About a month ago, I got a new student who is looking to increase her skill base in order to make a career change from a pharmaceutical industry office job to a job in journalism. This is her dream job and she's currently got her toe in the water transcribing taped interviews for a lifestyle magazine as a freelancer.
I've spoken to her a few times about why she hasn't been able to get the writing job she wants and she said that the piece she submitted to the publication she wants to work for was "evaluated" and she was told she doesn't have enough "skill". When I asked her what about her skill was lacking, she told me that she couldn't offer the ability to speak English, work with Adobe Illustrator, etc. When I asked her what specifically was wrong with her writing since she didn't need any extra skills beyond a proper writing style to submit articles, she just went back to saying the company said she didn't have sufficient skills.
Since I worked at a job for over a decade where I worked in authoring, copy editing, laying out, and doing graphics work for publishing books, I can see where a company might want someone who could deliver a broad package of abilities. However, my company was a small one which operated on a tight budget and not all publishers do everything in house. In fact, my student told me that (she believed) the magazine she was hoping to work for had separate divisions for things like design so she didn't think she'd have to deal with much beyond writing.
In the end, I talked to her about some of the steps that lead from content creation to final product and noticed that she was relatively ignorant of the process. She had a vague notion that there was content in Microsoft Word document files which got put into Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator and, voila, instant magazine. Despite the fact that she wanted to work in the publishing industry, she was unaware of what went into making a magazine and was utterly unaware of desktop publishing software of any kind and the role it plays in 99.9% of publishing. (I don't say 100% because some people do short-length publication layout in Adobe Illustrator only.) In the end, I rather wondered if her ignorance of the industry was part of what was preventing her from getting the job. Perhaps the company wanted people working for them who at least had some idea of what was involved even if they didn't personally need to perform those tasks. After all, knowing the process helps you understand the limits and specific needs of jobs that are interconnected in producing a final product.
This situation reminded me of the fact that, when we're young, we all have dreams of things we'd like to do but we often have little understanding of what it takes to achieve those dreams. We look at the final result or the aura of success or glamor surrounding a job and say, "I want that," but don't think about or know the hurdles we have to jump through to get there. Sometimes I wonder if part of what kills dreams is that you find out that the path between forming the dream and realizing it require a lot more effort and is a lot more tedious than imagined. By the time you do what it takes to make a dream come true, it's made the transition from something lofty and exciting to the mundane status of "job".
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Monday, February 04, 2008
Sunday, January 06, 2008
"Japan Isn't Expensive"
Any assertion one makes will be at some point refuted by another. It doesn't matter how obvious or true a statement may be (or appear to be), there's always a naysayer waiting in the wings to "prove" you wrong. As of late, I've run across several instances of foreign folks intent on proving that the cost of living in Japan isn't all that bad despite the world-wide press to the contrary.
In my experiences with such claims, they take approaches which are not valid. Some of them compare the price of goods in "Japan" (meaning whichever city or town they happen to live in) to the price of goods in their home countries. Others add up their personal tabs for living here and subtract it from their salaries to show an impressive remainder. Both of these approaches are flawed though for rather different reasons.
Cost of living is always relative to location, even within the same country. For instance, an annual salary of around $50,000 for a person living in Silicon Valley in California is buying himself about the same lifestyle as a person making $20,000 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Japan, rural life is cheaper than urban life and life in Tokyo isn't the same as life in Kobe when it comes to costs. You can't compare any given country's average costs for food, rent, etc. to Japan's because cost of living is relative to location domestically and doing so internationally has no relevance whatsoever. Saying a liter of milk costs $1.50 in Japan and a quart of milk in America about $1 doesn't say anything about how expensive either country is because it doesn't look at the cost relative to average salaries, rent, etc.
The approach to gauging the expense of Japan by tallying up all of ones living expenses and subtracting it from one's salary is a more reasonable one but is still flawed. One of the biggest reasons for this is that most foreign folks forget, ignore, or don't pay some expenses that long term residents (and Japanese nationals) have to pay. The gaijin intent on proving his point about how Japan isn't expensive commonly includes rent, utilities, and food in his calculations, but ignores things like the need to buy new clothes and replace durable goods through time. This is because most foreign folks come over here with a suitcase or two full of new clothes and shoes and move into furnished apartments. They tend to go home before things wear out, but a real reflection of the cost of living has to include ongoing expenses of normal people, not just temporary costs. If you start factoring in the costs for shoes, clothes, and the odd replacement appliance here and there, things get a bit pricier on average. After all, that is a part of the cost of living everywhere.
What is more, the foreign people who come over here for a year or who move around a lot often never pay regular expenses that people who stay in one place for more than a year start having to pony up the dough for. Since health insurance is assessed at a very low flat rate the first year (around 1000 yen a month) and calculated on income the second year and ward taxes calculated only after one year of residence in the same ward, people who move after one year to a different ward or just go home never factor in these expenses. Each ward calculates such expenses differently, but they are roughly around 5% for taxes and 10% for health insurance in Tokyo wards.
Here is a rough example: On an income of 250,000 yen a month, that's another 37,5000 yen off the top every single month as you go into your second year. That's a pretty healthy chunk of change to be ponying up and it doesn't go away once it starts. What is more, you're also supposed to pay up for the year you're behind before you leave your ward or go back to your home country. That means there's a combined balloon payment of about 450,000 yen waiting for you before you leave unless you decide to skip out on the bill. Things start to look a lot more expensive in Japan when you start factoring in ward taxes and health insurance payments calculated at their real rates rather than just looking at the cost during the one year calculation period.
What is more, most folks who tally up their monthly costs tend to dismiss certain expenses as "unnecessary" in their attempts to prove how cheap it is to live here. If you mention the cost of cable television or high speed Internet, for instance, they personally see no need for such things and won't factor them into their tallies. In fact, any expense which they personally don't have isn't a valid cost in their eyes even though many people back home and in Japan find monthly expenditures on gym memberships for fitness (which is actually more necessary in Japan because small places don't easily accommodate exercise gear), cable, and Internet quite reasonable parts of their budget. Ironically, some of these optional expenses are actually lower in Japan than some other countries and would help support their points but including them ups the total too much and leaves the remaining salary total at a less impressive number. (Note: I'll list a few of these at the end for the sake of comparison.)
