My worry with the 6m/year offer is it also includes bonuses and stock options in its calculation.
EDIT: finally got the breakdown
Monthly base ~ 347.5k
Annual bonus ~1.7m
Stock option ~ 450k+ //I still don’t understand why this is included in annual pay or what this is.
Total: 6.3m annual.
Looks like my monthly take home will be less than 300k yen a month.. They spiked my bonus but made my base pay lower?
**EXPENSES**
* I’ve estimated around 150k yen/month or 1.8m yen per year for living expenses in Tokyo.
* Breakfast, lunch, dinner is free on weekdays in the office
* I think they also give transportation allowances.
* Most of my expenses would be rent, utilities, phone, and entertainment
​
**NOW:**
* I currently live and work in a 3rd world country and only earning around 25k USD a year or 20k after tax.
* Living expenses here are much cheaper though around $400 a month as I still live with my family.
15 comments
Yes, easily.
You’ll be more than okay unless you’re terrible with money management and have no self-control.
That’s an incredible offer!!
Just so you know, a salary for a fresh graduate in Tokyo (white collar but not software development) is often about 3 million yen per year, so you should be fine to live on 6 million. If you live frugally and take advantage of as many of the free meals as you can, you’ll easily be able to save or send money home.
Agreeing with others, that’s a quite solid offer for your life stage.
You will be fine, so long as you aren’t convinced to overspend on your apartment — many “foreigner-friendly” real estate agents push incoming naïfs to rent ¥200k apartments and saying that’s a “normal price” for “expensive Tokyo real estate” when locals would be fine with an apartment costing half that.
You could live comfortably on half that.
Thank you guys for the responses. I’m proceeding with the rest of the hiring process this week to discuss the relocation package and hopefully get an official offer with all the details by end of week.
I don’t really splurge or spend much money. I prefer exercising and playing/watching for entertainment. Maybe go out to explore Japan but not really a fan of drinking out and partying.
The 150k yen/month budget for living expenses assumes that my rent will cost ~70-100k yen and the 50k for utilities, mobile, wants, etc. I’m fine with living in a small space (around 25-30sqm floor area) as I’ve been living in a condo like that here in my country.
A friend of mine who worked there for 2 years said he spent an average 125k yen/month.
> single male, 27, and offered 6m yen/year. Is it enough to live in Tokyo?
#Yes!
>I’ve estimated around 150k yen/month or 1.8m yen per year for living expenses in Tokyo.
Certainly doable.
That 150k yen/m budget is a typical-but-low-end for a single 28 year old Japanese guy trying to save in Tokyo.
>Breakfast, lunch, dinner is free on weekdays in the office
さあ～ /*Saaaaa.*
Breakfast-lunch-dinner at the company cafeteria will be fine for a few months but it will kill you in the long run with LOW-QUALITY Japanese menus. Unless you are in a banking or finance company that generally have better cafeteria food, cannot expect to eat all meals at your company.
Japanese offices aligned with a factory will serve rather carb laden, greasy food—You’ll learn to “love” freezer-burnt, slimy tilapia fish slavered in miso(fermented soy paste).
Basically you will going out for meals/drinking more that you are imagining (and that’s gonna easily add 40,000yen/m to your current budget).
>Breakfast, lunch, dinner is free on weekdays in the office
That sounds like 14-hour work days— *sabisu zangyo*/[サービス残業](https://blog.kano.ac/2021/04/07/sabisu-zangyo/) to me. Eeek!
6M a year in general is perfectly liveable as a single in Tokyo. Many families get by on the same.
My contracts had the bonus as part of the salary but they were 99% guaranteed unless you were on performance management.
It’d be worth understanding how the performance of the company affects the bonus and what your standard monthly payment will be. If the bonus is truely discretionary based on performance be prepared to budget off the monthly amount.
Truth is you can live to “nearly” any budget in Tokyo. Them covering your commuter pass opens up where you want to live to be based on your acceptable commute time. Free food is always good.
I make about the same as you. I live in central Tokyo paying just under 100k for my fairly large 1ldk. I eat out often with the SO and I like to drink with friends on the weekends. I take trips two or three times a year as well as have expensive hobbies. I am able to afford everything I want and save just fine.
Very much so. Especially of you live in a little one room place until you find your feet.
> Breakfast, lunch, dinner is free on weekdays in the office
That’s awesome. Is this a common thing in Japan?
This smells like a Rakuten offer to me heh just because of the cafeteria, but maybe its more common than I thought. I was offered 5.5M JPY at 26 as a software dev back in 2016 and it was totally fine. I was in California making around 72K USD before this, I feel the standard of living was a bit less in Japan on 5.5M, so I would assume you should have more disposable income after rent/tax. I think I spent around 200K-300K JPY on average on rent/tax/etc. around 85K went to rent and I did travel around Japan quite a bit which added quite a bit.
I think most of the people reading your question and stating it’s an awesome offer, haven’t read your question. The real issue is what is your base cash pay? That’s what you will be living on, not the potential bonuses if the company does OK, or the potential income from stock options if they don’t go underwater. Set your budget on the guaranteed, cash monthly income and see if you can live on that, then the rest is upside if it materializes.
I assume you’re from PH as well. I’m here with my wife as my dependent, and our monthly expenses are around 200k. At that salary, you will have a lot of savings if you manage your salary well