The cheapest way to send money home.

There are a lot of forums discussing which way is best to send money back home. I did a lot of research and decided that using www.xe.com was not only the cheapest option, but also the easiest. However, it was time consuming trying to work out how to do it so I thought I would outine it here.
First of all you will need an address in Japan and your alien registration card.
If you have that you can go ahead and apply for a powerflex account with Shinsei Bank.
www.shinseibank.com/english/
They have no fees, just say you're interested at the above site and they will send you out an application. You fill it in and return it and they send you an ATM card and all the info you need to log on to an english internet banking site. I don't live any where near a Shinsei Bank or ATM but you can deposit and withdraw money for free via post office or 7holdings ATM's in shoping centres or 7/11's so it's all very easy. The only time you need to leave your apartment is to deposit the money.
Next you will need to open an account with xe trade http://www.xe.com/fx/
This is also easy you need your new account details and also the details of the account you will be sending the money to. The only problem I had was when they asked for a letter from my bank in english with my name the bank name and the date. They did accept the letters the bank sent in the welcome pack, in Japanese, I just had to point out the date etc, which was written as a string of numbers like 090512.
Once you have both accounts up and running you will be ready to make your first transfer. You just use the basic trade option in xe.com and then send them the money via a free domestic transfer online using your shinsei internet banking page. I was pretty nervous about this because of all the stuff I read online but now I have done it and I know it works.
You go to Transferes and then you have to search for the bank.
you need to enter the bank in katakana using the screen keyboard input.
xe.com will tell you there bank is the bank of america and they even sent me an email with that written in katakana. But shinsei will not accept that you need to type amerika only in katakana. and you will see it is displayed with a couple of kanji after it. Next you need the branch which is tokyo write it as toukyou and it should come up and then you will need the account details they give you. You should allow about a month to have both accounts working