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Mar 26, 2016

How much do you spend on school supplies?

I'm trying to write a post about how much money I've spent on school supplies so far for my two kids entering youchien and shogakko next month. I'm wondering: do any CC users have kids who go to school? If so, how much did you spend total, to get started? I've spent nearly 150,000yen to get them both started this year... :(

Samantha

Samantha

I'm here to help!

4 Answers



  • ConeHead

    on May 2

    What are you buying???? My gosh that's a lot. I notice they tells to buy everything but I insist I'm not and no y child won't feel different because she already is.

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  • BigfamJapan

    on May 6

    I didn't really add it up as it was well spread out... we got a 30,000 yen cheque from the town hall for our 2nd daughter as she is the 3rd child. (If you have more than 3 children in our town there all sorts of financial relief regardless of income or circumstances). That money covered a lot of her costs, plus we had a uniform for her that my older daughter had grown out of. I think it also contributed to some of our son's costs - he started primary school like A. The stationery and meledion cost about 15,000 yen I think and his uniform was about the same again, but we opted to get two of most things. If I include the entry fee we paid for DD2 to get into kindy we probably spent around about what you quoted.

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  • LostgirlCA

    on Mar 2

    My daughter goes to Hoikuen 保育園 daycare in Southern Kyushu. She started at 2 months old. It is available Monday to Saturday 7am to 7pm. The cost is 40,000¥ a month. There is no uniform requirement until the age of 1. So far we haven't had to spend anything other than the monthly cost. It is a city run daycare not private. In April she will move to a new class and will be required to have a uniform and maybe some other things. I will reply again once I know what happens.

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  • JapanExpert

    on Apr 27

    Private kindergartens can be very expensive - especially the uniforms, even more so as there are 4 sets of uniforms - Summer and winter day uniform and summer and winter sports uniform (including summer and winter hats!). If you shop smart though you can get by with 1 of each uniform set and have them last the 2-3 years of kindergarten. Elementary school seems to be very affordable here, including the after school care options. As there are no school uniforms you do have to spend money on clothes, but with places like UNIQLO this can be done very cheaply.

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