Depending on the rules and regulations of your home country, there is also an opportunity cost for living in Japan. People who settle here permanently pay into the pension system, but few foreign folks plan to be around for 20 years so they can collect on it. Also, frankly, the entire system is a pretty bad deal all around where you end up collecting such a puny return on your investment that it'd take a decade to begin to get back anywhere near what you put into it. At any rate, every year you work in Japan is a year you don't pay into your pension system at home and could be undermining your future retirement fund. You should be factoring in some savings every month to build up a pension fund, but most foreign folks (though not all and certainly not the real long timers) just see that they only pay about 6% federal tax on their pay checks and count their blessings. Japanese folks are losing a lot more than you because they live in the "real" Japan where they have the same sort of responsibilities and tax burdens as you did as a real citizen back home.
The more reasonable approach to viewing how expensive life is would be to compare percentages of your income that various fixed expenses (rent, food, etc.) are consuming. Back in the U.S., people pay an average of 21% of their income on housing. Food costs similarly tend to take up a certain percentage of your income. I can't speak for other areas of Japan as I've not lived all over the place, but I can say that Tokyo rent can take up to 25% or more of a person's income (in most cases). Food has actually been getting cheaper since we first moved here though it is still costing us a greater percentage of our income compared to back home. Unfortunately, costs of food in Japan are going to increase in 2008 after decades of stable or falling prices. Milk prices have already gone up about 10 yen per liter and other prices are set to follow.
All that being said, a lot of the comparisons between life in Japan and life in other western countries that you read about in newspapers or from authoritative sources on economic situations tend to be rather unrealistic as well because they ignore cross-cultural lifestyle issues and attempt to shoehorn western notions of comfort into the Japanese cost of living picture. They look at the costs of a place with a larger footprint than is average, a car, gasoline, etc., but one doesn't really need these things in urban areas in Japan (where life is the most expensive). Life can be (relatively) comfortable here taking public transportation because the system is so much better implemented than in countries where the population density is sparser. However, it's still a huge pain cramming onto crowded trains and schlepping back and forth to stations, especially if you're carrying heavy or bulky items you have shopped for and having to always use public transport does have an element of degrading your quality of life.
Even if you ignore the quality of life issues which tend to inflate comparisons, living in Japan is expensive though what one tends to find is that you get used to scaling back your lifestyle to fit into the economic picture and eventually feel like it isn't so expensive or so much of a problem. Also, since many people come here with notions of outrageous prices, anything less than that seems downright cheap by comparison. It isn't so much that Japan is actually inexpensive to live in but rather that most foreigners learn to adapt to a lifestyle which allows them to live with the higher expense comfortably.
******************
Here are some figures for comparison (note the salaries at the end to consider percentages):
Monthly fixed expenses (in Tokyo in my ward):
ADSL (50 Mbps) Internet access: 400 yen for modem rental, 1250 yen for ISP server space, 2600 yen for service = 4250 yen (~$39)
Cable television: 2600 yen (~$24)
Water = (a bill of about 8100 yen comes every two months) 4050 yen (~$37)
Gym membership: (depends on the plan-early morning plans are cheap, evening and all day plans are expensive) 5,000-10,000 yen (~$46-$92)
Health insurance: 10% of income with a cap of around 530,000 yen ($4700) annually
Ward taxes: 5% of income
(Note: Health insurance premiums were raised on low income folks last year and lowered on higher income folks in our ward so health insurance is 6% if you make around 500,000 yen a month or more and higher (10%) if you make 200,000 yen or less.)
Monthly variable expenses (in Tokyo in my ward) averaged out for comparison:
Electricity: (higher in summer, lower in winter) 7,500 yen (~$69)
Gas: (lower in summer, higher in winter) 6,000 (~$55)
Rent: (higher in my area because of its proximity to major train and subway lines and to central downtown Tokyo) 80,000 - 130,000 yen ($736-$1200)
Usual salaries:
Eikaiwa (English conversation schools): 250,000-350,000 yen ($2300-$3221)
*Office Ladies: 200,000-250,000 yen
*Contract employees: 250,000-400,000 yen (depends greatly on the type of work and skills of the worker)
*Salaried workers: 300,000 yen-600,000 yen (depends greatly on seniority, industry, and experience)
University teachers: 450,000-600,000 yen ($3680-$5522)
*These are not jobs foreign folks tend to do (unless their Japanese is good enough to function in a capacity similar to Japanese workers) but are included for reference. These figures include twice yearly bonus payments which tend to increase the average monthly salaries by about 30% in most cases and about 50% in a few cases.
******************
You may note that there is much more variability in the salaries of positions for Japanese staff than the typical work for foreign workers doing work which requires a university education and that I don't include unskilled labor in this list. In the case of the latter, I don't include it because foreign workers who do unskilled labor generally don't shoulder the burden of their costs of living alone (nor do unskilled Japanese workers, for that matter). Also, I frankly have very little experience with such workers. I can only say that the minimum wage in Tokyo tends to be about 1000 yen an hour but only college and high school kids are expected to take jobs in that pay range. I cannot say for sure, but I believe unskilled (legal) foreign laborers tend to make about 150,000 yen a month in Tokyo. Illegal foreign workers make about 10,000 yen a day.
However, research on the Internet shows that skilled "blue collar" laborers are not so badly paid:
In fact, if these figures are correct, they are paid more than I was when I worked in a Japanese office (I used to make about 14,000 yen a day).
The main difference between teachers and regular Japanese employees is that teachers and some foreign employees salaries tend to remain flat (or at least be capped at a relatively lower salary) regardless of seniority whereas Japanese staff tend to see consistent upward movement in their salaries. That being said, teachers and foreign employees tend to start at a somewhat higher salary to begin with than a freshman Japanese employee.
And finally, before I get a ton of comments from people saying they know a thousand Japanese people who are making much less than teachers, keep in mind that the average complaining Japanese staff person will indicate their salary to you sans bonus figures (and you don't get the bonuses they do). The vast majority of Japanese staff members get a summer and winter bonus of about 2 months salary (sometimes more, and on rare occasions less). That means that for every 12 paychecks you get, they are actually getting 16 paychecks. They just aren't getting all of their salary on a monthly basis so a person who claims they are poor because they receive 200,000 yen a month actually makes 266,666 yen a month once her bonus is factored in as monthly pay.
In my experiences with such claims, they take approaches which are not valid. Some of them compare the price of goods in "Japan" (meaning whichever city or town they happen to live in) to the price of goods in their home countries. Others add up their personal tabs for living here and subtract it from their salaries to show an impressive remainder. Both of these approaches are flawed though for rather different reasons.
Cost of living is always relative to location, even within the same country. For instance, an annual salary of around $50,000 for a person living in Silicon Valley in California is buying himself about the same lifestyle as a person making $20,000 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In Japan, rural life is cheaper than urban life and life in Tokyo isn't the same as life in Kobe when it comes to costs. You can't compare any given country's average costs for food, rent, etc. to Japan's because cost of living is relative to location domestically and doing so internationally has no relevance whatsoever. Saying a liter of milk costs $1.50 in Japan and a quart of milk in America about $1 doesn't say anything about how expensive either country is because it doesn't look at the cost relative to average salaries, rent, etc.
