My question is for teachers who have already been living in Japan for a long time. How do you deal with the recent inflation and currency decline? Are your companies considering raising wages? It seems like my bank account is draining faster than before.
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Other than like eggs being more expensive I don’t think I’ve noticed it all that much.
Cost of living goes up, wages stagnate or even go down since it’s a race to the bottom. People who have loans or family back home to send money to get way less for their yen now. Tough times
Don’t rely on one thing to make money my friend. As long as I have time(and a babysitter) I can make money. Not teaching English
>currency decline
Generally speaking, living in Japan for the long term, the relative value of the yen isn’t really that relevant. What matters is what the costs of goods here cost, in yen (i.e. inflation is important).
That said I do hate that the Pixel Watch 2 costs so much.
As for inflation? It sucks. I eat out slightly less now. But, realistically speaking, still feel like I am in a much better situation than, say, I was in Britain, America, or Canada.
I haven’t really noticed it tbh. Probably because I’m single and my salary already goes pretty far.
If anything I listen to my siblings and friends back in Australia talk about inflation and think it’s actually still pretty good here. Like, our usual chips went from $4.5 to $6.7, Maccas meal went from $15 to $28. Meanwhile I had the same Maccas meal here yesterday for $15 and I get a 12pack box of chips here for $35 (so like $3ea).
Only thing that kinda sucks is trying to convert savings back home but as a 3rd culture kid it’s not too bad because I can either (1) convert it to my birth country currency instead, where the rate is not too bad or (2) exchange with my relatives when they travel here.
ETA; to clarify, by “meal” here i meant multiple items, not as in a ‘meal set’.
As long as my money stays in Japan, I can still manage to live a comfortable life here.
Wages are stagnant. Investing helps, as does keeping some savings in other currencies (usd, gbp).
I just got a letter today saying my water fee will be going up by 20% starting 2024. Everything but the salary is going up.
Not a teacher but my SO is. They gets yearly raises and this year base wage go bump up abit to account for inflation. So we don’t feel it as bad. The weak yen sucks when we go out of the country but otherwise it doesn’t affect us much.
I do hope they increase the cold weather subsidize cause kerosene and LP gas gone up.
Make more money, turn money into assets that are difficult to fall, such as gold, and also have ways to invest more than the inflation rate.
It’s brutal. I don’t get raises as an adjunct and have no savings because my health is bad, so I spend all my money on that. Can’t really afford to eat decent food and too sick to cook for myself.
More like deflation
I have been living life like normal because there isn’t much I can do about it. I have noticed a lot of things went up in price. I still have to buy food, so you just have to suck it up since there isn’t any way around it. I still buy eggs even though it went up like 100yen from last year. Big Mac set was 650 but now it like 750. It hits the wallet hard, but it is manageable since I am still saving money. I used to covert yen to dollar but I stopped doing that while the yen is so weak.
My company doesn’t give raises because of inflation, they just give the same raise every year. When I travel it is a lot more expensive so that really hurts with the weak yen.
Cant wait to get my ¥40,000 next year. Gonna buy some umaibos and burn the rest on a six pack of store brand highballs.
I have a business.
Need to teach English for the visa.
With just my teaching salary…me and my boy would starve
Tomatoes? I haven’t bought them in 3 months and I am not paying ¥ for hydroponic tomatoes with 0 nutrition and flavour. It’s daylight robbery.
Luxuries seem to have sharply risen in price but basic stuff seems fine. An extra ¥100 for my pack of eggs each week is a margin of error difference to my budget. It’s the flights that kill me. At least ¥200,000 to visit my home country now whereas it used to cost half that.
>Are your companies considering raising wages
Raises? In the “teaching” industry here? Wages have been going DOWN.
My company gives me a 5,000 yen per month raise every year. I’ve been here for 5 years so my salary has gone up by 25,000 yen per month. I started at 250,000 per month and I’m now 275,000.
Thankfully, I can afford it but in definitely noticing those prices go up and makes we wanna be a bit more frugal – which in terrible at