Reader Mailbag!

So... I'd heard this rumor. There were people saying you could save LOTS of money by living in Okinawa. And today I got a comment on the blog from Ms. Lowe...

"So hey, i'm a marine wife and we are about to have to make a decision about where we wanna be stationed. i found your blog and wanted to ask you some questions. rumor has it that there's mad cash to be made or to be SAVED with cola and housing allowance. just wanna know what you think and if you have any advice bout whether or not we should choose japan. email me...
Thanks!"

I thought this deserved a public answer because she is not the first person to email me asking about being stationed here. And she's not the first person to think there's "mad cash to be made or to be SAVED". Don't believe the hype! But the benefits are a'plenty - so read on for my response if you'd like.

Hi there, Jesslyn!

Just got your comment on my blog, and I'm not sure how the rumor got started - but Japan is very expensive. Coming here you will save money if you're a clothes shopping addict (not much to be found here except online!) or if you live on base and eat mac & cheese all day. However, if you plan to live out in town you do not get the difference between your housing allowance and what you pay for rent (which sure isn't much anyway) and all summer long your electric bills take up all of your utility allowance in this very hot and humid tropical place. COLA isn't nearly enough - and we're still waiting for the latest survey to kick in. (side note: Does ANYONE know when that's supposed to be settled for heaven's sake? We took the survey in March!) Produce is ridiculously expensive and must be bought out in town because the commissary stuff is pretty terrible (and even more expensive than in town).

Also, if you're a dual-income family, likelihood is, unless you're a certified teacher and willing to go through DODDS applications, or a dual active duty family - you (as the spouse) will either not work or make very little money if you do. So you're down one income. (That's what happened to us.)

Also - do you plan to travel? Well- no savings to be had if you want to take flights anywhere from here (that is definitely the most expensive part) unless you do all space A, and that is a hassle. Even then you're still going to pay for hotels, food, etc. - so vacations cost money.

Now - that being said, it DOES depend on your husband's rank. (you could save/make more if he's more senior in the service.) But coming here - the decision shouldn't be made based on "saving mad money". It should be based on the experience.

You learn about foreign cultures, you dive in some of the bluest clearest waters with some of the most incredible sea life, you eat exotic foods and learn to shop in a Japanese grocery store for things like yuzu cha and onigiri. Your children learn Japanese and get to snorkel in those same waters, and they visit WWII battle sites and Ryuku Castle ruins...and it's an incomparable experience for them! You take shorter flights to visit Vietnam, Cambodia, mainland Japan, Thailand, China, and so many other incredible places. You make friends with some of the most interesting and fun people you'll ever meet. You live in a 1950's style neighborhood where everyone knows each other, takes care of each other, and helps each other - and you can let your child go to the restroom or bike to the park with friends or -gasp- ALONE. It's totally what you make of it.

Come to Okinawa for the experience and adventure of a lifetime - not to save money. Honestly, as a military family, the best way to stash cash is for your husband to go to Iraq for 6 months or more. But having been through that three times - it wasn't worth it to us. (Thankfully, my hubby won't deploy from here... knocking like mad on the desk as I type...) Okinawa is priceless.

Hope that helps :) And you know what? I'm going to post this on the blog, because I do get a lot of emails asking about the money situation here.

Thanks for the question, and thanks for reading, Jesslyn!

Food, etc.

I bought some sliced fish (sashimi) at the local market yesterday - about 15 pieces each of salmon & tuna. As sweet and delicious as any you've ever had. How much? $4.15. (498 yen) I'm going to be insanely happy here....

So where they get you, when you go out to eat, is on the sodas! About $4.50 to $5 for a soda, and they're not refillable, so enjoy that little cup! The heck with that, I'll get a $2.50 beer instead! Or water... done.

Here's a picture of some cute sweet buns at Jusco's bakery (some pretty good lookin' bread over there!)
And Craig, Mia & I were fascinated at these treats at one of the kiosks there. Aren't these just beautiful? Japanese are big on gift-giving - any kind of occasion, they love presents (who doesn't?) - we figure something like this would be nice to bring to someone's house if you've been invited for dinner or something.

Photos Of The New Bowman Home

I sent a Kodak Gallery album link to pretty much everyone in my address book; let me know if you didn't get it and you want to see the new place. We're really excited to move in - and to be out of hotel living.

SO much is constantly going on here - it's amazing. We will certainly never be bored - it's starting to feel like we won't be able to do everything we want to in the next 3 years!

Craig was kind enough to pay for my scuba certification classes - so that starts on 7/22. I'm super excited to be certified (or certifiable...) and get to go do dives. The classes are at night, so Craig can watch Mia - 6 classes. 2 classroom sessions, 2 pool dives and then 2 open water dives. Mia wanted to do it too - but she has to be 8 years old. So - before we leave, she'll be able to take diving classes too.

Now we have to spend a ton more money on a laundry list of items to include:
Curtains for the new place
A computer desk & chair (the gov't furniture is BEYOND heinous - we won't use their crap for this)
Pots, pans & dishes
An iron
Car stereos & speakers (neither car has a good system, it's what we have to spend on for the cars)
A coffee table
Area rugs (note all the wood & tile floors in the pictures - it really echoes in there)
And some kind of shelving b/c the walls are concrete.

Rather disappointed that we took so many "home touches" like art & framed photos & posters, and we have NO way of hanging them in concrete walls. Anyone who has suggestions, we'd love to hear them....

I hope to attend the jazz & wine festival tonight at Torii Beach - hopefully some pictures later.

Another Day, a Lot More Done

Let's see here...we've signed up Mia & I for local health care (on the base closest to our home at the Naval Hospital). We then filled out everything necessary for "G.I. Bill Pay" - yeah, sounds like we're using a school loan to pay our bills, not the case. It's just the bill payment company - they'll divvy out your rent & utilities payments via automatic bill pay on paydays. Pretty sweet.

While in the hospital parking lot we saw a silver 1998 Nissan Cube for sale, and called the cell phone number on the for sale sign. It was owned by a Navy Doctor (who's leaving to to San Diego and work at Balboa Naval - again) and we decided it was in great shape, she was asking a fair price - and so we gave her a deposit and decided to buy it. So she should call tonight or tomorrow morning and I'll have a car!

We arranged for our express shipment stuff to come to our place on Monday, which is pretty fast - we're happy about that. And then we went up to Camp Courtney to talk to the housing office. We got our paperwork done, arranged for temporary furniture (until our stuff arrives, close to July 30th) which will arrive on Tuesday 7/3. Cool - only one night on an aerobed! Traci, the woman who helped us at the housing office, is super nice. She also gave me a bunch of web links to look for a job this fall when Mia goes to school.

So tomorrow we head back to finalize bill payment and hopefully find out that we'll get a good Internet connection. Then at 3pm we're going to see "Surf's Up" I hope - as a big treat to Mia for being such a good kid while we've put her through all this completely unfun-for-a-kid stuff.

Now it's off to dinner in a few minutes. It was a little cooler outside today too, which was nice. And apparently the A/C vent in our room was SHUT so when we mentioned it to the front desk and they came and opened it we realized (10 days later) that we're going to sleep much more comfortably tonight. Ahhhh.....