Hello everyone, Welcome back to my channel, your virtual ticket to Japan and today I'm going to talk about the cost of living in Japan on a work Visa.

I've seen a lot of videos where people talk about working holiday visas, but in the states you cannot get a working holiday visa.

So it's a little bit different and there's a lot that goes into it like taxes and insurance and food costs and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm going to go over my life and experience and my lifestyle, yours may be different.

Your company may be different is not going to be how it is for everyone.

This is going to be mostly about my lifestyle and stuff like that.

So I'm just going to give you a general idea of how much it costs to live in Japan and I'm going to say that it's not cheap.

Tokyo is very expensive compared to other parts of Japan.

When I lived in Nagoya, I was living a lot easier in that part of Japan, I was budgeting well, I was saving money and then once I moved to Tokyo things just kind of went downhill for me here, technically I'm not in Tokyo, I'm in chiba, but I'm on the edge of Tokyo, Tokyo is way more expensive.

So if you can live on the outskirts of Tokyo, it's probably better.

I had to really plan and budget before I got to a comfortable place in my life and I'm still figuring things out.

I have two waves of income, one from my teaching job and one from Youtube and my blog and all that stuff.

So I have a lot of different fees that come every which way and it's, it's complicated you really have to plan and I'm still not perfect.

So I, but I do want to share my experiences and I do want to give you a general idea.

All right.

So what you're going to want to budget for when you live in Japan is rent, health insurance, pension, food, social life, clothing, any medications that you need to take, utilities that come with rent, travel and any extra emergency money that you may need for future emergencies.

Let's get into the nitty gritty of it all when it comes to food.

I really take that seriously.

So the food that I buy is for the weak and for cooking and eating healthfully.

Now the one thing that I really researched is that there's a lot of discount shops in Japan, there's a lot of discount supermarkets.

Um, there's a lot of local supermarkets that sell local vegetables and foods.

Um, but because I value time a lot more than I value money, I tend to do things the easy way.

So I prefer to go to one specific supermarket to get all of my stuff instead of going to five different supermarkets to get the best deal because that would take so long and I have tried that before I went to one local supermarket with my bike, brought it back to my house because I don't have a car.

So I have to carry everything in my backpack or in bags and then I have to bring it back to my apartment, go back out to the supermarket and get the rest of the stuff that I need or go to the 100 yen supermarket, which they do have those 100 supermarket, get the stuff I need.

I went to three different supermarkets and you know how long it took, it took like three hours just to get all of that stuff because I had to go to three different places.

Now that's totally fine if you're okay with that and you have nothing else to do and you just love cooking and you love spending time doing that kind of stuff.

But I do not.

When I asked people on facebook about it, they said, oh just what I do is I eat pasta and pizza and I eat eggs and lots of rice.

My body would die basically.

If I would eat that, I would be so backed up.

Tm I, first of all I get it.

Like if you buy a pack of pasta, you can make pasta for like five days in a row, but I would prefer to not eat pasta five days in a row.

I would prefer to not eat rice every day.

I would prefer to eat healthy meals and a lot of vegetables.

Yes, there are very healthy, but they come in smaller packaging than in the States.

So you don't get as much for the price, which is the issue in Japan.

Things don't last as long because there's not a lot of preservatives and things here.

So if you buy vegetables, they'll be pretty much gone in the next a couple of days.

So basically my budget for shopping because I try to go more organic.

My allergies are a big problem.

I can't always eat things with like curry in it.

I have to make a lot of, a lot more homemade things.

So I spend a lot more money because of my allergies and my body issues.

My budget for one week of groceries is about human, which is $100.

So $50 for four days and then $50 for the next four days.

A lot of people say that eating out is cheaper, it's technically not.

So I tried to do that, I tried to go to the convenience store for three days.

I spent more money on convenience store food than I did in the grocery store.

If you buy one meal for 500 yen, $5 That's 500 yen of a meal that could last for three days.

So I prefer to go to the grocery store, get my money's worth and eat healthfully that is your preference for vegetarians.

I think it's a little bit harder to find things in Japan just depends on your diet and what you prefer but I Tend to spend $100 a week On groceries, so about $300 or $400 per month after talking to my friends, I understand that they want to save money, but there's just things that I just can't do with my health issues and I just, I want to stay thin and like that's how I've been staying thin in Japan, I haven't gained or lost any weight for three or four years.

I'm not saying like all my friends do this and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing if that works for you, if that's what you like to do, if that's the things that you like to eat and it doesn't bother you and that's totally cool like I'm fine with that but for me that's just not the way I eat.

Alright, so that takes care of food.

Now, rent rent in Tokyo is super high for a very small place, very small space.

I live in a one k.

and in Japan one K.

Means one room kitchen, my rent is 7 50 a month, so 75,000 yet.

So I'm just gonna say that is a pretty good deal for Tokyo, if you want to live in Tokyo, you're going to be spending a lot for a very little if you live in other places of Japan you're probably going to get a lot more for a good price.

Alright so now onto utilities, I usually budget about 10,000 yen which is $100 a month, you have to pay for gas, you have to pay for water, you have to pay for electricity and internet, but the internet comes with the apartment, I feel like I'm missing something.

So water, gas and electricity are the three main things that you will be paying in an apartment in Japan and it's usually not so much.

The next big thing that you want to pay is insurance.

Now insurance is different for everyone when you get into a Japanese company or school or whatever, some schools give you benefits and some schools do not in my case I am contract based and when you are a contract based usually your workplace doesn't really provide you with benefits like health insurance and pension and all that stuff.

So when you go to your award office or your local city hall you will be asked to sign up for those things based on your work.

