Korean Job Discussion Forums

[alinkorea]

Why is it that a sizable chunk of the foreigners teaching over here are obsessed with saving money? Endless penny pinching is a horrible habit. Fretting over every 100Won!! Surely there has to be a balance between saving and hedonism. Most annoyingly they tend to be the people who hate Korea because they are too tight to go anywhere, prefering to sit in their apartments 24-7. Worst of all they never completely pay their way. For example, they rarely pay for taxis; it never seems to be their round etc. These types of people exist everywhere, but I've never met so many as here.
I'm certainly not suggesting everyone who saves money falls into this catagory. It's very easy to save money here but too many take it to the extreme.

[fidel]

Hell, I opened this thread expecting a whine about slags and all I get is a whine about something else. Damn that's 20 seconds of my life I've lost!

[SPINOZA]

Interesting observations, OP.

I think people come to Korea with an expectation of saving 10k a year at least - a popular belief said over and over again on this board and elsewhere. Whilst that's certainly possible I think, people are perhaps a little over-expectant of that. Saving money, especially in Seoul and to those of us with social lives, actually requires more effort than one might think.

I too tire of people who drink the pitchers all night and pay bugger all.

I'm always b1tching about money though, sadly, because I'm a tight sod who over-spends and is always cursing silly purchases and over-indulgence. But even if I live like a king and am throwing paper around like confetti, I still ought to able to save 700k a month. It's less than I hoped but still substantial by my standards.

[keithinkorea]

I can completely relate to the OP's post.

Some English teachers here are cheaper than a gnat's chuff, and that's being generous to them.

Taxi leechers, food leechers, beer leechers I hate them all.

My response is simply not to hang out with these skinflints, I don't mind the easygoing 'I pay this time and you can buy me a beer at the weekend' approach at all, in fact that is just civilised adult behaviour. I can't stand people who are so cheap they're always trying to wriggle out of paying their fair share.

Some teachers here are embarrasing when it comes to their utterly mercenary attitude to money.

[manlyboy]

Yep. Having worked in Indonesia and China, where everybody makes crap but nobody ever tried to sponge off me, it was a real eye-opener coming here and seeing well-paid guys put 3 000 won on the table and walk out of the bar after having drank 10 000 won worth of beer.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Cruisemonkey can provide a better description than I can of someone who tops the list. How about going without hot water and heat? Carrying a 20kg bag of rice 5km home to avoid a taxi?

[sarahsarah]

Yeah, I once worked with guy who unplugged his refrigerator so he could save some money on his electricity bill, but then he ordered pizza every night because he couldn't keep refrigerated food in his house. Hmm....

Yeah, I've noticed this trend as well and I think it's a bit silly.

[susy]

If you don`t WANT to be a teacher - you will never be one. - Its fine to save money, in fact i spent 4 years at uni and desperatly needed to pay of debts and earn cash - but going abroad to teach is more than just that.
If they only want more money why don`t they stay in their own countries and get sales jobs, rather than taking the teaching positions from those of us who actually want to be teachers.

When u go abroad you should at least want to integrate and be willing to.
So many teachers just want to socialise in their small `foreigner` groups so they will never learn much about the cutlure and people - thats their loss- but it also creates a bad picture for the rest of us who actually want to make an effort.

[cruisemonkey]

I can vouch for what Yu_Bum_suk said, except that carrying the 20kg bag of rice was not to avoid paying W4000 for a taxi, but W850 for a bus! The person in question has recently started complaining about being cold all the time, but won't buy oil... so has no hot water or heat in her apartment. I've seen her go to a bank machine and withdraw W10000 (the weekly food, clothing, transportation and entertainment budget) and be literally devastated when she is levied a W500 service charge. She buys food without knowing what it is, simply because it's "cheap" (her word, not mine); and can't speak for two minutes without bringing up the cost of something. It's almost a obsessive-compulsive 'thing' - truely bizzare

[rapier]

I know someone who in the winter, turned their heating off, cooked up a whole load of porridge and poured it into their chest of drawers, then simply ate chunks of the hardened, cooled porridge for a couple months to save on food. he got sick after a while and had to seek medical help.

[crazylemongirl]

There are so many types of these people that you could write an essay on them.

The One-Sided Borrower
The ��Cheque is in the Mail��
The Crasher
The Twofers

Some tight bastards here in Korea

[The Great Toad]

I have yet to turn the heat on this fall too- Does that make me a scrub?




Ahh scrub u mean do I know any kids who scrub well yes I met some last Friday... So cute, silly, and happy- and not a dime between them.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Freezer Burn]

[Swiss James]