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rocketchild
Joined: 27 Mar 2008
Posts: 96
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 Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 9:25 pm Post subject: How much do you honestly save working in Thailand? |
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Just wondering what the responses will be.
How much does one honestly save generally speaking working as a teacher in Thailand?
My friends all laugh and tell me they loved be but they all lost money or just broke even and would never ever go back.
What's your take on teaching in Thailand? Is it worth the flight? |
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Sadebugo
Joined: 10 May 2003
Posts: 524
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: Re: How much do you honestly save working in Thailand? |
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| rocketchild wrote: |
Just wondering what the responses will be.
How much does one honestly save generally speaking working as a teacher in Thailand?
My friends all laugh and tell me they loved be but they all lost money or just broke even and would never ever go back.
What's your take on teaching in Thailand? Is it worth the flight? |
I worked in Thailand for two years and had a relatively good experience. However, I had to dip into savings accrued in Saudi Arabia quite often because my monthly salary never really covered all my expenses. I'm a relatively frugal person with simple tastes so that says something about the salaries there I think.
Having said the above, if you have a job at an international school, your salary will be much higher and savings would certainly be possible. Otherwise, it's really difficult to put away anything more than a token amount. For savings, I would recommend Korea and/or the Middle East if you'd consider that.
Sadebugo
http://travldawrld.blogspot.com/ |
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Thwartley
Joined: 14 Mar 2008
Posts: 34
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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It's funny how the 30, 000 baht a month myth persists. Of course, it is reality for many. But significantly more is possible even as a teacher.
The secret is that those opportunities are few and far between and no one really shares the info.  |
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markj
Joined: 30 Sep 2007
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 9:24 pm Post subject: 30,000 myth? |
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| I made 39,000 when I was there 3 years ago and felt somewhat secure that I could easily find one in the 35-40 range. I can't believe things have changed that much since I left. Anyway...even 39 is hard to live on if you want your own apt. and want to party on weekends. |
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Master Shake
Joined: 03 Nov 2006
Posts: 1202
Location: Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:48 am Post subject: |
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39,000 baht is hard to live on??? Are you crazy?
Thai teachers live on less than 20,000/month, which is quite a respectable salary in Thailand.
How much is "enough" really depends on your lifestyly. But I think 30,000 is easily do-able if you live in a studio apartment (3,500 baht/month), eat Thai food and don't party too hard on the week nights. |
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up-country_sinclair
Joined: 27 Oct 2007
Posts: 7
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| Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:51 am Post subject: |
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| It all depends on where you live in Thailand, and what your food/entertainment budget is. |
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DMPT
Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 71
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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I've been in LoS for about 3 years, but just moved to BKK a few months ago. I make 35,000 and my Thai GF makes 7000 in a hair salon - 13 hours a day 6 days a week.
Our apartment is a large furnished studio for 7000 with aircon, fridge, TV and wireless - bills about 1,500. We budget and average about 500B a day on food and a quiet life. I've a bike which uses about 400B of gas a week. I've recently been messed about with visas so am doing monthly visa runs at the moment. but once settled I'll probably be saving about 10,000 a month, but we have a quite life.
The main thing to do with budgets is how much capital you bring to set yourself up. If you come here and can buy a bike, all your furniture, a 3 month rental deposit etc etc straight off without any worries you'll be fine as all your wages will be for you.
If you come with no capital to spend (I wouldn't advise it) a fair amount is gonna go on transport (you need a bike/scooter), rental deposits ( a 3 month deposit), visas, cooking utensils, rice cooker, electric pan , clothes, hangers, etc etc and having to do all that on your wages isn't going to be fun.
With everything bought, including a motorbike (20,000 B will get an acceptable 2nd hand honda wave) so your wages are simply for daily living costs and rent, you'll manage to put some away - it'll depend on how much you like/need whiskey and girls.
A 1 bedroom aprt is about 10K p/m. 3 month deposit (you may find less) is 30 K, get a bike 40 K, another 30 K on fitting out your apartment and getting the things you need for life will be more than enough - so I'd say if you come here with 100,000 baht to set yourself up you'll be fine when it comes to saving a bit and having a good stress free standard of living. |
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DMPT
Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 71
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Thai teachers live on less than 20,000/month, which is quite a respectable salary in Thailand. |
Yeah, they also have interest free mortgages and loans, have lived here all their lives so have no set up costs etc etc. They also don;t get sick of eating 25B Thai food 4 times a day after 5 months.
| Quote: |
| How much is "enough" really depends on your lifestyly. |
That is half true. It also depends how much you spend on setting yourself up and whether you have to pay it back or not.
| Quote: |
| But I think 30,000 is easily do-able if you live in a studio apartment (3,500 baht/month), eat Thai food and don't party too hard on the week nights. |
NOBODY should live in a 3,500 baht studio unless they are used to living in a prison cell. Eating street food 4 times a day because you can't afford buying food from Tesco and cooking it yourself will become prison-like after 6 months. Add both of these to 'don't party' - Bladdy hell!
if you aren't in a relationship and are living in a 3,500B cell, eating nothing but 25B street food and not partying..... if this is a better life than home, home must be dire, DIRE place to live. |
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saroq
Joined: 05 Nov 2004
Posts: 77
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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| If you think you are going to live on 30,000 a month and have a decent life you are kidding yourself. |
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Nabby Adams
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 215
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| Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 12:10 am Post subject: |
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If I put a steak in front of a car exhaust for only 1 second would you eat it?
