Living costs compared to SF Bay Area

10 comments

1. Everywhere is cheaper than the bay area. With that said though, you can’t really compare apples to apples.

   Tokyo, you especially don’t need a car. Out goes car payments, car insurance, gas costs. In goes some public transport costs which honestly isn’t too bad. A day’s commute could be 5-15$ depending how far you are from your work.

   Food is cheaper and higher quality assuming you don’t go to specialty grocery store for American goods every week. Import costs are high, especially now with fuel/extreme exchange rate.

   Utilities are comparable.

   Healthcare is a huge money saver as well as childcare costs a slight bit, depending where you take them.

   The only thing that will get you is sq footage cost of apartments only if you live within the city center. Although if you lived in san francisco or new york, it probably won’t bother you too much. The nice thing about tokyo though is unless you want to, you really don’t need to be in the city center. There’s plenty of suburb area surrounding it that has as much quality as tokyo itself and for the most part there aren’t any “unsafe” neighborhoods so it’s hard to go wrong. Just pick a place near a station that goes direct to a major station like shinjuku.

   Something to note is unless your work is overseas based and you get paid in American dollars or whatever, wages in general are lower in Japan, which matches the lower cost of living. Generally it used to be about equal 20 years ago, but Japan has gone through period of deflation and stagnation so wages/costs haven’t risen over time compared to the rest of developed nations.

2. It really really depends on where and how you live.

3. as someone that moved from the bay area and is living roughly the same lifestyle: it’s way cheaper. If you can find a way to live off USD (e.g pay for stuff with an American no-fee CC) in the short to medium term it’s even cheaper due to FX.

   However, depending on what you do for a living your salary may be much lower. This was true for me but the reduced cost of living balanced it out.

4. It’s not really how much everything cost but how much you spend for your necessities in percentage of your take-home salary.

   While not strictly financial, you need to also factor in the free time you get from work, Japanese generally work longer hours but your case may be different.

   If you’re not sure, leave the door open for your to return in case things don’t work out and enjoy the journey, there’s a lot to learn in Japan.

   Edit:
   If you want to know how much everything cost, https://kakaku.com/ is a price comparison engine that can help you get a fairly accurate idea.

5. I moved from SF to Tokyo and definitely my cost of living went down.
   I’d roughly agree with the 20-30%, but keep in mind that local salaries also tend to be lower.

   Basically I’d guess you will be at parity with your current situation, and even better off if you realize you won’t need a car at all, health insurance costs are minimal, and reduce your sqft expectations to be more in line with typical Tokyo apartments: 75m2 is quite high-end here, and you can probably halve that rent if you go for something less palatial 😉

6. I moved from just outside of the Bay Area to just outside of Tokyo (Yokohama), and in general it’s been cheaper, but as people have said, comparison is difficult. For example, you give the cost of a bowl of ramen in SF, but ramen in America tends to be more “trendy/cool,” as opposed to “fast food” in Japan. So there will definitely be a cost difference. If you buy “foreign” groceries in Japan your grocery bill will be more expensive. My kid loves strawberries, which are dirt cheap in Cali compared to Japan. And of course she also love peanut butter, etc. But if you eat more of the local produce and brands, it will be cheaper.

   Our rent is about the same (actually, they recently raised the rent for our old place is Cali), for waaaaay less space, but a nicer newer apartment in a more interesting area. So there’s a trade off.

   We pay waaaaaay less for childcare ($2k a month in US, $2k a year in Japan), but we’re using a local yochien. If we went the international school route, it would be similar to US or more expensive.

   Healthcare is cheaper, and we no longer have a car. So we save money there.

7. I have never lived in the bay area, nor in the US, but I am surprised by some of those figures. I knew the prices in the Bay were crazy, but damn…

   So if we run through..

   >- Monthly rent for 1 bedroom apartment (800sqft ~= 75m2): $3500

   That’s the price for the most expensive areas. Otherwise, expect half of that.

   >- Most basic ramen bowl at Ippudo: $15 + 10% tax + 18% tips = $19.5

   Half of that in Tokyo.

   >1 meal for 2 adults at low end restaurant (Chinese takeouts, Vietnamese food, etc.): $40 – $50

   1/4th of that for the price for one person.

   >Child care 9am – 5pm: $3000/month/child (I don’t have kids but many friends do)

   To get to this level, you’d need to actively search for an expensive private international daycare or pay for a at-home private nanny. Normal daycare is what, 1/10th of this…

   And you don’t need a car…

8. Everyone else in this thread is saying “you don’t need a car”, but I figured I’d answer the car questions because sometimes people **do** need cars (In my case, I was going to our warehouse 150km out-of-town a couple times per week and going to the airport at least once a week).

   > – Gas: $6.8/gallon

   This works out to 241 JPY / litre, if I did my math right. Current price at the pumps is about 165 in Tokyo.

   > – Monthly rent for 1 bedroom apartment (800sqft ~= 75m2): $3500

   Mine is about 70 m2 and I pay almost exactly $1000 USD including a car parking spot. I don’t live downtown though; I live in Nerima which is a ward in the Northwest, about 15 minutes by train to the nearest point on the Yamanote line.

   > – Car payment: $800/month

   That depends on what kind of car you get. You can get expensive or cheap ones, same as anywhere else. Keep in mind though that on top of the payment, you’ll pay about $300/year on road tax, $500/year on insurance, and $1000 every 2 years on mandatory inspections, basic insurance, and registration.

9. If a person has an effective tax rate of 38% in SF, their concern should probably be more on the difference in tax rates than the cost of living.

   You would need to have a salary of about USD700K per year to have an effective tax rate of 38%. That would translate to about JPY94M per year, and would have an approximate effective rate of 50% in Japan. So most any savings in cost of living would be taken in taxes.

10. Tokyo is way less than 30% cheaper, generally. The more important question is, how much of your salary are you currently saving?

    If your income and cost of living both halve, you could still be saving significantly less. For example, say you’re making 200k in SF, saving 20% of your salary. Then you move to Tokyo making 100k and are saving 20% of your salary. You’d be saving 20k/year in Tokyo vs. 40k per year in SF

    This is an important calculation if you intend to move/retire elsewhere. If you’re looking for a forever home, less of a consideration

    Also important to consider your existing savings will go twice as far in Tokyo

    Note: This is a very simplified example, cost of living and salaries aren’t exactly half