24-year-old American moved to Japan, pays $238 a month in rent

While working as a teacher in Atlanta, Georgia, Lexi Smith, 24, found herself dreaming of seeing more of the world and living a simpler life.

“I wasn’t quite loving the school system from having an overbearing administration that didn’t appreciate me to having a hard time living on my salary,” Smith tells CNBC Make It. “When I found out that I could teach abroad for a much easier life and the ability to see more culture, I had to jump on it.”

Smith started looking into the possibility of going abroad to teach English and worked with a company called Xplore Asia, an organization that helps people get their TEFL certification to work and study abroad.

She received her Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certification and taught English as a foreign language in the U.S. for a bit while Xplore Asia worked to find her potential employers.

Eventually, Smith landed a teaching position at an eikaiwa, a private language school focused on conversational English, in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan and moved in March of this year.

“My interest in Japan began with anime, like a lot of other people out there, and I’m a big foodie. The opportunity to eat ramen and sushi and things like that is something I had to go after,” Smith says.

“Plus, the culture is so respectful here. Teachers are well respected and just in general, people are just so kind to each other.”

The Chiba Prefecture is located on Japan’s eastern Pacific coast to the east of Tokyo. It is about a four-hour drive from the country’s capital city.

“Living in the countryside of the Chiba Prefecture is quite different than Tokyo. Things are a lot cheaper out here. The culture is more respectful, and what you see when you look around is rice fields,” Smith says.

Smith admits she was nervous about moving to the countryside, having grown up in a city like Atlanta, but it was a much easier transition than she expected.

“I really did move here by myself without knowing the language or anyone here. My family knows that I’m a bit of a wild child, and I want to see the world. I’m a free spirit, so they accepted it,” Smith says. “They were a little bit nervous for me, but after virtually meeting my boss and seeing how well prepared I was, they weren’t that concerned anymore.”

Before Smith made the official move to Japan, she was able to connect with some of her coworkers via Zoom, so by the time she arrived, she had already established a sense of community with them.

“I was immediately friends with my coworkers even before I landed there, then they introduced me to other teachers in the area,” she says. “We started going to cherry blossom viewings together and having movie nights, and it became a really cool thing. I also got to become familiar with the train system of Japan.”

One of the perks of Smith’s job was that her employer was able to secure her an apartment before she even got to Japan. It’s a one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment with a balcony that rents for 35,000 yen or $238 a month. The apartment is also within walking distance of the school where Smith teaches.

Smith’s employment contract includes her employer covering the costs of some expenses, like key money —a one-time, non-refundable payment given to the landlord when renting an apartment or house. Smith also didn’t have to put down a security deposit, which is usually the case in the U.S.

Her employer also pays for her fire insurance and was able to help her get a car, which she pays $100 a month for.

The apartment also came with a portable washer in her bathroom, and she uses the balcony to dry her clothes. One of the unique aspects of the apartment is that it came with an emergency bag containing items, like a safety helmet, needed in case of events like a tsunami, fire or earthquake.

As an English teacher, Smith’s typical workday consists of teaching from around 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Smith teaches five to seven classes a day to students ranging from three to 73 years old. Classes are one-on-one or two-on-one and 30 to 40 minutes long. She earns about 250,000 yen or $1,700 a month from her teaching job, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

“The mornings, I really have them to myself. Since I don’t have to go into work until three, it feels like I have almost two days in one because of that,” Smith says. “I love my work-life balance here in Japan. I have full flexibility to do what I want in my classrooms, so it doesn’t feel like such a high-pressure environment.”

Smith’s work-life balance in Japan is a stark difference from the one she had in the U.S. In America, the 24-year-old teacher had to have multiple jobs to make ends meet. She was even working as a teacher at two different schools at the same time.

“In America, when I was working at the schools there, I would be there for 10 or 12 hours a day, working very hard and sometimes skipping my breaks because the kids needed me and there was no one to fill in. I remember countless times asking other teachers to watch my kids so I could run to the bathroom. It was rough. Plus, I would work extra jobs just to kind of get by in the States. Whereas here I get by just on my full-time job teaching English.”

In Japan, some of Smith’s other monthly expenses include water, gas, electricity, health insurance, and groceries, which total approximately $376 a month.

Smith has been living in Japan for about six months and says her biggest challenge is that she’s not yet fluent in Japanese. Because of her job, Smith mostly speaks English, and she’s surrounded by people who speak English as well.

When she needs help with things like going to the post office or getting an appointment at City Hall, Smith enlists the help of her boss to do all the translation.

Though Smith is enjoying her time in Japan, she already knows she will move back to Atlanta at the end of her one-year contract.

“There is a big part of me that does want to stay longer than a year in Japan, but there’s so much of the world to see. As much as I love Japan, I can’t wait to also expand myself to see the rest of the world as well,” Smith says. “I miss my family. We’re really close-knit, so it’s hard being 7,000 miles away from them, but also being a Southern girl, I miss my soul food so much. Japan’s food is great, but there’s nothing like a good collard green at the end of the day.”

Smith still isn’t sure what she’ll do when she moves back to the U.S., but is considering pursuing a graduate degree or a return to teaching.

“I’m not quite sure what the future holds for me, but I’m excited to take whatever path it has,” she says.

One way that Smith is making sure she gets the most out of her experience living in Japan is by documenting her journey on social media, which is she started doing three months after relocating.

“I decided to start sharing my experience because people don’t know what regular life is like. I feel that Tokyo gets a lot of viewership, but all of Japan isn’t Tokyo. A lot of us live in the countryside and live regular lives, and I wanted to share that with the world. A lot of people are thinking about leaving the States and I wanted to share my perspective on it too,” Smith says.

“As a black woman and as a young person who might not have their whole life figured out quite yet, I wanted to inspire people that they can do whatever they want to do. I love building more of a community of expats.”

Since she started sharing her life in Japan on TikTok, Smith says the reception has been positive.

“A lot of people who live in Japan do see themselves in me. They feel like I am sharing the authentic Japanese experience and that means a lot to me that I can create that visibility where it might not otherwise exist,” she says.

“And for other people who look like me, [they can] also feel empowered that they can do it too. I feel that knowing more about the place that you’re going and seeing other people doing it can take some of the fear out of doing that move.”

Conversions from Japanese yen to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 147 Japanese yen to $1 USD on August 30, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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