The approach to gauging the expense of Japan by tallying up all of ones living expenses and subtracting it from one's salary is a more reasonable one but is still flawed. One of the biggest reasons for this is that most foreign folks forget, ignore, or don't pay some expenses that long term residents (and Japanese nationals) have to pay. The gaijin intent on proving his point about how Japan isn't expensive commonly includes rent, utilities, and food in his calculations, but ignores things like the need to buy new clothes and replace durable goods through time. This is because most foreign folks come over here with a suitcase or two full of new clothes and shoes and move into furnished apartments. They tend to go home before things wear out, but a real reflection of the cost of living has to include ongoing expenses of normal people, not just temporary costs. If you start factoring in the costs for shoes, clothes, and the odd replacement appliance here and there, things get a bit pricier on average. After all, that is a part of the cost of living everywhere.
What is more, the foreign people who come over here for a year or who move around a lot often never pay regular expenses that people who stay in one place for more than a year start having to pony up the dough for. Since health insurance is assessed at a very low flat rate the first year (around 1000 yen a month) and calculated on income the second year and ward taxes calculated only after one year of residence in the same ward, people who move after one year to a different ward or just go home never factor in these expenses. Each ward calculates such expenses differently, but they are roughly around 5% for taxes and 10% for health insurance in Tokyo wards.
Here is a rough example: On an income of 250,000 yen a month, that's another 37,5000 yen off the top every single month as you go into your second year. That's a pretty healthy chunk of change to be ponying up and it doesn't go away once it starts. What is more, you're also supposed to pay up for the year you're behind before you leave your ward or go back to your home country. That means there's a combined balloon payment of about 450,000 yen waiting for you before you leave unless you decide to skip out on the bill. Things start to look a lot more expensive in Japan when you start factoring in ward taxes and health insurance payments calculated at their real rates rather than just looking at the cost during the one year calculation period.
What is more, most folks who tally up their monthly costs tend to dismiss certain expenses as "unnecessary" in their attempts to prove how cheap it is to live here. If you mention the cost of cable television or high speed Internet, for instance, they personally see no need for such things and won't factor them into their tallies. In fact, any expense which they personally don't have isn't a valid cost in their eyes even though many people back home and in Japan find monthly expenditures on gym memberships for fitness (which is actually more necessary in Japan because small places don't easily accommodate exercise gear), cable, and Internet quite reasonable parts of their budget. Ironically, some of these optional expenses are actually lower in Japan than some other countries and would help support their points but including them ups the total too much and leaves the remaining salary total at a less impressive number. (Note: I'll list a few of these at the end for the sake of comparison.)
Depending on the rules and regulations of your home country, there is also an opportunity cost for living in Japan. People who settle here permanently pay into the pension system, but few foreign folks plan to be around for 20 years so they can collect on it. Also, frankly, the entire system is a pretty bad deal all around where you end up collecting such a puny return on your investment that it'd take a decade to begin to get back anywhere near what you put into it. At any rate, every year you work in Japan is a year you don't pay into your pension system at home and could be undermining your future retirement fund. You should be factoring in some savings every month to build up a pension fund, but most foreign folks (though not all and certainly not the real long timers) just see that they only pay about 6% federal tax on their pay checks and count their blessings. Japanese folks are losing a lot more than you because they live in the "real" Japan where they have the same sort of responsibilities and tax burdens as you did as a real citizen back home.
The more reasonable approach to viewing how expensive life is would be to compare percentages of your income that various fixed expenses (rent, food, etc.) are consuming. Back in the U.S., people pay an average of 21% of their income on housing. Food costs similarly tend to take up a certain percentage of your income. I can't speak for other areas of Japan as I've not lived all over the place, but I can say that Tokyo rent can take up to 25% or more of a person's income (in most cases). Food has actually been getting cheaper since we first moved here though it is still costing us a greater percentage of our income compared to back home. Unfortunately, costs of food in Japan are going to increase in 2008 after decades of stable or falling prices. Milk prices have already gone up about 10 yen per liter and other prices are set to follow.
All that being said, a lot of the comparisons between life in Japan and life in other western countries that you read about in newspapers or from authoritative sources on economic situations tend to be rather unrealistic as well because they ignore cross-cultural lifestyle issues and attempt to shoehorn western notions of comfort into the Japanese cost of living picture. They look at the costs of a place with a larger footprint than is average, a car, gasoline, etc., but one doesn't really need these things in urban areas in Japan (where life is the most expensive). Life can be (relatively) comfortable here taking public transportation because the system is so much better implemented than in countries where the population density is sparser. However, it's still a huge pain cramming onto crowded trains and schlepping back and forth to stations, especially if you're carrying heavy or bulky items you have shopped for and having to always use public transport does have an element of degrading your quality of life.
Even if you ignore the quality of life issues which tend to inflate comparisons, living in Japan is expensive though what one tends to find is that you get used to scaling back your lifestyle to fit into the economic picture and eventually feel like it isn't so expensive or so much of a problem. Also, since many people come here with notions of outrageous prices, anything less than that seems downright cheap by comparison. It isn't so much that Japan is actually inexpensive to live in but rather that most foreigners learn to adapt to a lifestyle which allows them to live with the higher expense comfortably.
******************
Here are some figures for comparison (note the salaries at the end to consider percentages):
Monthly fixed expenses (in Tokyo in my ward):
ADSL (50 Mbps) Internet access: 400 yen for modem rental, 1250 yen for ISP server space, 2600 yen for service = 4250 yen (~$39)
Cable television: 2600 yen (~$24)
Water = (a bill of about 8100 yen comes every two months) 4050 yen (~$37)
Gym membership: (depends on the plan-early morning plans are cheap, evening and all day plans are expensive) 5,000-10,000 yen (~$46-$92)
Health insurance: 10% of income with a cap of around 530,000 yen ($4700) annually
Ward taxes: 5% of income
(Note: Health insurance premiums were raised on low income folks last year and lowered on higher income folks in our ward so health insurance is 6% if you make around 500,000 yen a month or more and higher (10%) if you make 200,000 yen or less.)
