Not sure what to do. Savings running out

Hi Folks :)

I though i should post this here and perhaps see any good suggestions for our situation. I'd would like to Thank everyone in advance for reading this.

I've been in Japan for almost 10 years now. I am living here through a spouse visa. My wife is Japanese and we've been married since that time.

My wife's mother was the guarantor for my visa and our apartment.

At the current time i am the only one with an income source. Our total monthly expenses is close to Yen 400,000. The bulk of this is for rent, taxes, pensions and medical insurance, etc.

Although my wife had employment up until 2013, due to some unfortunate circumstances lasting a few months at the place she worked at, i advised her to quit at that time. Perhaps a big mistake on my part. She was earning about Yen 100,000 a month before taxes.

I am self employed and my source of income is through freelance web design and stuff like that.

We've been able to pull through since 2006, and somehow we have managed to survive and pay for all our expenses and save some in the process, and i was lucky enough to generate some good income from 2009 up to the end of 2015.

2015 ended up being a terrible year as i could not get my income back up again. All of last year we were losing about Yen 150,000 each month from our savings. Unfortunately i have not been able to recover and turn my income upwards.

We have a Yen 1000 a day budget for food which includes both my wife and i. Our rent is about Yen 60,000 a month. Water, gas and other utility bills are about Yen Yen 30,000 a month.

The rest is paid to compulsory pension payments, medical insurance and all the taxes. My wife takes a super low Yen 10,000 month allowance. I don't take an allowance.

I work from home in my room right beside where i sleep.

My wife does not want to live in the country where I'm from. By the way with even our low current income, we would be cash positive back home because the cost of living and currency exchange rates would work to our advantage ( I get paid in US dollars ).

During these years my wife and i have had a lot of disputes and arguments over money. She has controlled the books since the time i arrived. She is a honest and decent person, it's just that we have major differences in how to handle and use money. We fight and argue a lot, and almost always it's about money.

To give you an example of how unclear things are, i though we had about Yen 4,000,000 of extra savings back this January according to what she told me at that time. Yesterday as she showed me the books and expenses, our savings was down to Yen 2,500,000. And this does not include my current income of about Yen 200,000 a month. I guess i heard wrong!

Some important things in my life like finances have become very ambiguous since i arrived in Japan. It's just the way things are in our marriage, and i don't agree with being ambiguous about money.

The rapid drain on our savings is now starting to take a toll on our relationship. I feel a lot of stress. I can also see it on her face as well. I don't think i can cut anymore costs because she handles the books. I'm a bit powerless right now.

And in the mean time i estimate if i don't turn things around within a few months, we will be in a very bad situation close to eviction.

To be honest i am not very worried about myself. I am more concerned about my wife. I can live cheap and scale all my costs to get back up. But i can't do this with my wife.

Because I cannot guarantee my income will increase anytime soon. I came up with these 3 options and 2 of them are now out of the question.

1.
Move to my home country . We would immediately be cash positive again. My wife does not agree with this. She likes to live in Japan. ( even for 1 or 2 years back home she disagrees). That's fine i respect that and i can't force anyone to go somewhere against their will.

2.
I cancel my resident visa cutting off all my tax and pension payments. Move back home and work alone from there for a year or so. I would take very limited funds like Yen 200,000 with me and survive bare bones style until i get something working again and re-apply for Japan.

At the same time my wife considers moving in with her Mother ( who lives just 2 blocks away, and if her Mother agrees ). Her Mother has her own large home.

I told my wife she could pay her Mother some rent, and for food and other expenses, etc. and she'll still be able to survive and be cash positive because my current Yen 150,000 ~ Yen 200,000 income will help her cover all that - and the savings won't really need to be touched so there would be some cushion for her.

My wife disagrees with this idea as well because she says it will be bringing some "shame" to her Mother and the neighbours will look down upon them. Hmm...

3.
Same as option 2 except she continues to live in this apartment we are in now and i go back home myself cutting all my Japan based expenses.

About me. I am from the Southeast Asia. I did not complete elementary School so i have no qualifications. I worked my way through life with all sorts of odd jobs to get through.

I know what it feels like to be homeless. My family and i back home have been homeless several times during the 90's. That fear which i had a long time ago is slowly creeping back into my life. I know i will never be able to rid this fear until i become financially independent on my own.

I was fortunate enough to make it to Japan and somehow pull through and survive with my wife these past 10 years. She is a wonderful lady and human being.

We are just very different people when comes to money and i believe what is happening now is the result of our differences.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions.

