Job Discussion Forums

[Jack Walker]

This is my 6th and probably last year in Poland.Every year it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

Real estate prices are simply ridiculous to the point that a person is forced to pay a minimum of 1400-1800 zl per month(plus media) to rent a two room flat in a high rise concrete bunker in pretty much any provincial city in the country.Many of these flats are unfurnished and if they are furnished,they often look like something out of a late 60s early 70s nightmare, complete with those room filling, ugly wardrobe shelf things.

Goods and services are getting crazily expensive and are almost on par with western prices.Alas,most of our salaries are not rising to meet the increased costs.

Fuel prices are completely nuts.It seems that my wife and I spend the majority of our salaries putting petrol in our 1.1 litre car.It makes me wonder how those fat cats afford to drive SUVs here.You can see more and more of them on the road everyday.

Restaurants and pubs are no longer cheap here and we have to pay high prices for shoddy service and usually poor quality food.

6 years ago,200 zl could easily meet my food and entertainment needs for at least 3 weeks but now 200zl is peanuts and can easily be spent in a weekend with nothing to show for it.

I like Poland and was planning on making it my home for at least 10 more years but it's time to move on after this school year is through.

The medical system is a mess and the social security system here is absolutely horrible.It makes me wonder how old people and unemployed people manage.I guess that's why we all see so many sour faces daily.

Poland I love you but you've changed and it's not entirely for the better!

[scot47]

We are seeing more teachers with Polish experience or Polish connections coming to the Middle East. At least if you work in Saudi Arabia you have a reasonable income !

[simon_porter00]

The first thing to say is that I live in Warsaw, so this might skew my point to some degree but, I believe, not by much.

I've got to be honest I find some of these stories about how much it costs to live in Poland as a little hard to swallow. The minimum you should be earning per hour, assuming you've got the minimum requirement of a CELTA, (and i'm being extremely conservative here) is 50 zl net per 60 min.

If you work 20 hours a week (once again, being extremely conservative) you'll earn roughly 4000zl a month. Cost of rent between 1000-1600 (once again assuming you live in a normal flat, not with aspirations of luxury), then cost of running a car, transport ticket, food etc I can't see how you would struggle.

I live with the wife, we have a mortgage, we go out once a week (we're old already you see :rolleyes:), we have a gas guzzling italian car but 4000 will do me. Would it be different with kids? Almost definately. But we're lucky that I earn more then those conservative figures, the mrs works as well and so we're comfortable.

If someone has aspirations of living the high life then you, of course, will run short of cash. But that's the case in any city. I earn much more than i ever did in the UK, I know for a fact a lot of my colleagues do as well. Poland/Warsaw is easily livable if you shop around a bit like the rest of the world.

NB. I'm not telling people how to live their lives, nor criticising them, i'm just saying that living here is really not as difficult as it sometimes is made out to be.

[Jack Walker]

I would think that living in Warsaw would make it even more difficult to live financially.

I'm in a provincial city in the south and let me tell you,the costs are pretty much increasing monthly.

Sure you can live reasonably well from month to month, but the chances for any kind of savings are almost nil and Poland is not a place where you would want to be living out your golden years.

As you mentioned,raising a family in this country is pretty much impossible unless you want to go into heavy debt like most of the Poles are.You can't avoid heavy debt here unless you are a hot shot businessman earning 25,000zl per month with stock options and a sweet retirement plan.

I see enough senior citizens scrounging through the rubbish bins(along with the drunks) looking for recycables daily.Almost all of my friends here have to give part of their wages to their elderly parents to help them meet their daily costs of living.

Most pensioners here get about 800zl per month.What's that going to do for you in today's society?

[sharter]

I agree with Jack Walker.

And 4,000Zl a month, less than 900 quid, is not enough in Europe in 2008/9.

However, don't let Sco47 fool you into that Saudi gig. Poland to Saudi is a big transition. I'd rather be poor than work there again.

The sensible option is to work in Libya. Good dosh, home every 6 weeks and the students are ok. Then go to Poland and blow it all on fast living.

[simon_porter00]

Bearing in mind those numbers I used were extremely conservative. Once again, I know Warsaw is going to be different to a provincial town, but here if you're any good (and by that I mean you're capable of following a textbook and going through the motions as a minimum) you can't fail to get a zloty a minute net and work is so easy to find (through schools at first, building up a reputation as a sole trader takes a little more time) anyone working for less than 6.5K per month hasn't looked around enough.

