send home unless you figure out a way to keep the rent down. For example, a cheap sharehouse or sharing apartment with someone. But both of those should be possible to find.
I can make more than that much working 40 hrs at my part time job. I don’t know what kind of hours you will work, but that seems very low.
¥2xx,000 are most lively entry-level salaries around Japan. And since it’s Japan, your psychology degree probably can not help you much regardless of where you are from.
IMO, ¥230,000 for a non native, teaching pre-school is actually a good salary if you think of the work you have. Zero to non stress, you just have fun’s with kids. Not like 中、高校 they are demons 🤣🤣 pre school kid actually listen to what you saying
The only high paying at entry that I know of is 飲食 some could start at 35x,xxx, and with overtime it’s close to ¥4xx,000. But the down side that you work 10hrs a-day and basically no holidays or weekends.
I was working in Tokyo in 2019 with 350,000 and I can just has a NORMAL life, supermarket ‘s bento for lunch, cooking at home for dinner, cheap izakaya on the weekends. Had a few trips to Osaka, Kyoto and that’s all. Rough life for me because I also sent money to support my family in my poor country Vietnam. Before that I was working in Germany and I can have an easy life with the salary 2500€ (in 2016), then a fun life when it raised to 3000€. I was totally wrong when I thought I could have the same quality of life in Tokyo with the same salary in Europe.
For 230,000JPY in 2024, you should only go to Tokyo for exploring a new life style for your youth experience. It is very hard to support family, you can not save much after pay for housing & daily expenses. And you may know the medical fee in Tokyo is crazy high, don’t be sick otherwise you would go bankrupt. And don’t forget about weak yen, compare to 2019, now its value lost nearly 30% and still falling down dramatically, I really can not imagine how can I support my family with 350,000JPY in 2024. Maybe you can do it in a Japanese suburban or small village, not in Tokyo.
So in short, my answer is NO.
it’s low. but doable and liveable. depends on your age if you are still in your 20s I would suggest to take the opportunity and take it as a life experience. I have friends who live with that amount of salary and they are fine. depend on your lifestyle and where you live. holding off sending money would be nice until you have a side job. it would get harder on second year with residence tax and (supposingly) higher insurance to pay than first year. not including contribution to pension (if you do) which is 16,900円. live in the tokyo remote area and you’ll be fine without sending money until your income get better. for me (two person) live in west tokyo, our expenses is 200-230k. our second year. frugal living but sometimes not. just control your expenses.