Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Globutron]

[allovertheplace]

[jzrossef]

[rumdiary]

My first year in Korea I didn't save a dime. I had read about how easy it would be to save 1 million won a month and assumes I would return home with 12 million won. Stuff adds up. Especially when you don't have bills to worry about and disposable income. Travel, imported goods, drinking etc. My second time around I only did slightly better. It was worth it though. Tons of good memories. Now that I'm back in the U.S I have to watch every penny.

[jzrossef]

[PatrickBateman]

I blow my money.
Not really a fan of saving it, so if there's something I want I just buy it.
Never was really a big fan of stashing a lot of money.

[johnnyrook]

I've saved about 7 million won with one pay left to come of my first year here, so I expect to get that total up to 8 million. I was hoping to save 10 million won but I think I've done pretty well considering a few things:

-Didn't save anything from my first two pays. Actually didn't get my first pay until more than a month after I arrived, and I came with not a lot of money, so when I finally got cash I went a bit crazy, buying furniture and appliances for my apartment, and building a stylish winter wardrobe (since winter fashion doesn't really exist where I come from).

- In the subsequent nine months I've taken trips with my girlfriend to Shanghai, Singapore and Jeju, with the airfares and accommodation fully paid for by me.

- I like to cook gourmet meals (as hard as it is to do in Korea, with only a shitty stovetop to work with) so I spend over 100k a week on groceries. And when I'm not weaving some culinary magic in the kitchen I'm shouting my gf dinner.

- I've bought a buttload of books since coming to Korea. I love reading so I inevitably buy a couple of books at least every two or three weeks.

Well, I don't smoke or drink coffee, and I only drink alcohol about once a week and never excessively, so I guess that might balance out my spending compared to the typical foreign teacher. Excluding groceries I honestly don't really spend any money during the week (when my gf's busy with uni); I'd be luckily to go through man won through the working week.

[jonpurdy]

[northway]

[Vix]

[allovertheplace]

[toby99]

Some actual ways friends of mine pinch pennies (or won, rather) in Korea:

-always take subway, never set foot in a taxi
-never travel around Korea unless on a school field trip
-buy the absolute cheapest cigs (saves 5-600 won/pack)
-drink soju at home before going out to family mart to drink, and, if going to a bar, limit yourself only to 500cc mugs of Cass/Hite
-buy bricks of the cheapest HomePlus ramen, mix with spam for dinner
-never order anju
-only use the big, cheap, generic bottles of soda available at grocery stores for mixers.
-don't touch the ondol--use spaceheater and wear slippers.
-make it a point of going to every school dinner/drinking session with the coteachers and eat/drink as much as humanly possible, since these will be your best meals of the week and you usually won't have to pay a dime. (unless you start going regularly over the course of a few years, in which case you'll probably be expected to pay for a round. I know some public schools will take 10-20K out of your paycheck each month to cover costs for these events, so it's a good idea to go regardless. But if you're only staying at your school for a year, you should be in the clear.)

I'm sure I'm forgetting more. A decent percentage of fellow ESL'ers in my neighborhood are trying to save as much as humanly possible during their stay here. Those are the guys who do almost everything on the list above. Not the way I'd wanna live, but, yeah, it is possible to live cheaply.

For me, on the other hand, it's highly, highly unusual NOT to burn through 1 million+ over the course of a month.

[RedKristin]

[winterfall]

I haven't saved much money either. But I'm supporting a family. It wasn't until I got paid 2.2 a month that I really started to save more than a $100 bucks a month.

It could be your diet. Are you a foreign food only guy, do you mostly shop at costco? Costco may be cheap but, its not that cheap. It's more like buying in bulk for those luxuries you can't give up like nuts, bread, deli meat.

[johnnyrook]