Monthly variable expenses (in Tokyo in my ward) averaged out for comparison:
Electricity: (higher in summer, lower in winter) 7,500 yen (~$69)
Gas: (lower in summer, higher in winter) 6,000 (~$55)
Rent: (higher in my area because of its proximity to major train and subway lines and to central downtown Tokyo) 80,000 - 130,000 yen ($736-$1200)
Usual salaries:
Eikaiwa (English conversation schools): 250,000-350,000 yen ($2300-$3221)
*Office Ladies: 200,000-250,000 yen
*Contract employees: 250,000-400,000 yen (depends greatly on the type of work and skills of the worker)
*Salaried workers: 300,000 yen-600,000 yen (depends greatly on seniority, industry, and experience)
University teachers: 450,000-600,000 yen ($3680-$5522)
*These are not jobs foreign folks tend to do (unless their Japanese is good enough to function in a capacity similar to Japanese workers) but are included for reference. These figures include twice yearly bonus payments which tend to increase the average monthly salaries by about 30% in most cases and about 50% in a few cases.
******************
You may note that there is much more variability in the salaries of positions for Japanese staff than the typical work for foreign workers doing work which requires a university education and that I don't include unskilled labor in this list. In the case of the latter, I don't include it because foreign workers who do unskilled labor generally don't shoulder the burden of their costs of living alone (nor do unskilled Japanese workers, for that matter). Also, I frankly have very little experience with such workers. I can only say that the minimum wage in Tokyo tends to be about 1000 yen an hour but only college and high school kids are expected to take jobs in that pay range. I cannot say for sure, but I believe unskilled (legal) foreign laborers tend to make about 150,000 yen a month in Tokyo. Illegal foreign workers make about 10,000 yen a day.
However, research on the Internet shows that skilled "blue collar" laborers are not so badly paid:
| Bricklayers | 17,700 |
| Carpenters | 21,900 |
| Electricians | 17,700 |
| Plumbers/pipefitters | 17.600 |
| Sheetmetal workers | 15,900 |
| Structural iron/steel workers | 16,100 |
Rates reported in Japanese yen per 8 hour day.
Source: Japan Society of Cost and Project Engineers, November 2004.
In fact, if these figures are correct, they are paid more than I was when I worked in a Japanese office (I used to make about 14,000 yen a day).
The main difference between teachers and regular Japanese employees is that teachers and some foreign employees salaries tend to remain flat (or at least be capped at a relatively lower salary) regardless of seniority whereas Japanese staff tend to see consistent upward movement in their salaries. That being said, teachers and foreign employees tend to start at a somewhat higher salary to begin with than a freshman Japanese employee.
And finally, before I get a ton of comments from people saying they know a thousand Japanese people who are making much less than teachers, keep in mind that the average complaining Japanese staff person will indicate their salary to you sans bonus figures (and you don't get the bonuses they do). The vast majority of Japanese staff members get a summer and winter bonus of about 2 months salary (sometimes more, and on rare occasions less). That means that for every 12 paychecks you get, they are actually getting 16 paychecks. They just aren't getting all of their salary on a monthly basis so a person who claims they are poor because they receive 200,000 yen a month actually makes 266,666 yen a month once her bonus is factored in as monthly pay.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Budget "Remodeling"
During the time we've been in our apartment, I've probably changed the furniture around in a wholesale fashion at least 6 times. Usually, it involves rotating around every piece in a room and sometimes totally swapping around furniture from one room to the other. I do this, in part, because women like to do this. I don't know why but it's often joked about in T.V. shows. For instance, in an episode of "The Simpsons", there's a bachelor auction and Apu proves how attractive he will be to single women by saying he likes to make furniture, place it in different parts of a room and then discuss how it looks.
The other reason I like to do this is that it usually completely changes the look of the place, even when the pieces being used are old ones we've had for years. It's a form of cheap remodeling. I also feel that each move makes the apartment look better. I think that finding a "perfect" layout is like the mathematical notion that the universe is growing colder and will approach absolute zero but can never reach it. I can keep moving the furniture around and it approaches a perfect state but it'll never reach it. That doesn't mean it isn't worth continuing to try.
Every time I've done this sort of work, it's gotten harder and harder for me to manage. I always do it alone because my husband tends to be pretty confused and also the dust that gets kicked up sends him into coughing fits which can rapidly turn into a bad asthma attack. It's simply unrealistic for him to do more than help move the heaviest items (which he kindly does and will do this time as well). Given that I have to do it alone and I get fatigued more rapidly than I used to (and I have a bad back), I've learned to break the work apart into stages which do not leave the place in a chaotic state as I progress.
Even if you don't have my physical limits, these steps are helpful in making the job go more smoothly and perhaps in refining your plans and getting a better result. They'll also almost certainly make the process cheaper, more thorough and less tiring.
Step 1:
Measure everything including the height of your pieces. Draw up a plan if you can using computer software. I usually use Illustrator and convert centimeter measurements to millimeters so everything is to scale. I then reduce the size of the entire graphic by one-half or one-third so I can print it. Try to visualize the "landscape" you're about to create in terms of how the tops of items will appear on the wall in addition to how it will fit on the floor. While considering the "landscape", consider how your wall space is going to look particularly in terms of the blank spots and how you can decorate them. Try to consider whether or not the line the tops of items make across the wall will look ragged or unbalanced. You can change the order of items to improve the "landscape" to make it appear the most attractive. Generally speaking, tall pieces are best on both ends and short pieces in the middle.
"Live" with your plan for a few days or so and let it roll around in your mind. You may find that better ideas occur if you sleep on it.
I was able to completely empty out this DVD shelf because I tossed out a ton of outdated computer equipment and my husband got rid of a bunch of books. I moved the DVDs into the space vacated by other items.
Step 2:
Go absolutely crazy de-cluttering. Toss out everything you haven't used for a year or two. Doing this will make the process of moving things much easier and possibly free up space/furnishings for other uses. Since most shelves have to be emptied, moved, then filled back up again, you have to manipulate less junk by de-cluttering before the swap. You'll probably also find you have some breathing room for decorative objects if you toss some junk that is choking your shelves.
Once you de-clutter, re-consider your plan and whether or not you can ditch any pieces of furniture entirely or you can re-purpose in some creative or more utilitarian fashion. In my case, the move I'm planning will force me to give up using part of my closet as a desk so I'll lose surface area behind the desk. I really want to keep my free desk space so I decided that I'd attempt to store things up and down rather than behind the desk.
Since I'm not looking to spend money, I re-purposed my now empty DVD shelf by removing the back piece (so wires can fall behind the shelf). In the picture above, it's set up above my desk with a cavernous closet behind it so it looks somewhat unstable. It's mainly held in place by the weight of the monitor. After the move, it'll not only be flat up against a wall but I'll be solidifying it's position with self-adhesive Velcro strips attached to the wall and shelf. I'll also be adding the router and DSL modem to the top shelf in the final move so that all the computer equipment will be close together (unlike now where it spans two different rooms).
