At least it can’t get worse
I wrote last time about my loss of income and a dilemma that I face. I thought that it was as bad as things would get for now. In an attempt to try and stay positive, I thought “Well, it can't get any worse.” We are healthy. We are working. We are doing our best. Then out of the blue…
Our Apartment
In Japan, most apartments are rented out with two year contracts that you renew every two years. The cost for renewal varies from landlord to landlord, and real estate agency to real estate agency. My understanding, and experience, is that it costs about about half a months rent to one and a half months rent to renew. My apartments were all one month rent to renew. That means in the month that I renew I need to pay two full months rent. I am aware of that and I budgeted for it. The other thing to know is that when you renew, the terms of the rental agreement can be changed. It is not always clear why. I have lived in 5 different apartments. For four of them, the terms never changed. I just renewed.
This time! OMG! I was surprised. Our landlord decided to raise our rent by 8,000 yen a month (about $76 USD). That’s about $900 per year. It means we will pay a full month rent more per year just to live in the same place that we have been in for ten years.
The obvious thought is: Just Move! That’s a great idea but it’s not that easy. There are so many costs associated with moving. Newer Japanese buildings often charge “Shikikin” and “Reikin”. The first is a security deposit. It can be between 0 and 3 months rent. The second is often translated as “Key Money”. It is a gift for the landlord. It’s also usually around 0 and 3 months rent. When I look around at rooms, most places are 1 month each. So to move in, you need the first month, last month, security deposit, key money, insurance, and contract signing fee. They may be one other thing but it’s slipping my mind as I write this. The rooms we are looking at are around 600-750 USD. So signing up for the apartment will cost 3000-3750. Then we need to talk about leaving the old room…
To leave the old room, we need to pay a fee to cancel the contract. Often one month of rent. And we need to move all our services to the new place, gas, electric, internet… Those don’t usually incur any charges. It’s just the hassle of doing all the paperwork and setting everything up. Then we need to talk about actually moving…
The last thing is physically moving. In the US, everyone has a car. When we move, we move by ourselves. Someone we know often has a truck. If we need to, we can rent a moving truck. It’s cheap but hard work. It’s a bit harder to do that here. Not many people have big vans or trucks. They are usually vehicles for workers. A lot of families have big vans for the family. Unfortunately, they are usually too busy, or not interested in helping. So you need to hire a moving company to pack everything up and move everything for you. It is convenient but considering our current lack of funds, it’s a struggle. The cost is based on how much stuff you have so it can be between $300-2000 USD. I guess we will need to spend around $500 since we have fish tanks, a glass terrarium, and a piano.
I am not reaching out for anything. I am not asking for anything. I am just venting. I am just sharing an experience in my life. I guess I just need to get this off my chest. Unfortunately, I want to be a more positive person but I can’t help but feel like I am being crushed by life and the more I try to do, the worse I fail…
If you read this far, thank you!
BTW, That’s not me. It’s a stock photo.