Talking of provincial towns, the mrs comes from Stalowa Wola. 4/5 years ago a teacher was charging 100zl p/h and made his classes up with 3/4 students who would split the cost. This year, his rate is 200zl p/h. Yes, i'm guessing he gets 8 hours of those a week, but even if that's that case thats 6400 p/m

Students will pay (in groups admittedly) money to pass matura advanced. If working in a provincial town these are the groups that should be targeted and yes, it'll be slow at first but, word will eventually spread.

This person who earns 200zl p/h, teaches English at a secondary school so he's got a willing consumer base. The most amazing thing is however, that he's not a native.

[Jack Walker]

200zl per hour is quite the dosh.I usually charge 50zl per 60mins for private lessons.I give lessons to college students for 40zl per 60 mins.


The planets would have to be lining up pretty well to pull in a regular monthly salary of 6,500pln.

Private students are always bloody cancelling and I don't count that income into my monthly earnings.

I consider Poland a "pay as you play" country,, which means that for single or childless native English speakers, life can be smooth here with respect to earnings but if you want to settle down here for the long term and start a family,life will eventually be a struggle.

It's becoming a single man/woman's haunt.

[Richfilth]

Without wishing to instigate a cartel, charging 40PLN to privates is way too low, unless they deserve the sympathy vote or it's Mate's Rates. If you charge that little for your time, then the client is not going to care whether they cancel on you or not, as they don't think your time is worth the trouble. You're also probably undercutting the other professionals in the area, which means the rest of us would have to reduce our rates as well.

Fortunately, wage cuts are not the case just yet because, as others have stated, there's still such a glut of teaching work available that any internet-qualified backpacker can line their pockets here.

But Poland is like any other place; it's not a land of milk and honey, and things cost. If, however, you do your job properly and get the recommendations from clients, it doesn't take long to find a firm or two who sponsor you directly, providing you with a fat chunk of your classes in one place. 6500PLN, the example given, is 108x60mins at 60PLN net. That's five or six hours a day at the basic pay rate, and the better you are, the better you're paid, so less hours you have to work.

In summary, if you want the cash, why are you targetting the poorest clientele? Get into the corporate sector, get the steady hours, and get the money you deserve. That way you can afford to live here.

[Jack Walker]

I only charge that one college kid 40zl per hour as he is by no means rich and his last native speaker teacher charged him the same so I just let it go at that.Many of my native speaker friends also do the 40zl for "poor college kids routine".50zl is standard and i think it's a fair price for an hour of chit chat over coffee.

I absolutely abhor "business English" classes and now only do general English classes and conversation classes.

I have never felt comfortable teaching business English as I have no background in it and it has always bored the hell out of me.

[Jack Walker]

....another thing....on my last trip home to Canuckistan this summer,I found myself buying loads of everyday stuff to bring back here with me.Mainly cosmetics for my wife and other related cosmetics/shaving stuff etc .

When I realized that the L'Oreal products she uses are exactly half the price of what I pay in Poland,it really got me thinking.

If you want to buy second grade stuff here it can be cheap but the products are generally useless.High end electronics/cosmetics/clothing etc are almost twice the price as in the west.

[sharter]

Harry NWE, Simon Porter and Jack all seem to talk sense on this forum.

Poland aint cheap. In fact it's more expensive than many countries in Western Europe. So, when you see an ad saying 3,000Zl a month....get this..you'll be broke and struggling.

Don't rely on privates. They cancel a lot. And, once you've done the maths and worked out how long it takes to get to your private and back, you aren't getting that much for your trouble.

In company privates are where the money is at, but you won't get them till you've been there a while.

People love to blab on this forum about how a Pole can live quite easily on x Zl a month. As a foreigner, you don't have their support networks. My ex-wife still eats with her parents several times a week, she stays at friends' places when she goes on holiday. Taxi drivers don't try and shaft her. Waiters don't try and fiddle the bill. She knows where to go to get something on the cheap. Poles don't try and sell her the most expensive line of any product they have.She got a flat for free. Also, because most expats don't have family, they tend to rely on their friends for social support etc and that means socialising, which has got expensive in all the major cities. Pub grub is much cheaper in the UK as are top-shelf drinks.