Step 3:
Fine tune the placement of your shelves before the move. This may seem pointless because you will have to remove items, move shelves and put everything back in them. However, I have found that leaving this until the end of having moved everything leaves you with a great many niggling little tasks which you are too tired and over-stimulated (and possibly dirty) from the move to deal with. In the past, I've left these changes until the end and found that I have a bed covered in crap I need to put away and no energy to deal with sorting it out and messing with moving shelves.
This also has the additional benefit of allowing you to clean every shelf and dust items beforehand. If you're like me, you may be pretty good about dusting what is easy to reach but the back of your shelves and a lot of your items are covered in dust. If you clean everything up before hand, moving things will see less dust falling on you and the floor when you move each piece of furniture.
Step 4:
Clean walls, carpets, tops of tall pieces of furniture and windows systematically a bit at a time as much as possible so you won't have to do it all at once. Even if you don't get as fatigued as I, you'll find you clean more thoroughly if you do a bit at a time. Of course, there are some spots you won't be able to reach but you can do those when you do the move.
Step 5:
After you've done the cleaning, you can evaluate what you may want to pay for to improve the look of the room. In my case, I bought a new carpet though I'd probably paint the room as well if I thought I could handle it physically alone. I'll have to settle for washing the walls as best I can. You may also want to buy cleaning supplies or other incidental items that you'll use in setting up the new arrangement. I had to buy super-long Velcro strips, a rug cutter, and some cable ties which I hope to employ to control the snarled cable spaghetti I can't seem to avoid no matter how careful I am. I also bought a frame for a poster I want to put up.
When this is completed, the entire move will likely cost me ¥15,000 in supplies ($121) and occur across about two weeks of time. The bulk of that expense is in the carpet (which cost ¥9,500/$77). It'll likely be completed next Tuesday and I'll post a new guided tour of the apartment shortly thereafter and you can decide for yourself if it is an improved look or not.
The other reason I like to do this is that it usually completely changes the look of the place, even when the pieces being used are old ones we've had for years. It's a form of cheap remodeling. I also feel that each move makes the apartment look better. I think that finding a "perfect" layout is like the mathematical notion that the universe is growing colder and will approach absolute zero but can never reach it. I can keep moving the furniture around and it approaches a perfect state but it'll never reach it. That doesn't mean it isn't worth continuing to try.
Every time I've done this sort of work, it's gotten harder and harder for me to manage. I always do it alone because my husband tends to be pretty confused and also the dust that gets kicked up sends him into coughing fits which can rapidly turn into a bad asthma attack. It's simply unrealistic for him to do more than help move the heaviest items (which he kindly does and will do this time as well). Given that I have to do it alone and I get fatigued more rapidly than I used to (and I have a bad back), I've learned to break the work apart into stages which do not leave the place in a chaotic state as I progress.
Even if you don't have my physical limits, these steps are helpful in making the job go more smoothly and perhaps in refining your plans and getting a better result. They'll also almost certainly make the process cheaper, more thorough and less tiring.
Step 1:
Measure everything including the height of your pieces. Draw up a plan if you can using computer software. I usually use Illustrator and convert centimeter measurements to millimeters so everything is to scale. I then reduce the size of the entire graphic by one-half or one-third so I can print it. Try to visualize the "landscape" you're about to create in terms of how the tops of items will appear on the wall in addition to how it will fit on the floor. While considering the "landscape", consider how your wall space is going to look particularly in terms of the blank spots and how you can decorate them. Try to consider whether or not the line the tops of items make across the wall will look ragged or unbalanced. You can change the order of items to improve the "landscape" to make it appear the most attractive. Generally speaking, tall pieces are best on both ends and short pieces in the middle.
"Live" with your plan for a few days or so and let it roll around in your mind. You may find that better ideas occur if you sleep on it.
I was able to completely empty out this DVD shelf because I tossed out a ton of outdated computer equipment and my husband got rid of a bunch of books. I moved the DVDs into the space vacated by other items. Step 2:
Go absolutely crazy de-cluttering. Toss out everything you haven't used for a year or two. Doing this will make the process of moving things much easier and possibly free up space/furnishings for other uses. Since most shelves have to be emptied, moved, then filled back up again, you have to manipulate less junk by de-cluttering before the swap. You'll probably also find you have some breathing room for decorative objects if you toss some junk that is choking your shelves.
Once you de-clutter, re-consider your plan and whether or not you can ditch any pieces of furniture entirely or you can re-purpose in some creative or more utilitarian fashion. In my case, the move I'm planning will force me to give up using part of my closet as a desk so I'll lose surface area behind the desk. I really want to keep my free desk space so I decided that I'd attempt to store things up and down rather than behind the desk.
Since I'm not looking to spend money, I re-purposed my now empty DVD shelf by removing the back piece (so wires can fall behind the shelf). In the picture above, it's set up above my desk with a cavernous closet behind it so it looks somewhat unstable. It's mainly held in place by the weight of the monitor. After the move, it'll not only be flat up against a wall but I'll be solidifying it's position with self-adhesive Velcro strips attached to the wall and shelf. I'll also be adding the router and DSL modem to the top shelf in the final move so that all the computer equipment will be close together (unlike now where it spans two different rooms).
Step 3:
Fine tune the placement of your shelves before the move. This may seem pointless because you will have to remove items, move shelves and put everything back in them. However, I have found that leaving this until the end of having moved everything leaves you with a great many niggling little tasks which you are too tired and over-stimulated (and possibly dirty) from the move to deal with. In the past, I've left these changes until the end and found that I have a bed covered in crap I need to put away and no energy to deal with sorting it out and messing with moving shelves.
This also has the additional benefit of allowing you to clean every shelf and dust items beforehand. If you're like me, you may be pretty good about dusting what is easy to reach but the back of your shelves and a lot of your items are covered in dust. If you clean everything up before hand, moving things will see less dust falling on you and the floor when you move each piece of furniture.
Step 4:
Clean walls, carpets, tops of tall pieces of furniture and windows systematically a bit at a time as much as possible so you won't have to do it all at once. Even if you don't get as fatigued as I, you'll find you clean more thoroughly if you do a bit at a time. Of course, there are some spots you won't be able to reach but you can do those when you do the move.
Step 5:
After you've done the cleaning, you can evaluate what you may want to pay for to improve the look of the room. In my case, I bought a new carpet though I'd probably paint the room as well if I thought I could handle it physically alone. I'll have to settle for washing the walls as best I can. You may also want to buy cleaning supplies or other incidental items that you'll use in setting up the new arrangement. I had to buy super-long Velcro strips, a rug cutter, and some cable ties which I hope to employ to control the snarled cable spaghetti I can't seem to avoid no matter how careful I am. I also bought a frame for a poster I want to put up.
