Job Discussion Forums

salamiandbacon · Joined: 13 Apr 2012 Posts: 41

I'm with Dragonpiwo, 2100 a month is very low if that is the only gig in your portfolio. 500zl a week is peanuts. It is 25zl an hour for a 20 hour week.
While you can survive on it if you absolutely have to, I wouldn't apply for a job that only paid that much if I had a choice. The OP has a choice, so he should be warned that it is a pittance and actually not worth getting out of bed for unless he is an eccentric of private means who just happens to enjoy subsidising someone else's business.
There is no nobility in poverty, it's a pain in the ar#e. If beer and birds are your bag, I think you'll find you get more of both when you've got more lolly. That includes in small towns in Poland.

dragonpiwo · Joined: 04 Mar 2013 Posts: 1650 Location: Berlin

Yeah Salami another voice of reason......if you're out with a girl and she orders a bottle of wine that's 2 days' pay gone right there. No nobility in dating a girl and not treating her to flowers etc....not in Poland, where they expect all that Sir Lancelot stuff.

NilSatis82 · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 110

salamiandbacon · Joined: 13 Apr 2012 Posts: 41

And do you think you could have an average quality of life on that? Buy a modest flat? run an old banger so you could take the occasional trip? have a child and afford the occasional icecream or day at the zoo? I think the answer is going to be: not really.
You don't even have to ask the millions of poles who have emigrated in the last few years whether or not it is fun to live on the average wage (netto) in Poland. They've already voted with their feet!

Live for the day and take a job with a crummy salary if you want. You will get older, need a pension, want to have a place of your own, marry the girl of your dreams and make a life outside the pub, etc.

That takes cash, and more cash than 2100zl, that's for sure.

dragonpiwo · Joined: 04 Mar 2013 Posts: 1650 Location: Berlin

Yep, Salami's right. Nil** those figures are from the Polish government statistical office. Even minus the tax they are over 2,100Zl. My rent and child supoort alone are 4,000Zl net,so I gotta earn over 5 just to pay that!

NilSatis82 · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 110

NilSatis82 · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 110

Infinite · Joined: 05 Jan 2013 Posts: 235

Infinite · Joined: 05 Jan 2013 Posts: 235

It's interesting how after living here for so long as some of you claim, you still have no idea about the reality of pay...

The national average is about 3,300.. BUT, that's the national average, which as we all SHOULD understand, is way above what the actual average citizen brings home, no matter which country we live in.
Having said that, in the small town where I live, approximately 30K citizens, there are those who bring in way above 30K per month.. yes, that's PER MONTH... but for the most part, people are happy with 1,800.
2,000 NET per month is actually a very good salary for people in small towns, most don't even make that. That's the truth of the Polish inequality that's being discussed here. So, if you're a native speaker and you register as a business, maybe rent a small studio to teach out of, or possibly pay 5PLN per hour to rent a nice size place near the city square [factual numbers from my town], you can easily clear 5,000 net after your first year working for peanuts at local schools and getting your name and face out there. That, will allow you to easily put money away every month, not work summers and have the ability to visit a nearby city whenever you please.
Let's do some actual price comparisons based on well, facts.
70m, 2 bedroom flat in a city - 3,000 - 5,000 and up [depending on location]

70m, 2 bedroom flat in a small town - 800 - 1,000

Private preschool in a city - 1.500 and up...
Private preschool in a small town - 350 - 500

Yet, your private lessons, you can charge exactly the same... now, if you end up living in a town which created Euro economic zones, you'll have plenty of corporate clients looking for native speakers. You'll have plenty of Matura and Gimnazjum prep as well... if you're a good, or rather, real teacher, you'll also have tons of youngins 6 and up, but I do realize that that's not everyone's cup o' tea.

ecocks · Joined: 06 Nov 2007 Posts: 899 Location: Gdansk, Poland

dragonpiwo · Joined: 04 Mar 2013 Posts: 1650 Location: Berlin

You find me a Pole in their earning prime who thinks 2100Zl a month is enough and I'll sing opera in the rynek naked in January.

Small towns are cheaper for sure but 2,100 is still a backpacker, shoe-string subsistence wage.

You won't have the option of living with mum and dad, or one of those cheap housing association flats, or free medical care or long-term pension or the chance to eat with babcia and or mum and dad several times a week. The situation, support wise is totally different for the native speaker. Therefore, what a Pole can live on is likely to be much less. Poles fiddle taxes too as is well-known.

If you stay for the long haul, 5,000 is the very minimum you'll need if you're going to pay a mortgage, school fees, toys, winter meds, school trips, household insurance, medical insurance, a car, petrol and so on. Of course, if you're single and remain so, 5k will be enough as long as you never stop working and/or don't get sick.

sparks · Joined: 20 Feb 2008 Posts: 632

salamiandbacon · Joined: 13 Apr 2012 Posts: 41

dragonpiwo · Joined: 04 Mar 2013 Posts: 1650 Location: Berlin

Some people said the world was flat until they knew better.

My sunglasses cost $3.75 from a Sudanese trader.

My girlfriend makes about 6k net with a free car, petrol, meals and phone thrown in. I work for an oil company, so naturally we like living the life. I did my time on the hustle in Poland for years and did ok but talk about having to work my ass off to get that 7-8k net.

You work so many hours it compromises the time you can spend doing what is good in Poland.

The guys who love to tell you how they made it here and how we obviously couldn't hack it couldn't be further from the truth. If 8k net is your holy grail...I for one made it. However, I now know there's making it and making it and once kids come along it's natural for me to want financial security, which is not afforded by the hustle, especially if you get sick like I did.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Simon worked for the BC, possibly the best paid school job in Poland. The jury's still out on Ecocks pending his visa status and he's done the kids thing etc. Delph is so contradictory I don't know what to make of his posts sometimes. Shake seems fairly balanced, but I'd hazard a guess that he has no kids in Poland, like Delph.

Whatever the bickering on this site, Poland isn't cheap for many things and the schools pay shite. Some people like that uncertain life of the private student route...personally, I don't and never did. It's a fact that most of the teachers I know, most of whom have been here years and speak Polish, do other jobs and are involved in the hustle; they live hand to mouth. Some have mortgages, few have cars and for some it will be a real struggle to pay for the wedding without family help. Most arrived as twenty-something single men. Many of them like the booze and the nightlife, although have mellowed with age. Without wishing to upset anyone, all they do is tread water at best. Long-term, none of them will have savings and most no pension...which is fine if you are healthy all of the time and work. Poland IMHO is a place to cut your teeth and move on from precisely because you have higher aspirations. For many, it's the same year repeated again and again. Of course, if you've had a career and fancy a few years teaching somewhere as a 'hobby' then you'll be fine if you've already got all the stuff that 'normal' non-TEFL types have.

No rational people choose to be poor and the road of irrationality, usually spawned by romance or rather the quest for it, is old and well-trodden.

NilSatis82 · Joined: 03 May 2009 Posts: 110