The following is about as honest I can be on the forum and will be from a slightly different perspective than others.



School year: The western education system has a total of 180-190 school days a year. Your school has 210 days which is the Japanese average. Check the calendar for your new school so you can see the difference in holidays. It's 4-6 weeks more work a year



Child's Tuition: Your childs tuition is a taxable benefit. This means you will pay tax on the full tuition for both of your children.



Quality of Education: There are some excellent international schools in Japan - and some of the other side of the spectrum. Have a good look at the quality of the curriculum especially as your oldest is in Grade 10 and means you'll have to stay for a minimum of 3 years if the complete the IB or AP system.



Housing: There are two types of housing, public and private. Private housing can be more expensive and the owners are more finicky in choosing renters as a result. In 2014, I was paying 135,000 yen for a 3 bedroom (90 square meter) apartment in public housing in Yokohama. It was a 5 minute bike ride from the train station which significantly reduced the cost of rent. I also paid 2 months deposit and 1 month in advance, which is significantly less than private housing. Others know more about private housing than I do.



Things in apartment: When you rent an apartment in Japan - it has NOTHING in it!. That means you need to buy light fittings, fridge, AC, beds, everything! It's not that expensive and it's easy to buy everything, but it all adds up.



Once in apartment: I find that setting up is prohibitively expensive but Japan is not that expensive once you have set up. Food is reasonably priced if you shop around and your bikes will be your main mode of transport. Don't get a car unless you MUST HAVE ONE. Another option is to hire a car when you need one. You will also need to get a Japanese drivers licence if you live here as well which can be easy or difficult depending on where you live. I never rented a car in Japan when I lived there but hire one when I visit now with an international drivers licence.



Note that most major furniture and appliance stores will deliver for free or a very small fee. Ikea is also the same but I found that it's sometimes best to spend slightly more at Japanese stores as the quality is better.



Sleeping on futons can also save you a lot of money so you don't have to buy beds. This is a personal preference but I purchased an expensive bed and then later purchased a really good futon mattress for when family were visiting. I ended up sleeping on the futon mattress more often as it was quite comfortable.



Also note that tamami flooring has a unique smell - so apartments which have been locked up for a while will smell like the dried seaweed you eat. It's not a bad smell - but unusual to westerners and is something I now like.



For safety - Japan is safer than where you currently live (note that I don't know where you live - Japan is just safer than the west but there is a larger police presence). There are some dodgy areas - but the bad areas are not that bad unless you go there at night on the weekend when people are drunk (you won't be staying in places like this unless you really try and find them)



For food - supermarkets in suburban areas are well priced. Just note that fruit can get expensive apart from mikans (mandarines) which are always a reasonable price.



Hope this helps