When this is completed, the entire move will likely cost me ¥15,000 in supplies ($121) and occur across about two weeks of time. The bulk of that expense is in the carpet (which cost ¥9,500/$77). It'll likely be completed next Tuesday and I'll post a new guided tour of the apartment shortly thereafter and you can decide for yourself if it is an improved look or not.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Of Marriage and Money
A letter on Dr. Andrew MacAllister's advice blog (To Love Honor and Dismay), reminded me of a psychological survey I once read about marriage. The survey listed the top 10 things couples argued about. The number one source of difficulty among American couples was money followed by children.
In Japan, women traditionally handle the money. In some families, the women give their husbands an allowance and budget the rest for necessary expenses and savings. This situation has been diminishing as women have been making more money and working full-time and therefore starting to contribute to the household income on a more equal level. My husband and I both find when discussing this issue with students that married couples often disagree on purchases with women frequently annoyed or objecting to lavish expenditures on "toys" their husbands want to purchase. This is something that Japanese couples have in common with U.S. couples.
During my time interviewing students at my former job, a good many men told me that their wives had to do more work in the household roughly proportional to their income. That is, if a woman made the same amount of money as her husband, they'd split the housework 50-50. If she made 1/3 of his income, she had to do 2/3 of the housework. This struck me as a relatively transparent justification for not helping out around the house much.
In a situation not too far removed from the aforementioned one, some of my students have told me that they pay bills proportional to their relative incomes. If a woman makes 200,000 yen a month and her husband makes 400,000 yen, she'll pay 50% of whatever he does on necessary expenses. Among American couples, I often read that expenses are not split according to income disparities. They tend to cut bills down the middle and each pays half in couples where money is kept separate. I've often read that this is a source of resentment for the party who makes less.
Frankly, I've always found the notion that a married couple has separate bank accounts a discomfiting one. While I can understand the pragmatism of it based on high divorce rates, I find it disturbing that people will share their hearts, their bodies, and their genetic material but not their cash. If you don't trust someone enough to share your money, then you shouldn't marry him.
As the letter in Andrew's column demonstrates though, it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes people just have very different values when it comes to money and that ultimately makes a more business-like arrangement necessary to reduce the amount of difficulty a couple experiences about money. Of course, as the letter also makes clear, sometimes a strict handling doesn't solve anything, particularly when values, income and habits are vastly different.
When I quit my job a little over a year ago, I was concerned that my husband and I would start to experience difficulties because we'd have to be more careful with how we spent money. Prior to my quitting, we were generally in a good position to spend as much as we wanted so long as new cars, precious jewels, or luxury boating gear weren't on the agenda. Fortunately, our values regarding money are closely in alignment (neither of us are inclined to shop casually or spend lavishly) and we never argue over money even now that we have to be somewhat careful with expenditures. Since we also don't have any children, this means we have very little reason to argue. ;-)
In Japan, women traditionally handle the money. In some families, the women give their husbands an allowance and budget the rest for necessary expenses and savings. This situation has been diminishing as women have been making more money and working full-time and therefore starting to contribute to the household income on a more equal level. My husband and I both find when discussing this issue with students that married couples often disagree on purchases with women frequently annoyed or objecting to lavish expenditures on "toys" their husbands want to purchase. This is something that Japanese couples have in common with U.S. couples.
During my time interviewing students at my former job, a good many men told me that their wives had to do more work in the household roughly proportional to their income. That is, if a woman made the same amount of money as her husband, they'd split the housework 50-50. If she made 1/3 of his income, she had to do 2/3 of the housework. This struck me as a relatively transparent justification for not helping out around the house much.
In a situation not too far removed from the aforementioned one, some of my students have told me that they pay bills proportional to their relative incomes. If a woman makes 200,000 yen a month and her husband makes 400,000 yen, she'll pay 50% of whatever he does on necessary expenses. Among American couples, I often read that expenses are not split according to income disparities. They tend to cut bills down the middle and each pays half in couples where money is kept separate. I've often read that this is a source of resentment for the party who makes less.
Frankly, I've always found the notion that a married couple has separate bank accounts a discomfiting one. While I can understand the pragmatism of it based on high divorce rates, I find it disturbing that people will share their hearts, their bodies, and their genetic material but not their cash. If you don't trust someone enough to share your money, then you shouldn't marry him.
As the letter in Andrew's column demonstrates though, it's not always as simple as that. Sometimes people just have very different values when it comes to money and that ultimately makes a more business-like arrangement necessary to reduce the amount of difficulty a couple experiences about money. Of course, as the letter also makes clear, sometimes a strict handling doesn't solve anything, particularly when values, income and habits are vastly different.
When I quit my job a little over a year ago, I was concerned that my husband and I would start to experience difficulties because we'd have to be more careful with how we spent money. Prior to my quitting, we were generally in a good position to spend as much as we wanted so long as new cars, precious jewels, or luxury boating gear weren't on the agenda. Fortunately, our values regarding money are closely in alignment (neither of us are inclined to shop casually or spend lavishly) and we never argue over money even now that we have to be somewhat careful with expenditures. Since we also don't have any children, this means we have very little reason to argue. ;-)
Monday, February 05, 2007
Finding a Job Teaching in Japan
Back when I was suffering some serious physical problems, even more serious depression, and general burn-out from having worked for so long, my husband did a serious job search so he could work full-time and I could quit and rest. During his search, he was rather surprised at some of the ways in which the job market had changed since he'd last done such a search. Bear in mind that everything I say about work, pay and hours relates to working as a teacher in Tokyo. Wages in other areas are sometimes lower because of the lower cost of living.
One of the points which he realized was that the 250,000 yen for 25 hours standard which was the case about 15-20 years ago had changed to 250,000 yen for 30 hours and often that is 30 "contact" teaching hours and will not include prep time. That means that you may be required to be on the premises for more than 30 hours even though your contract stipulates you work for 30 hours. Generally speaking, teachers make from 1800-2500 yen an hour at conversation schools or in structured teaching environments.
My husband also discovered that most teaching jobs included a small or large number of hours devoted to teaching children. In fact, low pay for teaching kids is pretty much the most frequently listed work in "The Japan Times" and other classified ads in printed publications. If you're in a hurry for a job and female, this is the quickest route to employment though not necessarily the best type of work. Teaching kids can involve accommodating doting or hawk-eyed parents who will eat up your time with meetings or attempt to coerce you into teaching in a different fashion. Additionally, as if often the case in any educational situation, handling kids can be harder than dealing with adults.