Why educated foreigners are happy to eat the mankiest of street food in BK is beyond me.
3500bht for a studio? Unemployed in the UK get better accomodation than that.
I thought the idea of working was to improve the quality of life not lower it. |
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kidefl
Joined: 22 Jun 2007
Posts: 40
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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Housing is really cheap, food is cheap. If you want to go native, as I do, you could save about 5-10K Baht a month if you earned 30K outside of BKK.
In BKK you'd have to earn 50K to save that same amount. And it all depends on a thousand variables, without mentioning. I smoke but I don't drink or womanize. I'd love to but I can't afford it. There are a lot of distractions, especially in BKK. It would be easy to blow your wad in a week.
You don't want to be poor in Thailand, believe me. Over the years I've just learned to do without things. A Thai meal is about 30B, a farang meal is about 200B. If you want to save I hope you like rice. |
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newyork
Joined: 08 Sep 2007
Posts: 15
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:28 am Post subject: Spend all of your money |
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| Why would you want to save money in Thailand? It's a place to have fun and spend your money, not save! |
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ckhl
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Posts: 214
Location: SE Asia
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:56 am Post subject: |
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| I'll probably end up in Thailand but only once I've built up enough capital from living in the UAE. Once I'm in Thailand, I'll no longer need to save anything, just make enough to cover my living expenses. As for partying out, it's better to do most of your drinking at home. You can get excellent food at any number of restaurants in Chiang Mai, including a beer, for 200 baht or less. |
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Toon Army
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Posts: 23
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:24 am Post subject: International school jobs |
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| sorry wrong thread! |
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PattyFlipper
Joined: 14 Nov 2007
Posts: 572
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| Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 11:12 am Post subject: |
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| up-country_sinclair wrote: |
| It all depends on where you live in Thailand, and what your food/entertainment budget is. |
It is, however, a bit of a myth that the cost of living outside Bangkok is substantially cheaper. Accommodation and eating out may be a little less, but then so is the range and, arguably, the quality of what is available. Otherwise the cost of utilities and commodities like groceries, electronic items, books (expensive), booze and wine (hugely expensive), cigs etc. are about the same. What it boils down to is that there are significantly fewer temptations to part you from your money out in Nakhon Nowhere (terminal boredom, anyone?). You will however also have fewer opportunities to supplement your meagre income in the provinces.
| Thwartley wrote: |
It's funny how the 30, 000 baht a month myth persists. Of course, it is reality for many. But significantly more is possible even as a teacher.
The secret is that those opportunities are few and far between and no one really shares the info. |
Ah yes. The old you-won't-get-the-good-jobs-unless-you've-lived-here-a-zillion-years-and-are-a-fully-initiated-member-of-the-Higher-Masonic-Order chestnut. Haven't heard that one in quite a while. Strange how quite a few old Thai hands of my acquaintance are still grubbing around for the Bht 30k to 35k jobs. Perhaps they don't know the secret handshake?
| Master Shake wrote: |
| Thai teachers live on less than 20,000/month, which is quite a respectable salary in Thailand. |
Irrelevant. You are not Thai (as will be made patently clear to you at every available opportunity by the Thais themselves), and you do not have the family and social support networks which Thai teachers have. Nor do you have access to the credit or interest free loans to which they are entitled. Additionally, the Thai teachers will not be moving on somewhere else.
| Master Shake wrote: |
I think 30,000 is easily do-able if you live in a studio apartment (3,500 baht/month), eat Thai food and don't party too hard on the week nights. |
Do-able? Perhaps. Just. Pleasant? Hmmm .... This sort of hand-to-mouth existence wears pretty thin after a while. Also you haven't factored in the frequent and expensive (in relation to the salaries) visa runs which will probably be required, and during which you will not be paid by many Thai employers. What about holidays and travel? Further education? And what about the price of an air ticket plus relocation costs to somewhere else when you finally decide you've had enough of the penury?
This:
| Sadebugo wrote: |
I worked in Thailand for two years and had a relatively good experience. However, I had to dip into savings accrued in Saudi Arabia quite often because my monthly salary never really covered all my expenses. I'm a relatively frugal person with simple tastes so that says something about the salaries there I think.
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and this:
| kidefl wrote: |
| Over the years I've just learned to do without things. |
I believe, sum up the situation for your average TEFLer in Thailand. Dip into your savings (if you are fortunate enough to have them) or live like a peon, with few, if any, Western comforts. Since saving money appears to be of primary concern to the OP, perhaps he/she would be better advised to go somewhere - almost anywhere - else. |
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