Myself and my partner are looking at moving to Tokyo. He is a senior software dev. I am just a receptionist so the plan would be to get married, he secures a job and I go with him on a dependent visa and hopefully I can apply for permission to work part time eventually. We both have bachelors degrees and he has 10+ years as a software dev and has been in management positions, so I am not too worried about his chances of securing a job/COE/visa etc.
He currently earns 120K NZD a year and I earn 65K NZD. My understanding is that he is likely to get a job that pays around 8M yen which is roughly 90k NZD. I of course will not be earning anything for some time, if at all. I am wondering if this will be enough to support us both in Tokyo? Cost of living in New Zealand is exceptionally high. When we were in Japan a lot of things seemed much cheaper. We also have a combined savings of about $100K NZD to fall back on.
We are also not sure what the cost of rent might be. We don’t need anything big, one of those studios with sliding doors that sections a room off would do (hopefully that makes sense!), but we do hope to live somewhat central-ish and ideally close to a train/subway station. I really like the Asakusa area and we found staying in Setagaya made it easy to get around too, but I have a suspicion that these may be expensive areas to rent in.
What sort of quality of life can we expect in Tokyo with 8M yen a year between 2 adults?
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**Advice on moving to Tokyo and QOL/COL**
Myself and my partner are looking at moving to Tokyo. He is a senior software dev. I am just a receptionist so the plan would be to get married, he secures a job and I go with him on a dependent visa and hopefully I can apply for permission to work part time eventually. We both have bachelors degrees and he has 10+ years as a software dev and has been in management positions, so I am not too worried about his chances of securing a job/COE/visa etc.
He currently earns 120K NZD a year and I earn 65K NZD. My understanding is that he is likely to get a job that pays around 8M yen which is roughly 90k NZD. I of course will not be earning anything for some time, if at all. I am wondering if this will be enough to support us both in Tokyo? Cost of living in New Zealand is exceptionally high. When we were in Japan a lot of things seemed much cheaper. We also have a combined savings of about $100K NZD to fall back on.
We are also not sure what the cost of rent might be. We don’t need anything big, one of those studios with sliding doors that sections a room off would do (hopefully that makes sense!), but we do hope to live somewhat central-ish and ideally close to a train/subway station. I really like the Asakusa area and we found staying in Setagaya made it easy to get around too, but I have a suspicion that these may be expensive areas to rent in.
What sort of quality of life can we expect in Tokyo with 8M yen a year between 2 adults?
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A 50m^2 large 1LDK or smaller 2LDK that is less than 20 years old and within 1 km of a yamanote line station probably would go for about 160,000 yen per month. If you are willing to go a little bit farther out and commute like 25-30 minutes from central Tokyo, rent could drop by as much as 25%.
8M is a decent salary and more than enough to live comfortably for 2 people.
COL is quite reasonable in Tokyo. You’ll be fine on that salary, and I actually suspect with a decent resume like that that more could be possible.
Asakusa isn’t terribly expensive but it isn’t one of the cheaper areas. I think in that general area Kuramae would be a bit better to live, and actually slightly the other direction, Hikifune. I’m personally a big fan of Hikifune, transport is good and it’s very much an up and coming area.
Yeah no problem with that income.