How much do I need to live in Japan

How poor I'll be if my offered salary to work in Japan is 4,500,00 yen a year. I have a wife and two kids and I am not sure if this offer id good or bad

Are you saying that your yearly salary is 450,000 yen? Or is this 4.5 million yen?

If it is 450,000 yen, you can hardly survive...It is only 2 months or 3 months worth salary.

If you make anything less then 280,000 yen per month it will be tight.

As another person wrote really depends where you live. Will you be expected to pay for your own accommodation? If the company provides you with a house or apartment, this salary is all right but if you need to find your own housing, it will be very very tight. It also depends how you live, e.g. food, education, etc. If the salary is 4.5 million/year, that is roughly 400,000 yen/month.

I am worried because I have 2 children with me, plus my husband who will not be entitled to work while we are there. So Japan sound like something wonderful for my kids (11 and 8)also for my career, (I'll be taking a teaching position in the University) but...will we be able to pay for food. What about health care, housing will be provided by my employer, but I suppose that I'll have to pay a private school , my children are fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese only, no Asian language at all. I do not know, I not sure if the right thing to do is going to the land of the raising sun? I want to, but ...

Your kids could be homeschooled, by your husband if his not working. I know a family thats living in japan and are homeschooling their kids.

In a large city it would be very difficult to support a family of 4 on that amount- I wouldn't do it.

The spouse of someone on a working visa in Japan can apply for permission to work part-time- without that extra income I would say it is virtually impossible. In any case you would be close to the poverty line and struggling. Unless you already have considerable savings it would be difficult to save enough to fly home in case of an emergency as well.

When you say that housing will be provided by employer, does that mean you'll pay no rent? 4.5 mil, no rent, and family of 4 wouldn't be anywhere near poverty level. Plenty of Japanese live here with less. But I'm single with no kids, so what do I know?

Sorry, I missed that housing was included. Still I think it would not be easy for a family of 4 to live on that amount in a large city.

From what I have read, international schools in Tokyo cost in the area of 1 million yen per year per child, so that would take a rather large chunk out of your income.

I used to work with a guy whose wife had just had a baby- he earned slightly less than 4.5 million yen a year and he said they were seriously struggling to make ends meet. He didn't have housing provided but having 2 older children adds a lot to the expenses I would say.

I recommend looking at the Being a Broad site and www.tokyowithkids.com site as they are set up with people like you in mind and provide a lot of useful information.

My dear unknown friends,
I sincerely appreciate the time and the advice. Is wonderful that out there is people willing to help out a fellow human being. Finally we'll not go to Japan, too much of a risk for us, and our children. I'll love to live the experience and to give my children the chance to experience it too, but odds are that my marriage won't survive the deal. My partner is growing too apart from me and I rather stay and try to figure thing out.
Thanks guys, best to you all.