Recently work has been somewhat taking a toll on me while all of a sudden I've got a job offer from a different company.
There is just one catch, though — I have to commute once a week to Tokyo. I was really considering doing the jump to the point they've been waiting for my decision for 3 weeks now, which is starting to become super unprofessional from my side, but there's a tough choice.
To put things in perspective: right now I'm living in central Sapporo (think 5 min walk to Odori), on a fully remote job from Tokyo, which brings in 8M annually before tax.
There is no bonus, but there is (or was) a decent work-life balance allowing to dabble in pet projects after work which also bring home a good chunk of cash (not so good after the 雑所得 tax but I'd rather do that than lose unemployment insurance or even worse). This lets me set aside about 100-150k monthly for the sake of keeping a safety net.
Community-wise I might have some lonely days every now and then, but usually there's either expats or locals around quite often. Participating in the local DJ party community, going behind the mixer myself once or twice a year, and just having a good bulk of chit chat from time to time.
Can't say things have been boring, but they started to feel kind of super repetitive like groundhog day. Wake up, rummage through work with a Hot Chef lunch, eat dinner out, go back to work on pet projects, go to sleep, mix and repeat. Weekends are mostly spent drinking beer out at bars or window shopping around HardOffs, or plain going out of my building and walking straight for 2 hours.
If I make the jump:
- Upfront move costs would eat at least 1.2mil of savings (700k ish for the apartment + 100k for the bring-your-own-aircon, ballpark estimating 400k ish for the move itself 'cause I have a good amount of stuff that cannot be replaced easily)
- Then the rent itself would go from 60k to 194k monthly, for a decently sized 3LDK in Urayasu, total 1hr commute to Shibuya area. (Why 3LDK for a single person? Work would be like 80% remote so I want good separation of rooms to not feel like I'm living in the office)
- The salary would be a bump from 8M to ~13M before tax, with a supposedly similar set of responsibilities. Work-life balance though is a good question, but I haven't heard anything bad about the new company.
- Community-wise… I have a few people I know who live in (big air quotes) Tokyo, but so far it seemed to me that it's notoriously hard to stay connected to anyone outside of your immediate family there. I'm not even mentioning stuff like being out til 3am then walking home, but plain gathering to sit down for beers more often than once a year.
- Freakin' WEATHER! How do y'all not die over there is something I did not figure out in my years here!
- Career-wise: both companies are relatively the same level of "not a big name to the average Joe", although for the current one I haven't seen too many people among my colleagues have any progress, and even feedback like "dead end job" on Glassdoor.
I've tried running the numbers and depending on which "tax calculator" I used it was either a decent bump that covers the apartment for sure and I net zero on the move sans the lost savings, or I lose like 20k ish monthly.
So, I would like some second opinions or pointers on how to run the numbers "properly" without doing the full tax return sheet calculation in the middle of a year.
I know vibes and friends are not measurable in cash, but if the bump is decent I'm not opposed to trying — either I'll like it, or I'll have solid, firsthand knowledge why it's not for me. If the result would be a drop in income though, that directly hurts my financial goals, so it's not even worth bothering with it.
If anyone else also made a similar move from a "desirable" prefecture (Hokkaido/Sapporo, Fukuoka, Etc) to Tokyo, how was your experience with it?
by akasakaryuunosuke