And that's just now. If you really plan on settling in Poland, you've got the marriage and kids thing to think about. Let me tell you; anything connected with children in Poland is expensive. True, your missus might already have been given a flat, but that in itself is not enough.

The advice on this forum is given by 2 very different kinds of expat. The 'I'm still a student variety' and the 'I'm gonna stay here and have been here a while type.'

Sure, you can eat kebabs, eat in milk bars, drink in student dives and sleep in hostels when you go away. Most people can't live like that forever though.

Forecasts for the Polish economy are also less than bright. 7-12 thousand Zl a metre is barmy!! Even by non-London UK prices.

[Jack Walker]

Fantastic post Mr.Sharter.You hit the proverbial nail soundly on the head.

For example,if you have a baby in Poland right now,the governmentt will give you a 1,000zl one time payment.They are apparently trying to cut that out as we speak.

1,000zl will buy you one of those huge whelled pram things in Poland.In Canada, the same pram set up costs about 500zl.

Baby stuff here is ridiculously overpriced.I often wonder what the locals would do if they didn't have their mothers to look after their kids.Almost all Poles send their kids to their babcias for free childcare.They simply can't afford daycare or sitters.It is done out of necessity.

So you have a pram for your baby and then the government basically washes their hands with you and your kid till they reach 65 or so.

My sister-in-law,a public school teacher, is currently pregnant with her second kid.

They can barely afford the kid they have now but it seems that every second woman you see on the street is currently pregnant.I guess once the EU dosh and the Polish UK worker's pounds dry up,things will be even tougher in good old Polska.The country is kind of running on fumes right now.

My wife and I rarely go to pubs or restaurants because they are poor value for money.I'd rather stay at home than go out for poor quality,overpriced food served by a sour faced waitress.

Don't get me wrong,Poland is a fantastic country with respect to history,nature and architecture but financially,living here long term isn't easy.I've travelled across this country many times and seen more than most Poles would see in 2 lifetimes but if we want to have our family,we need to leave in the very near future.

[Jack Walker]

.........another alarming thing I failed to mention is that a Polish friend of mine recently took out a 30 year mortgage on a new 250,000 zl,55 sq metre flat on the 10th floor of a newly built concrete bunker in the Czestochowa region.

This price didn't include a cooker or fridge or anything.Just the actual bunker itself.He is now working 6 days a week all day long in order to meet the mortgage payments and other costs of living.He is also married.

My sister and her husband bought a brand new 150sq metre house with a lot of land for almost the same price last year in Canada.

That's just obscene.

[simon_porter00]

I tend to think along two different lines here:
If you teach it's your responsibility to get the best deal you can for yourself and that unfortunately requires you to be somewhat cut-throat. Obviously, if you've been here a while you'll develop links and contacts that a newbie won't have. In fact, I think i saw someone I met in Warsaw once (an American who's been here for donkeys years) on that new Polish series set in London - Londonczy...whatever. So the longer you work here/are here and don't alienate anyone you'll get job opps for the more interesting stuff. I'm hoping that some come my way soon. Simon Porter talks bollocks on Polsat for 30 minutes every week for example.
In short, you should maximise every minute you teach in terms of zloty and you should set yourself new financial goals every year, certainly for the first 3-5years here in Poland.

The second line is: i really don't know how some people can afford to live. No doubt Warsaw and other cities will become like London where key service personnel and first time buyers can't get on the housing ladder. The problem in Poland though is that there isn't an established, ready built area of housing in the suburbs/out in the sticks which can be afforded instead. You have to build from scratch and that comes with significant cost. High price of food, relative high price of petrol, high price of child care and having children (15zl per hour in warsaw for a childminder). I guess they have, as already alluded to, support networks from family. My support network (afforded through my wife) still brings a car load of food everytime they visit even though we earn 4 times more than them.

Some good points on this thread and it'll be interesting to see what Poland will be like next year. One things for sure, when the recession comes it's going to be painful, for English teachers as well as the Polish.

[sharter]

And let's not forget.

Many Poles will have seen their property rise in value and taken loans out on the equity.

Flat prices fall...then what?

The coalition government collapses, then what?

The only thing that is certain is that teachers' salaries won't go up much. Living in Poland is like falling off a yacht, swimming like hell and watching the yacht get taken further and further away by currents you can't control.

It's got so bad, Poles don't even talk about it anymore.