I Said "Ask Us in a Year." It's Been Four Months and I Have Things to Report.

At the end of my last post, I wrote this:

“Ask us in twelve months. We’ll have an actual opinion then.”

It’s been four months.

But some things came up that I want to report now.

(The first post: We Moved Out of Osaka. We Expected ¥1.9M in Subsidies. We Got ¥0.)

The short version

• It really is about 3°C cooler than Osaka. But “cooler” does not mean “you can skip the AC.”
• I turned it off overnight and gave my husband and kids mild heat exhaustion. It now runs 24/7.
• Fuel spending collapsed: two tank fills in four months. We picked a place near the station and barely drive.
• Kids’ medical care is free in our new municipality. The recurring benefit beat the one-time subsidy.
• Both boys settled into the new preschool and stayed out of the endless cold-rotation. They practice cycling at 6 a.m.
• The thing I got wrong: I didn’t expect a smaller paycheck to feel this frightening.

Why I’m writing at four months

Honestly? I meant to wait a year.

But in these four months, a handful of things surfaced that I wish I’d known before we moved. Sitting on them until we’d survived a winter felt worse than writing them down now.

So: this is an interim report. Not a verdict.

Summer arrived

In the last post, I wrote that we moved chasing air that doesn’t “feel like a damp towel in August.”

Verdict: it’s true. It really is around 3°C cooler than Osaka. On a day when I’m home alone, I can leave the AC off and be fine.

So I started switching it off overnight.

My husband and kids got mild heat exhaustion.

We went to the pediatrician. Everyone was fine. But I want this part on the record.

“The countryside is cooler, so we’ll save on cooling.” I’m fairly sure that’s what pre-move me believed. It turns out three degrees cooler and not needing air conditioning are two entirely different claims. This summer has also been an unusually hot one. Still — that was my misjudgment.

The AC now runs all day, for my family’s health. The electricity bill hasn’t arrived yet. I won’t know until September.

(To be clear: I genuinely don’t know yet what a rural summer costs to cool. When I know, I’ll write it.)

Rural summer comes with larger wildlife

Walking at dawn, I met an earthworm of a size I have never encountered, and a longhorn beetle.

I am experiencing rural summer in my body.

The children, meanwhile, remain fully operational as long as water play is available. This turns out to be true in Osaka and in the mountains alike. A constant of the universe.

The money: what actually dropped was fuel

This might be the real story.

We barely drive

“Rural Japan means a car, and a car means fuel costs.” Everybody says it. I believed it.

But the place we picked is very close to a train station.

Result: we hardly drive. We moved at the end of March and have filled the tank exactly twice.

We could drive on weekends — but our kids are at the age where trains and buses are the treat, so we take public transport. Both boys still ride free. And there are several parks within cycling distance.

Which taught me something: “rural relocation” is not one thing. Two families in the same prefecture can have wildly different budgets depending on how far they are from a station.

Groceries: unchanged

This may be the least dramatic finding here: our food spending barely moved.

The reason is simple. We were already doing a weekly bulk order through an online supermarket while we lived in Osaka — food, rice, seasonings, household supplies. And the store-brand products are stocked identically out here.

For continuity of daily life, that mattered more than I expected. Fish and seafood we buy locally, in person.

What we haven’t done yet is explore the regional food this area is known for. That’s still ahead of us.

And then, medical costs

Children’s medical care is free in this municipality.

…Oh. It’s not just the fuel. Our medical spending dropped too.

In the last post I wrote that “childcare subsidies matter more long-term than a one-time relocation grant.” I wrote that sentence myself — and I’m only now noticing it actually happening to us.

(Children’s medical subsidies vary enormously between municipalities. This is what ours does. If you’re considering a move, check the specific municipality’s program.)

Grading my own predictions

¥60,000 rent, 1.5× the space

What I’ve learned by living in it: there’s a room we aren’t using yet.

We meant it as the kids’ room. But they’re at the age where they want to be in whatever room the family is in.

So honestly, we aren’t using this space fully. In a few years, we will. Enough room to get them through junior high and high school — that’s what we chose it for.

The cold rotation: still broken

Last time I wrote that both boys had escaped the endless preschool cold-rotation.

Still true.

In four months, our only pediatrician visit was the heat exhaustion. I still don’t quite believe it.

“Run outside without a plan”

This is the one that landed hardest.

In summer, the boys practice cycling at the park from 6 a.m.

Even in summer, a morning walk feels good. By 9 a.m., there’s a sense that the day has already been fully lived. I did not know that before we moved.

Preschool, neighbors, and my husband

The boys settled in

Four months in, both are genuinely settled.

Our older son went through a stretch of grappling with what it means to be a kid who belongs to two countries. But he found his own way through it. (I wrote about that night here.)

Our younger son cried hard for exactly one week, then became indistinguishable from a local child.

At the parent-teacher meeting, his teacher told us he’d grown a lot in four months.

My husband can live anywhere

My husband beams and greets every neighbor.

Whether we’re fully accepted here, time will tell. But so far, nothing has been difficult. I think this is a genuine talent of his. He’d be accepted anywhere.

His catchphrase: “When in Rome.”

Neighbor relationships: too early to say

Being honest: I can’t evaluate this yet.

People here are kind and lovely. But I also loved the warm, in-your-business neighborliness of Osaka.

It isn’t that one is better. It’s that this is something we’ll build slowly.

And the bears

Last time, a local told us bears come into the garden in spring. I wrote that “the bears are seasonal.”

It’s summer.

We received a notice that a bear was spotted nearby.

So they are real.

What I got wrong: I had the math and it didn’t help

The most honest part, last.

We moved knowing our income would drop for one to two years.

I’d run the numbers. Over a five-to-ten-year horizon, it works out. Income recovers. The public schools here are good. Rent went up, but so did the space — enough to carry the kids through high school.

I understood all of it, intellectually.

And then I saw the actual, smaller number printed on a pay statement, and learned that it frightens you anyway.

I manage our household finances. I can follow the numbers. None of that erased what I felt looking at that piece of paper.

That’s what I’d want someone considering this move to hear: being right about the math and not being scared are two separate things.

Still: I’m glad we moved

The answer is clear.

I’m glad we moved.

We’re raising our kids somewhere that makes raising kids easier, and I feel lucky.

In a year or two, once the income stabilizes and the budget is solid again, I’m going to plan a trip to all 47 prefectures of Japan. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

Winter hasn’t arrived yet.

P.S. When the summer electricity bill shows up, I’ll write about it. And then: winter. “The Siberia of Japan” hasn’t actually started yet.

Programs and subsidies vary significantly by municipality. Please read this as our experience as of July 2026.

This is our personal experience, not financial or tax advice.