I am on national health insurance and national pension and I am going to say if you do live in Japan be warned because you should not not pay those things, a lot of people don't and it's really bad because later on in life they will be surprised with a large bill from the government saying pay this or you will be in trouble and we will take all the money from your bank which has happened to a friend of mine, she didn't pay her health insurance and the government was like, hey you haven't paid for two years, we are taking all the money out of your bank and yes they have access to that and yes they can do that.

So they did that to her and she was living off cup ramen for a while, so please pay your health insurance and please pay your pension.

And a lot of people in Japan don't pay pension.

A lot of locals don't pay pension honestly like I wish I didn't have to pay it.

But at the same time if you plan on living here long term, who knows?

If you are going to live here long term, it might, you might change your mind, you might come here thinking, oh I'm only going to be here for a few years and then think, well I really love this country, I'm going to settle down here right now, pension is about 164 r 16,000 yen a month.

Some people just don't pay it.

But I really highly think that you should, you're going to be in a lot of government trouble if you do not pay your bills.

Health insurance depends on your company where you live.

Mine has been very expensive basically.

When I do my taxes, this is going to be kind of confusing, but basically when I do my taxes, I have to save all of my receipts when I go to restaurants or when I buy clothes for work or when I take transportation, I have to save those receipts and give them to my tax person which I do have one and he basically marks the or writes them off.

So if you have a lot of receipts, your taxes will be lowered, your health insurance will be lower depending on where you live.

That depends on how Much you're going to pay for your health insurance.

The first two years that you live in Japan, your health insurance is going to be very, very low.

So you're only going to have to pay maybe 5000 yen a month for health insurance.

But after the two years of living in Japan, your health insurance will skyrocket, you'll end up paying about 20,000 yen to 3:35,000 yen per month for health insurance and it's a lot, I have a lot of medicine that I need.

I have a lot of health issues.

So I have to pay health insurance.

My health insurance is about 35,000 a month right now.

It also depends on where you live and I live in a pretty expensive area.

One thing that kills people in the end when you live in Tokyo on a work visa is our city taxes.

If you are a student that is different, you do not have to pay city tax as far as I know.

My ex boyfriend was a student and he never paid them.

I don't know if you're supposed to, but I don't think you're supposed to, if you're on a work Visa and you're working in Tokyo you pay taxes, local taxes, city tax, basically my company takes tax income tax out of my salary.

So some companies do not do that.

The job that I had before did not take take income tax out of my salary.

So I had to do that by myself.

So at the end of the year I could pay those taxes so make sure that if your company does not take out income tax that you save that money for the end of the year because if you don't you're going to be in for a surprise that's income tax.

So at the end of the year I do not have to pay anything because that money was already paid and taken out city taxes a whole another world.

And it's the most frustrating thing that you have to pay.

City tax is the tax that you pay where you live.

It's four times the payment depending on where you live your income and your job that's going to determine your city tax costs.

Everybody is different.

But as a teacher, I make a little bit above average of the normal like english school, english language school, I feel like if you're working here, your salary is going to be between, I'm going to say this in dollars but between $2000 a month, They pay monthly usually in Japan, so $2,000 to about $3,000.

That is how much you're going to be getting a month.

So it depends on your income with city tax and where you live, my city tax has been very high and the reason being is because I didn't accumulate enough receipts, I didn't give enough receipts to my tax person to sort through and mark off.

And because of that my taxes were extremely high because I didn't know this.

So I was surprised the first couple years of taxes.

So for the whole entire year for city taxes on average for the company that I work at is probably going to be about two grand for the year right off as much as possible at the end of the year with your receipts and your rent and your utilities because I work from home, I can do that.

So at the end of the year you want to calculate those things, give receipts, go to your local tax office when you do taxes.

Not everybody has a tax guy like I do not, everybody has an accountant.

It's very easy, it's free to go to your tax office and get help there and they usually help you out and you just have to type in all your numbers and all that stuff, so you're going to have to pay city tax at some point, maybe not the first year that you live here but be prepared because it is going to be pretty pricey as for social life, I tend to put about 20,000 yen aside for doing fun things with friends.

I don't spend all that money but I just put it aside just in case I want to do something.

I want to go out for a photo shoot or I want to film a video for necessities.

I spend about 18,000 yen per month necessities like paper towel, dishwashing, soap, toilet, paper, makeup, clothes, all that stuff Gets put aside each month.

I don't spend all that, that is just a general idea of what I could spend if I wanted to, I try to put that aside and for other things medical costs I put aside like 5000 yen for that.

Doctors are super cheap in Japan medicine is super cheap.

I get a lot of medication, I don't even spend that much.

So I put about 5000 yen aside for that I get contacts.

I have to budget for that.

Transportation is taken out of my salary for my work place.

But if I want to go anywhere I spend about I don't know I put about $100 aside so 10,000 yen aside.

So those are the main costs of living in Japan, it depends on your lifestyle, your situation, your work situation, everybody and everything is so different.

Every person is different.

If you are a us citizen, make sure that you file your american taxes.

Yes.

You do have to do your american taxes.

You're not making any income in the states.

So you don't have to pay anything but you do have to file them.

Um I'm lucky enough to have an accountant or a tax person that does that for me.

It's not like that for everybody.

I was just really, really lucky.

A tax person and Japan is extremely expensive usually.

So I would try to figure out how to do that on your own.

I hope this video is useful.

I'm not an expert on everything and I'm still figuring things out and trying to budget and you know make life easier.

I think it's tough anywhere in the world but just make sure that you're prepared to pay these things and I hope that all of this was very useful for you guys.

If you have any questions, please comment down below If you're planning on moving to Japan, let me know and yeah, I'll try to answer all your questions.

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