The big chain schools (Nova, GEOS, and AEON) seem to be doing far more of their recruiting abroad and less hiring from inside of Japan. Competition has also caused them to increase total working hours without increasing wages, decrease class time from a standard 50-60 minute lesson to 40 minutes, and decrease overall benefits such as paid national holidays.
Most of the chain schools when hiring from abroad also provide housing at a slightly reduced rate for the teachers they hire. The housing supplement can be considered as an additional 10,000-30,000 yen per month in salary depending on the situation. The main thing is that the schools get a deal on the apartments that you wouldn't get. That is, you may not be able to find a place for 50,000-60,000 yen a month on your own so you're paying less rent through your school than you would if you found your own place. However, the school probably owns the building or has a lease which allows them to have the place at a lower rate so they aren't actually augmenting your income and it's possible that they make money on the deal. That doesn't mean you don't benefit from the arrangement though.
In general, working for one of these schools means working harder and dealing sometimes with rigid conditions (such as Nova's system of penalties) on the down-side but also having someone else set you up with a place to live and help you with any of the logistical issues of moving to Japan on the up-side. The wages are more than enough to live on if you don't go crazy clubbing, boozing, or eating out at expensive places. People who don't have connections in Japan or who feel uncomfortable with the uncertainties of travel abroad often find such places a good way of getting a foothold or simply finding a way to spend a year in Japan before going home and doing something else.
One problem with these chain schools for some people is that they tend to be somewhat rigid in their teaching structure. Some of them will monitor lessons and reprimand teachers for not following the method the school follows. If you're new to teaching and uncertain of what to do, these types of places can be helpful in your initial months as you can follow their patterns when you teach. If you're experienced, such places can be tedious and stifling as you can't be creative and even good teachers may find themselves being admonished rather than rewarded for their attempts to be innovative or creative.
Other job possibilities include working in junior high schools or high schools as an assistant teacher. This can be done through the JET program but also via other means. I don't actually have any experience with these types of jobs because neither my husband nor I are willing to teach kids. I've heard a lot of varied reports about such jobs but one common theme is that the teachers are often given little to do or not taken seriously compared to the Japanese teachers at the schools. However, the working conditions (pay for the number of hours, paid vacation time) can be relatively favorable.
There are also random full-time jobs at various schools you can find largely from on-line job searching. These places don't tend to advertise as much in print because of the cost. The main considerations with these sorts of places is that they sometimes operate on a limited budget and may overwork what few teachers they have and sometimes have been known to have teachers sign ambiguous contracts so that they can compel them to do more than should be reasonably expected. Such places have to be considered on a case by case basis. Some are great and some are pretty awful.
There are also a few places that hire teachers to teach in-company lessons on a case-by-case basis. Some of these agencies offer enough work to make a full wage. Others are mainly good as a means to augment your income with spare cash. The good point of these types of jobs is that they tend to pay much better hourly wages (3500-5000 yen an hour in most cases). The bad point is that most places want the same evening hours so it's hard to schedule in enough of these types of jobs to make a full wage and they often require copious amounts of travel, sometimes very far from where you live. If the locations of the companies are sufficiently far distant, the amount of money you make spread across the total time you spend getting there, teaching, and getting back won't seem quite so impressive. Generally speaking, such jobs require core evening hours - from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm - for the most lucrative pay. You can sometimes get early morning work but the wages tend to be far lower, sometimes no better than working at a conversation school.
The main problem with relying on agencies that contract with teachers for the higher-paying in-company lessons is that there are no guarantees whatsoever, no paid vacation of any kind, and a lot of uncertainty about the numbers of hours you'll get. My former company is one of the few places that contracted for this sort of work in a fashion which would guarantee a certain amount of money each month but even they don't make any long-term promises and your entire day can be eaten up by a fairly gap-filled schedule and travel time.
The bottom line is that you have to make 250,000 yen a month in order to qualify for work visa sponsorship. There are loopholes that allow companies to undercut that in reality. They can sign you up for a contract that says they'll pay you 250,000 yen a month for 30 hours but have you work less than 30 hours a week. Immigration will not check on whether or not you actually make what your contract stipulates and (almost) no one will act as your advocate if you aren't making as much as you believed you might. You have to be very careful to make sure you understand what you're getting into and ask questions to clarify your situation. Also, companies are legally obliged to give full-time employees ten days off the first year and one additional day for each year you renew. If they give you fewer days, they are violating Japanese labor laws.
My husband ended up taking a situation which offered a decent base hourly wage up until 30 hours and a higher wage after 30 hours have been worked. It doesn't offer any guarantees about the number of hours you get per week though. He hasn't had any trouble at all getting enough hours (fairly popular teachers don't) and the working conditions are very flexible. He can pretty much teach what he wants and set his own hours. No one hassles him if he requests time off and he's not pressured to do any extra work of any kind.
The price of this flexibility and lack of hassle is that he gets no paid national holidays, no raises on an annual basis, and sometimes has to kill time between lessons if his schedule doesn't fill up. If the school were to suffer a drop in business, he would also be stuck for getting in enough hours but that seems like a pretty unlikely possibility given the school's well-trafficked location.
In general, you can choose between better hourly wages or a more secure situation which offers lower wages. For newcomers, the secure situation is often a good way to start. Once you know the ropes, the higher wage situations are easier to seek out and find a way to rely on.
One of the points which he realized was that the 250,000 yen for 25 hours standard which was the case about 15-20 years ago had changed to 250,000 yen for 30 hours and often that is 30 "contact" teaching hours and will not include prep time. That means that you may be required to be on the premises for more than 30 hours even though your contract stipulates you work for 30 hours. Generally speaking, teachers make from 1800-2500 yen an hour at conversation schools or in structured teaching environments.
My husband also discovered that most teaching jobs included a small or large number of hours devoted to teaching children. In fact, low pay for teaching kids is pretty much the most frequently listed work in "The Japan Times" and other classified ads in printed publications. If you're in a hurry for a job and female, this is the quickest route to employment though not necessarily the best type of work. Teaching kids can involve accommodating doting or hawk-eyed parents who will eat up your time with meetings or attempt to coerce you into teaching in a different fashion. Additionally, as if often the case in any educational situation, handling kids can be harder than dealing with adults.
The big chain schools (Nova, GEOS, and AEON) seem to be doing far more of their recruiting abroad and less hiring from inside of Japan. Competition has also caused them to increase total working hours without increasing wages, decrease class time from a standard 50-60 minute lesson to 40 minutes, and decrease overall benefits such as paid national holidays.
