250,000 a bad salary?

I had a thought on this and wanted to know other peoples thoughts.

So before I came to Japan I watched what feels like millions of videos on youtube and read lots of articles saying how you cant make a living teaching here and how the salaries are usually terrible.

I am married and live in Osaka and make 250,000 a month, which i understand is the industry standard.

I like teaching, have enough free time to enjoy myself, my outgoings are around 60,000 a month so after tax im left with enough to save and live comfortably.

what really surprises me is 250,000 in pounds where im from adds up to around 21,000 pounds a year, which is an okay salary.

I appreciate English teaching doesnt really offer career progression and there are lots of bad companies, but apart from this can anyone explain how 250,000 a month is a bad deal? The main reason i ask is because i always thought to myself i could only stay here for a year then go back home to get a `real` job, but now me and my wife are seriously questioning why we cant stay here.

NOTE - I am in my second year here so pay the full income tax but my employer covers half my insurance, again which i think is normal.

Do you plan to have children?

Do you get free housing, or does your wife make the same amount? I don't understand how you only have expenses of 60,000 a month- when I lived in Osaka just my rent was 60,000!

Honestly 25k a month is a livable salary for many Japanese people as well (many workers start at 18 or 20k), though older people may find it would be hard to raise a family on just that and with most people's budget it's hard to set up savings and a retirement nest egg on that little. If your expenses are really so low however you're doing just fine I'd say.

I have done English teaching also and had around the same salary a month. This work was just temporary since I have just came to Japan, also Osaka. (Yes I have children and I survived well)

Now a few years later I work for a pharmaceutical company. My advise is take the opportunity, and keep your eyes open.

Good luck and believe in yourself

1. We are planning on having a child, then i appreciate of course things will be tight, but my point again, its still okay.

2. all together our rent and utilities are around 90000, i pay 60 and my wife 30.

I personally think living in Japan is amazing!

I don't think that 250,000 yen per month is a bad salary, particularly if you are young. It is higher than the average starting salary for local university graduates who start a full-time job in a company.

What I have heard from people who have taught in English language schools in Japan is: there is no systematic salary raise; some encouraged (or forced) them to sell the school's own study materials to the students; and that the job remains unchanged year after year. So it is not really a career (as you say, no career progression) you can build up, unless you somehow manage to get into university instructions, but that would probably require some graduate school level education on your part.

But I agree, if you say you only spend 60,000 yen a month, the company must be providing you with some accommodation either free of charge or at a preferential rent rate. You cannot assume that this will continue for good.

If your household is only saving 60000 a month, which is 720,000/year, until you retire, you can't send your kids to lessons such as swimming, piano, juku or what not, you can't send them to private high schools, you can't reform your home, you can't deal with emergencies, and you can't get any aid once you're too old to do anything by yourself.

Well, you can, but you need to struggle, and your wife needs to work, or either of your parents need to financially assist you, or you need to expect to inherit their fortune.

But a lot of people do manage. It's just that life won't always be how it is when you're young and healthy and happy and free. And being old, sick, worried and strangled is not that bad either, but you do need more money then.

Sorry if it wasnt clear but my wife works full time in a Japanese company, she is Japanese, and makes around the same as me. She saves 50,000 a month so together we save around 110,000 a month.

Of course as life goes on I am to find other work with bigger challenges and opportunities, but my point is t simply question why people say you cant make money in Japan.

One of the major disadvantages of being an eikaiwa teacher is that you don't get all the te-ate and kousei-nenkin that seishain usually get. But if your wife earns that much, and moreover if she is a seishain and is even allowed ikuji-kyuuka, then your household is pretty much average in Japan.

I guess eikaiwa teacher households also tend to compare life with North America, England and Australia where you tend to be able to live in bigger houses with larger and grassier gardens for the same salary. But housing structures in Japan have improved over the years too.

If your wife earns around as much as you do, then of course you will live comfortably.
The opinions you have read about 250,000 yen not being enough are for single-income households, most probably. With 2 parents and maybe a kid.
Imagine living and raising a kid with ONLY ONE income.

And it was only a decades ago when it wasn't common for women to be able to obtain a decent income after leaving work for birth and childcare. Another thing is that residents in Japan tend to rely on bonuses, so if your jobs don't provide them, it may affect your life in the long run.

Anyway, when I was young I earned about 250000 (I'm not a teacher), and even though my spouse earns way enough for us, 2 decades later I realized that all friends my age were earning a lot more than me (and realized that my spouse wasn't saving as much as I had assumed!) which shook me more than I thought. But this is the life I chose, so I'm proud of it.

The OP also mentions its his second year in Japan, and therefore might only now start paying residence tax as well.

As others have mentioned, 250,000 yen per month living on your own is doable. And now that you mention your wife works full time and you have no kids, you can live quite comfortably.

However, if you continued in your current job for the next 10 years, you won't be earning much more than you are now. Further, in the next 10 years, if you and your wife decide to have children, then expenses will go up. Additionally, you will likely be reduced to a single income for a period of time (perhaps one year or longer depending on maternity leave benefits, whether your wife wants to stay with your child/children rather than put them in daycare, etc.) which could make things very difficult financially.

While I taught English for several years and loved the job, and got paid considerably more than 250,000 a month, I am very thankful I moved on to a job which gives me opportunities for career and salary progression. This puts me and my family in a position of choice (i.e. holidays back home, choice regarding education, extra-curricular activities for the children, etc.)

250k is just a salary that, if managed well, can let you have a respectable lifestyle as a young, carefree, single person. If you could be guaranteed that life will always be stable, that you'll never run into any emergencies, and also commit to a very humble lifestyle, then yes, this is a great salary. But nothing in life is assured, so it's only natural that people look for better sources of income that allow them to save for retirement, to respond better to emergencies and to build a wealth that can secure a good future for their families. You can't do that on a 250k salary in Osaka, much less in Tokyo, and the most probable reason you don't see it this way is because your wife works and contributes just as much as you, thus your household income gets on par with the average.

Many foreigners are willing to temporarily endure these low-paying english teaching positions because very often that's the only (or easiest) way to get legally established in Japan, but I haven't met anybody such naive to believe that this salary will always be enough for life.