Cost of living for a family in Kansai region

Hi all,

I am looking for some cost of living averages for a family of four in the Kansai region of Japan.

I have found cost of living numbers using Google but they aren't really what I am looking for (Example: Cost of Living in Osaka, Japan. Prices in Osaka. ). I am looking for something that would give me an idea of how much I would have to make to support a family of four. Right now there are only three of us but we want to have another child sometime soon.

I know that these numbers will be different for every family out there but at least I would have something to go off of. Here are some of the categories that I am looking at, but if I have forgotten something important please feel free to mention it.

These would be for monthly amounts.

Required/Mandatory
Rent / Mortgage (for an apartment or house, rented or bought, large enough for our family)
Electricity
Gas
Kerosene
Groceries
Transportation
Household
Health / Medical
Education (for our son, and future child)
Retirement (Just a rough idea, I know this will likely be very different for everyone)
Rental / Home Owner Insurance
Trip to back home to the US
Spending Money (for misc. day to day things, combination for my wife and I)

Non-Required/Optional
Entertainment
Vacation
Vehicle Costs (If we even need a vehicle, this will depend on where we live specifically)
Vehicle Insurance

Anyone who supports a family in Japan please feel free to respond, even if your not in the Kansai region, also you can PM your response to me if you like.

One more thing, just because someone will ask, we are looking at Kansai region because my wife's family live in Nara and she wants to be somewhere close to them. Also, because we both like the area. It should go without saying but I will qualify for a spouse visa.

Thanks!

You aren't going to get more than ballpark figures on many things.

Rent depends on what region you live in and what you are willing to accept. Figure 80,000 yen/month on average.
Utilities vary on the season and personal use. 12,000-15,000
Food is very variable. Are you vegetarians? 50,000-60,000
Phone/Internet (lacking in your post) could be 5000-8000 , and setup will depend on whether you have land line or cell phone 30,000 vs 10,000)

What do you mean by "household" and "transportation"?
Local transportation is often paid by the employer, but you will probably also do some individual running around that is not covered. See below on gasoline and cars.

Education will depend on what you want your children to have: pubic school, private school, international school. IS is the most expensive. Will you also need daycare (both parents working)? Private or government sponsored costs differ, and there is a big waiting list.

Retirement depends entirely on your income and how much you have paid into the pension system here.

Trips back home. If everyone is of age to require full fare, figure $1000 per person for airfare, plus anything else you need (rental car, e.g.).

Don't expect us to gauge how much you should expect to spend for "entertainment" or "vacation". How are we supposed to know what you will do?

Cars. Uh, used vs. new? What size? How many (where I live most families tend to have 2)? Don't forget the mandatory safety inspection (shaken) which could be annually or every other year depending on the age of the car. Gasoline now runs roughly 140 yen/liter, so how much you spend on that will depend on how much running around you do and the mileage the car gets. Van-type cars get about 9 km/liter (thinking of a family vehicle here).

Medical. You are required to be on some form of national health insurance, whose monthly payments depend on your salary, age, and number of dependents. Figure 2,500 yen/month for one person for the first year, and then 10 times that later, so for a family of 4 that could run 40,000 or so. You will have discounts on children's fees for treatment up to a certain age and depending on where you live, and since NHI is not 100% coverage, every trip to a doctor will cost you 30% of the bill. Childbirth and prenatal care are not covered, but you can get back almost all of it through the government after a child is born (roughly 300,000 yen). You may also qualify for child care benefits, which may offset any of your living costs, but only by a slight amount.

There are other costs, too, like these:
hair care
magazine/newspaper subscriptions
cable or satellite TV
dry cleaning
children's after-school events and clubs and cram schools
Etc.

Glenski said:

You aren't going to get more than ballpark figures on many things.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your response Glenski, this is exactly what I was looking for. Ballpark figures are all I was looking for, I didn't expect people to layout their exact budget for me. I figured if I got a few people to respond that I might be able to average out the responses and see about where I needed to be income wise.

I will give some feedback on your questions comments bellow each relevant line (Bold is Glenski, Italics are my reply):


Rent depends on what region you live in and what you are willing to accept. Figure 80,000 yen/month on average.
We wouldn't be looking at anything too big but I don't want to live in a sardine can situation either.

Utilities vary on the season and personal use. 12,000-15,000
We are fairly power conscious, that being said it depends a lot on what we primarily heat with in the winter (electric, gas, kerosene) and I would guess that could depend on the apartment or house or just whatever is cheapest. By the way, how well are modern structures insulated in Japan?

Food is very variable. Are you vegetarians? 50,000-60,000
Not vegetarians but we tend toward cheaper meats like chicken and pork. Even here in the states we rarely have beef or fish.

Phone/Internet (lacking in your post) could be 5000-8000 , and setup will depend on whether you have land line or cell phone 30,000 vs 10,000)
Good catch! I can't believe I forgot about phone and internet! I would guess it would be cell phones. Internet would depend on what is available (DSL, cable, anything broadband really).