How is your Japanese? By now you must have a good design portfolio, so you could try to hunt for jobs at design companies, your lack of formal education should not be a problem if your design skills are good since you don't need a work visa.

do you have a breakdown of that 400,000 a month expense figure? that's an awful lot in taxes, and seems very high. can you break down where all that money is going? if your wife isn't working and has no income, she can go to city hall and get reduced pension payments, which she will need to make up later in order to receive her full pension amount, and that might help lessen things a bit. it's a small suggestion, but it might be worth looking into.

I agree with kayjazz - your pension, tax, insurance, etc. payments are all be geared to your income, and they sound suspiciously high.

(In your case they actually seem to be more than your monthly income.)

There's something missing from this picture.

Your options don't include getting another job, changing your job, you getting education or training, and your wife getting a job. Why?

I also agree that 280,000 yen/month is too expensive for compulsory pension payments, medical insurance and all the taxes, even if it includes some kind of private insurance. Have you talked with your local ward office about your problems?

Something does not add up - the food budget (30,000 yen), rent (60,000), utilities (30,000), and your wife's pocket money (10,000) add up only to 130,000. So the remaining 270,000 goes to pension, taxes, and medical insurance?

It may be customary for the wife to keep the "wallet" under control, but that means she has to make efforts to spend wisely, save, and appropriately manage the household finance. It is not meant for her to keep things secret. I think the two of you need to discuss the household finance calmly, and you should get her to disclose her "books" or whatever she calls it. Maybe she signed up with an expensive medical insurance years ago and just kept it, maybe it's a good time to review those hidden (or not so hidden) expenses with her.

Japanese wives tend to have 'secret' savings.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/11/18/national/japanese-wives-sa...

This is not what we would view as deceit but a cultural thing. She will have been taught to do it by her mother as a way of protecting herself in a society that is harsh on women.

That may explain the discrepancy in the figures.

You guys need to have a calm chat about your differing views on money and reach a compromise that you are both happy with. Money is too important for the two of you to simply agree to disagree about it.

Create a portfolio and try to get a secure corporate job with it. Difficult, but not impossible. Try non-Japanese companies first. Look for companies starting big new projects/expanding.

It is pretty normal for several generations of Japanese families to live together. Perhaps the two of you could live with her mother?

Alternatively, get a cheaper apartment, or your wife will need to get a job.

I'd caution against doing anything drastic regarding your visa.

Note that it is easy for Japanese wives to divorce their husbands and vice versa, sometimes by forging a signature. If you move back home, is there any risk your wife might just 'divorce' you, or be pressured to?

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/04/national/social-issues/jap...

As pointed out by many, you should double check on your taxes, pension and medical insurance because it is way too much.

Either you are on expensive private medical insurance, in addition to compulsory National Health Insurance, or you may have done something wrong with your tax return.

Or you freelance incomes is a lot hence high taxes etc.

Your wife needs to go get a job. Even at a McDonald's or a combini. At least it will bring in some money.

As others have said, your expenses seem strangely high.
Your total monthly expense is 400,000 yen a month, and out of that only 90,000 comes from rent and utilities? 10,000 yen to your wife plus 30,000 yen a month for food. So you are saying you are spending 270,000 yen a month on just pension and medical insurance? I would look into that more.

Is your wife unable to get another job? Even just working at say a convenience store she should be able to pull in another 100,000 yen a month.
And you are self employed via web design you said right? If your income is down, is that because you aren't getting as much work? If you can speak Japanese, are you able to maybe get a part time job or something for more work?

Hello

There is no way you are paying that amount for taxes. Are you actually paying that yourself or is your wife in charge of it? what you are actually saying is that you earn around 200.000 yen and pay 270.000 of taxes. That's just not possible. I'm a freelance myself, the amount you pay for a month i'm paying it in like 4 month.

"I'm a freelance myself, the amount you pay for a month i'm paying it in like 4 month."

I forgot to mention my average income is about 400/450.000 a month. Now i know there are different situations, myself have kids for example, or there could be mistakes from the tax office, but that 270.000 yen you pay for taxes and stuff is just insane. There is clearly something else going on there.

Hope the best for you.

Hi again

I also wanted to add. 200.000 yen a month is not fantastic but also not that bad. i believe you could survive in japan. You are probably not going to save anything and will not live in Tokyo for sure. But should manage to survive with those money in a middle size city. As a freelance you can also deduct a lot of thing from taxes, did you know? I did pay my income tax yesterday. Since my workplace is my home they deducted a lot of things, such as rent, internet bills, electricity bills..... And one last curiosity, you said you been living in japan for 10 years. When your work was going very well, how much taxes were you paying at the time?