Most of the chain schools when hiring from abroad also provide housing at a slightly reduced rate for the teachers they hire. The housing supplement can be considered as an additional 10,000-30,000 yen per month in salary depending on the situation. The main thing is that the schools get a deal on the apartments that you wouldn't get. That is, you may not be able to find a place for 50,000-60,000 yen a month on your own so you're paying less rent through your school than you would if you found your own place. However, the school probably owns the building or has a lease which allows them to have the place at a lower rate so they aren't actually augmenting your income and it's possible that they make money on the deal. That doesn't mean you don't benefit from the arrangement though.
In general, working for one of these schools means working harder and dealing sometimes with rigid conditions (such as Nova's system of penalties) on the down-side but also having someone else set you up with a place to live and help you with any of the logistical issues of moving to Japan on the up-side. The wages are more than enough to live on if you don't go crazy clubbing, boozing, or eating out at expensive places. People who don't have connections in Japan or who feel uncomfortable with the uncertainties of travel abroad often find such places a good way of getting a foothold or simply finding a way to spend a year in Japan before going home and doing something else.
One problem with these chain schools for some people is that they tend to be somewhat rigid in their teaching structure. Some of them will monitor lessons and reprimand teachers for not following the method the school follows. If you're new to teaching and uncertain of what to do, these types of places can be helpful in your initial months as you can follow their patterns when you teach. If you're experienced, such places can be tedious and stifling as you can't be creative and even good teachers may find themselves being admonished rather than rewarded for their attempts to be innovative or creative.
Other job possibilities include working in junior high schools or high schools as an assistant teacher. This can be done through the JET program but also via other means. I don't actually have any experience with these types of jobs because neither my husband nor I are willing to teach kids. I've heard a lot of varied reports about such jobs but one common theme is that the teachers are often given little to do or not taken seriously compared to the Japanese teachers at the schools. However, the working conditions (pay for the number of hours, paid vacation time) can be relatively favorable.
There are also random full-time jobs at various schools you can find largely from on-line job searching. These places don't tend to advertise as much in print because of the cost. The main considerations with these sorts of places is that they sometimes operate on a limited budget and may overwork what few teachers they have and sometimes have been known to have teachers sign ambiguous contracts so that they can compel them to do more than should be reasonably expected. Such places have to be considered on a case by case basis. Some are great and some are pretty awful.
There are also a few places that hire teachers to teach in-company lessons on a case-by-case basis. Some of these agencies offer enough work to make a full wage. Others are mainly good as a means to augment your income with spare cash. The good point of these types of jobs is that they tend to pay much better hourly wages (3500-5000 yen an hour in most cases). The bad point is that most places want the same evening hours so it's hard to schedule in enough of these types of jobs to make a full wage and they often require copious amounts of travel, sometimes very far from where you live. If the locations of the companies are sufficiently far distant, the amount of money you make spread across the total time you spend getting there, teaching, and getting back won't seem quite so impressive. Generally speaking, such jobs require core evening hours - from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm - for the most lucrative pay. You can sometimes get early morning work but the wages tend to be far lower, sometimes no better than working at a conversation school.
The main problem with relying on agencies that contract with teachers for the higher-paying in-company lessons is that there are no guarantees whatsoever, no paid vacation of any kind, and a lot of uncertainty about the numbers of hours you'll get. My former company is one of the few places that contracted for this sort of work in a fashion which would guarantee a certain amount of money each month but even they don't make any long-term promises and your entire day can be eaten up by a fairly gap-filled schedule and travel time.
The bottom line is that you have to make 250,000 yen a month in order to qualify for work visa sponsorship. There are loopholes that allow companies to undercut that in reality. They can sign you up for a contract that says they'll pay you 250,000 yen a month for 30 hours but have you work less than 30 hours a week. Immigration will not check on whether or not you actually make what your contract stipulates and (almost) no one will act as your advocate if you aren't making as much as you believed you might. You have to be very careful to make sure you understand what you're getting into and ask questions to clarify your situation. Also, companies are legally obliged to give full-time employees ten days off the first year and one additional day for each year you renew. If they give you fewer days, they are violating Japanese labor laws.
My husband ended up taking a situation which offered a decent base hourly wage up until 30 hours and a higher wage after 30 hours have been worked. It doesn't offer any guarantees about the number of hours you get per week though. He hasn't had any trouble at all getting enough hours (fairly popular teachers don't) and the working conditions are very flexible. He can pretty much teach what he wants and set his own hours. No one hassles him if he requests time off and he's not pressured to do any extra work of any kind.
The price of this flexibility and lack of hassle is that he gets no paid national holidays, no raises on an annual basis, and sometimes has to kill time between lessons if his schedule doesn't fill up. If the school were to suffer a drop in business, he would also be stuck for getting in enough hours but that seems like a pretty unlikely possibility given the school's well-trafficked location.
In general, you can choose between better hourly wages or a more secure situation which offers lower wages. For newcomers, the secure situation is often a good way to start. Once you know the ropes, the higher wage situations are easier to seek out and find a way to rely on.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Living on a Budget
During most of my time in Japan, I have not budgeted or kept a close eye on the outflow of cash. The truth is that, up until I quit my job and we had to live on one income I didn't pay much attention to how much my husband and I spent.
That's not to say that I didn't think about how much it would cost a Japanese person. In fact, upon hearing some of the relatively low salaries of my female coworkers (150,000-180,000 yen a month), I wondered how they got by. I always convinced myself that they would have to live with their parents in order to survive on such low wages.
After about a month of tracking my budget, I believe that I was incorrect in that conclusion. Excluding my taxes and health insurance (which are a year behind and reflect my wages for the previous year and therefore rather inaccurate to factor into a budget without that income), I worked out that we can squeak by on 210,000 yen a month. That wouldn't cover incidental purchases like new clothes or replacement or repair of existing household items. It would cover rent, utilities, food (alloting 2,000 yen a day for food), and the relative luxury of DSL and cable T.V.
If you consider that we're paying for two people to eat relatively western dishes which include expensive items like cheese and the fact that our rent is 110,000 yen a month (relatively high), I can see how a single person could get by on about 60,000 or so less than us. It wouldn't be fun, but it would be possible.
I also determined that the biggest "waste" of money by far is eating out or having food delivered instead of cooking for ourselves or having my husband take his lunch with him. I can cook a meal for two for 500 yen or less but eating out will almost always cost a thousand yen per person (excluding a drink) or more unless you're taking part in some lunch deal. I also figured out that the number one way I could save money is to only drink water instead of Diet Coke or other beverages.
Life's too short to give up all the little luxuries though so we haven't given up everything in the name of saving money. However, it is good to know that we could get by with less if the need ever arose.
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