What do you mean by "household" and "transportation"?
By household I mean anything for the home that isn't covered under another category. Some examples would be toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning supplies. Transportation, see the next comment.

Local transportation is often paid by the employer, but you will probably also do some individual running around that is not covered. See below on gasoline and cars.
This would be a difficult one because it really depends on how much and what type of travel is needed which will depend on where one lives. This would be for personal transportation on trains, buses, or taxis for daily reasons like shopping. Also for any portion of the travel to work not covered by the employer.

Education will depend on what you want your children to have: pubic school, private school, international school. IS is the most expensive. Will you also need daycare (both parents working)? Private or government sponsored costs differ, and there is a big waiting list.
Well my wife wants to have our kids attend only international schools, but honestly I don't know that we could afford that unless I land an unbelievable job. At this time my wife is planing to stay home with the kids until they are in school full time (I would guess this would be 1st grade).

Retirement depends entirely on your income and how much you have paid into the pension system here.
This one is another though one but I actually meant how much I should try to save each month towards a retirement with the assumption that we would stay in Japan after retiring. This would be in addition to whatever retirement plan my employer offered and/or the national pension system.

Trips back home. If everyone is of age to require full fare, figure $1000 per person for airfare, plus anything else you need (rental car, e.g.).
$1000 seems cheap, my wife and son just came back from a one month trip to Japan and it was about $3000 for economy class. My son is 18 months and this was on Delta.

Don't expect us to gauge how much you should expect to spend for "entertainment" or "vacation". How are we supposed to know what you will do?
Lots of tough ones I know. I know there is no way for you to gauge this, so lets just throw an example out. For entertainment, how about dinner at a nice family restaurant twice a month and maybe a trip to the zoo. For Vacation lest just base it on a trip for three days to Hokkaido staying at a nice but not super expensive hotel and dining at family restaurants. This is just an example trip but will give me some idea of what a trip might look like budget wise.


Cars. Uh, used vs. new? What size? How many (where I live most families tend to have 2)? Don't forget the mandatory safety inspection (shaken) which could be annually or every other year depending on the age of the car. Gasoline now runs roughly 140 yen/liter, so how much you spend on that will depend on how much running around you do and the mileage the car gets. Van-type cars get about 9 km/liter (thinking of a family vehicle here).
If we need one, I would say one used family size car for occasional use. I knew about the shaken, is it a set cost or based on something like the age/type of a vehicle?


Medical. You are required to be on some form of national health insurance, whose monthly payments depend on your salary, age, and number of dependents. Figure 2,500 yen/month for one person for the first year, and then 10 times that later, so for a family of 4 that could run 40,000 or so. You will have discounts on children's fees for treatment up to a certain age and depending on where you live, and since NHI is not 100% coverage, every trip to a doctor will cost you 30% of the bill. Childbirth and prenatal care are not covered, but you can get back almost all of it through the government after a child is born (roughly 300,000 yen). You may also qualify for child care benefits, which may offset any of your living costs, but only by a slight amount.
NHI really doesn't cover prenatal care or child birth? That seems surprising since Japan has such a disproportionately large aging population. I heard about the 30% from my wife. Its been a while since she had medical needs there, how bad are the health care costs? Are they as high as in the US? I know it really depends on the type of care/treatment but in general, is that 30% likely to be a pretty high amount?


There are other costs, too, like these:
hair care
magazine/newspaper subscriptions
cable or satellite TV
I should have remembered this one too. I am not a big TV watcher but my wife sometimes is, and I suppose I might watch more if there are some US shows on. On a side note, does anyone know if there is a way to watch Netflix in Japan? I would guess there are some proxy services out there that would let me do so, but does anyone have any recommendations?

dry cleaning
How high are dry cleaning costs? Say for a normal business suite?

children's after-school events and clubs and cram schools
I guess in my mind I was kind of lumping this in with Education. But it makes more sense to break it out into its own category as you have suggested.

Thanks again Glenski and I am looking forward to getting costs and thoughts from others as well!

@Petaris: you can watch Netflix in Japan with unb-us.com with some DNS configuration. There are some similar services that uses DNS (Domain Name System) to trick Netflix into believing your IP address as a US one, but this is the one I'm using. You can listen to Pandora or use Hulu as well. I bought a Western Digital TV Live from Amazon.com (US) and had it shipped directly to my apartment here; you can attach it to your TV and enjoy netflix and hulu plus with ease. Roku is also another good choice, but it doesn't support external hard drive very well (I have a large library on my disk) so I picked the WD TV. Also, if you have a bluray player from US, I think you can install Netflix on it too, and with some IP spoofing service you can enjoy US services. I saw it at my friend's but I have no need of bluray player so I'm not sure of the setup.

By the way, this DNS spoofing directs certain traffic to hide your IP, but the streaming traffic is directly from Netflix to your computer so the quality is really good (given high-speed internet connection here). If you use other VPN services (not DNS spoofing), they're redirect the traffic through their servers first, so typically it's really hard to get HD on netflix. Just speak from my experience after trying several of them.

Sardine cans are very common here, and Japanese are used to them. Heads up.

Insulation is not very well used in Japan. I've heard that Kansai homes are pretty cold in winter, perhaps even worse than up here in Hokkaido.

Fiber optic cable (hikari fiber) and cable high speed are common, but don't be surprised if your home in a rural area has slow speed. It happens.

Transportation. Figure 25,000 per month for public transportation for commuting. The rest is undefined until you actually get here.


Your explanation of "household" is amusing. I lumped those costs under grocery budget.

Yes, international school costs are a killer. Check tokyowithkids.com for tons of info. Mandatory schooling begins with kindergarten, by the way. I am surprised she doesn't know that.

Entertainment. Dinner out with Mom, Dad, and my kid runs 3000 yen at kaizen-zushi or izakaya. Figure roughly 1000 yen a head depending on where you go. Travel to a not-too-distant town, and you could be talking a couple thousand in gas, 7000-8000 per head for hotel (including breakfast), and 500-1500 yen per head for entry fees to zoos or aquariums. Lunch is what you make of it, whether 600 each for McDonalds or convenience store food. Again, your wife should know this.

As for shaken cost, I already answered that.

Health care costs? Why doesn't your wife know any of this or contact her family to ask? How much you have to pay depends entirely on what you have done. VERY ROUGHLY, I will say for most routine things, you might expect 2,000-3,000 yen coming out of your pocket. Things like ingrown toenail treatment, wart removal, flu vaccine, rash exam; add to that about 1,000-2,000 for meds. Obviously, things like MRI will be more (15,000 for one I had recently). General physical could run 5,000, I believe, but you can pay half that if the employer has it done on site.

Dry cleaning. I don't do it very much. Check here. Cost of dry cleaning in Japan [Archive] - Japan Forums

More price info here. Your wife can easily confirm.
Prices in Japan

Thanks again Glenski,

The information you have provided is really useful. I knew that the mandatory schooling started at Kindergarten, I was just guessing at when they start going for a full day instead of half days. Now that you mention it though, my niece went full days here for Kindergarten, so I guess I should have assumed it was that way in Japan too. When I was in Kindergarten it was still half days!

As for the shaken, I guess I was asking if the cost of the inspection was based on the age of the vehicle or number of kilometers, or just on how much needed to be fixed. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Its not a big deal as I don't see us getting a vehicle right away, if we ever get one.

The only thing I have to go off of for insulation in homes is her parents house which is way too cold for my liking in the winter and seems to have absolutely no insulation, but it was built in the mid 70's and I was hoping that might have improved. We don't keep our house hot in the winter but between 68 - 72 usually and of course it is insulated very well. So that will be something to get used to. Her mom has come a couple of times during the winter here and is always surprised how warm the house is compared to the outside temperature which can get quite low in January. I think I remember reading that your from MN originally so I am sure your familiar with those "brisk" January days.

As for my wife asking her family for info, she doesn't want them to know that we are thinking of moving to Japan right now. I suppose she doesn't want them to get too excited in case the plan falls through. And with so many strings involved that is always a possibility. As for the other information that she could find via the internet, well lets not get into that as it would turn into a rant very quickly.

I'll check those links about the education costs and the dry cleaning and thanks a bunch for the info about entertainment, vacation, and health care! It really does help a lot!

I was kind of hoping Davey, FrustratedDave, and others in the Kansai region (wasn't there an OsakaMarie here for a while?) would chime in with some info too.

Thanks again Glenski! I owe you a beverage of choice if we ever meet in person!

"Obviously, things like MRI will be more (15,000 for one I had recently)."

Wow, what a deal! My last MRI cost $2,000 US.

I think OsakaMarie was here primarily to attract attention to her blog. People who come here for that purpose don't hang around long. (Remember "Grinning Studios"?)

I have nothing against international schools, but I do get tired of the automatic assumption that so many people make...."foreign parent" = "kids go to international school".

My kids both went to the same local regular neighborhood public schools that practically every kid around went to. Now they're both in plain old regular Japanese high schools, just like practically all the other kids they went to elementary school and junior high with.

If you decide to plunk down all your cash on one, look into accreditation first. Sometimes there are cases where the education isn't recognized as legit when later going to "regular" schools. Do your research.

I don't think kindergarten is mandatory, but I wouldn't swear to it.

If anyone can explain shaken in detail, it is probably Mike. I will just give you this link and continue to wonder why your wife can't answer.
Motor-vehicle inspection (Japan) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mike,

I do remember Grinning Studios now that you mention him/her.

Its actually my wife that is insistent on international school. The reasons she has given me are because our children would be teased/bullied/demeaned because they are "hafu" and because going to an international school that follows an American curriculum would allow them to attend a US college/university without first having to attend a Japanese university. I am actually fine with them attending public school. I'm not sure how I would even look into the first reason, but the second I plan on looking into, though from working with some foreign exchange students here I know there must be some thing to it.

Glenski,

My wife never had a car in Japan as she lived in central Osaka and never had the need for one. Why she can't/won't check on it is beyond me. Thanks for the link, I really should have tried checking Wikipedia before I asked. Sorry about that!