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Why do people think Korea is so great for saving money?
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schwa

Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Yap

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 8:05 pm Post subject:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

earthquakez

Joined: 10 Nov 2010

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: Why do people think Korea is so great for saving money?

isitts wrote:

AtmaWeapon wrote:

Most of us here are making ~$24K/yr with a paid apartment (if that), the equivalent of making ~$30K back home. Since most of us are recent college grads, the alternative would be making ~$36K at an entry level position (I guess if you are lucky enough to get one).

Aside from saving on costs associated with driving such as gas and insurance (I already factored in rent above), I think most people would still be able to save more money living in their home country. I just don't understand why so many people rave about Korea being such a great place to save money, when in reality we are making peanuts. Transportation aside, the cost of living in Korea is about the same if not higher than the US.

Personally I prefer teaching to working a boring desk job, which is why I came to Korea in the first place and why I'm coming back. I managed to save $20K over 15 months my first time around which is OK, but my friend who works an entry level job saved $30K during my time in Korea. Granted he was living with his parents and I definitely had more fun in Korea than he did back home, but I'm speaking purely of finances here.

I think you're in a good position to answer this question yourself. But congratulations for getting 6 pages of responses to your trolling post.

Congratulations on logging in to snip at another poster - and then going on to join the debate. Troll indeed. Get a life sunshine.

earthquakez

Joined: 10 Nov 2010

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: Why do people think Korea is so great for saving money?

isitts wrote:

AtmaWeapon wrote:

I think you're in a good position to answer this question yourself. But congratulations for getting 6 pages of responses to your trolling post.

Congratulations on logging in to snipe at another poster - and then going on to join the debate. Troll indeed. Get a life sunshine.

isitts

Joined: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Korea

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:43 pm Post subject: Re: Why do people think Korea is so great for saving money?

earthquakez wrote:

Congratulations on logging in to snip at another poster - and then going on to join the debate. Troll indeed. Get a life sunshine.

earthquakez wrote:

Congratulations on logging in to snipe at another poster - and then going on to join the debate. Troll indeed. Get a life sunshine.

Was it a snip or a snipe? Anyway, I was addressing the OP, not �another poster�. He is in a good position to answer the question himself. He says:

Quote:

Personally I prefer teaching to working a boring desk job, which is why I came to Korea in the first place and why I'm coming back.

He�s worked in Korea before and he�s going back. So right there he knows why Korea is so great for saving money. He downplays it by saying he prefers teaching to doing a desk job but then at the end of his post says he�s �speaking purely of finances�. So why return if he doesn't think Korea is great for saving money?

Then he goes on to mention his friend who lives in a basement (likely with no health insurance or pension), which, just by that description, only further answers his own question.

This doesn�t sound like trolling? Look at the way the question is asked in the subject heading.

As for my questions/comments about car sharing, that was a side topic. OP said he's negating transportation costs with his calculations.

Vix

Joined: 18 Jun 2010
Location: Seoul

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:58 am Post subject:

Well considering how often hagwons screw people over. I wouldn't recommend coming here to anyone

PatrickGHBusan

Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:15 am Post subject:

Vix wrote:

Well considering how often hagwons screw people over. I wouldn't recommend coming here to anyone Confused

Noted but the flip side is that many (most?) people do not get cheated by their Hakwons, they just do not come on here and post about it.

PatrickGHBusan

Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:17 am Post subject:

isitts wrote:

NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote:

atwood wrote:

NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote:

I never needed a car in NYC.

I lived in Manhattan and needed a car from time to time. Plenty of people who live there have cars. And if you lived in one of the other boroughs, you;d probably need a car.

If you only need them from time to time, it's far cheaper to hire a car for the day. I've lived in every borough but the Bronx, and never needed to own a car. I chose neighborhoods with good public transport and good supermarkets within very short walking distance.

Parking in Manhattan either costs a fortune (nearly $500 a month if you use a garage) or often takes hours if you're hunting for a free spot. There's also alternate side parking, where you have to move your car for street cleaning. My roomate in university had a car, and he was always complaining, and hardly ever drove the thing.

+1

Does New York have any sort of car sharing? Seattle has flexcar.

Such services are great where they can be found. It is in fact a fantastic way to get the advantages of car without most of the financial drawbacks. Does anyone know if Seoul has such a service?

Weigookin74

Joined: 26 Oct 2009

Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2012 12:40 pm Post subject:

Well, I think it was before the exchange rate fell and wages became flat. Five to 10 years ago people were raking in the coin. It's still ok, but not what it was. The past reputation and people taking flood from the recession has resulted in this perception.

SonomaJoe

Joined: 10 Oct 2011
Location: Santa Rosa, CA

Posted: Wed Feb 08, 2012 10:06 pm Post subject:

Because those of us in the real world have to pay off our student loans somehow. That isn't going to come about here in America, which has pretty much utilized me for any number of soul crushing retail experiences, and never given me even close to that amount a year. I made an average of between $11,000 to $12,000 for 5 years after college before finally hitting the big time money with my last job, which gave me a grand total of $14,500 on average per year. Yeah, South Korea is looking damn good, thank you.

atwood

Joined: 26 Dec 2009

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:05 am Post subject:

alongway wrote:

atwood wrote:

alongway wrote:

Quote:

I and other E-2ers cannot get a smart phone and do not tell us we can -we can't because of the ending date on our one year visas. Telecommunications businesses have the right to deny somebody with such a limited stay in Korea a smart phone.

You lost me there.
Many E-2s have smart phones. KT specifically allows E-2s to get smart phones. All you're required to do is go back when you get a new visa and they carry your plan over. Even F series have to do that, as initially the original F-2-1 was for only 1 year, sometimes lucky if you already had a kid and a friendly immigration officer.

The F-2 points is also very attainable for anyone who really wants to stay on here long-term. With a minimum amount of Korean study, most people should be within spitting distance.

Quote:

All fruit except for bananas is over-priced in Korea.

Mandarin oranges are a good price in season here, and I find them to be in season here longer than back home. At their best point, I was getting them for about $1/lb

Watermelon will hit a good price at their peak, but I find the peak season a little shorter here than back home

Likewise yellow melons and if you like them, persimmons are priced fine in season.

I've never found anything wrong with Costco's prices.

From time to time fruit can be affordable, but you couldn't give me "yellow melons."

Costco prices are often one-third to double their prices in the U.S. yet,like you, I find them to be a good deal in Korea. Which says a lot about prices in Korea.

As for inflation, as long as the won remains weak inflation will remain fairly high.

Costcos prices put you within supermarket range back home.
I've been here quite a few years now, so I occasionally ask my mother about certain grocery prices out of curiosity. There are still differences, but they're closing. Some meat prices at costco really aren't all that different than back home.

and I like yellow melons. They're a little work, but I find them worth it

As for fruit back home... everything has a season. Try to buy anything but standard apples and bananas in the winter in Canada and the prices aren't going to be good. You'll get mandarin oranges for a little while around Christmas but that's it.

Nuts are cheaper for anything other than peanuts back home.

Despite the huge strawberry market here they haven't really brought the price down much which is a shame.

Can't say for Canada, other than when I visited I was shocked by how expensive things were compared to the U.S., but in the U.S. fruit prices and selection/variety are great, especially in comparison to Korea.

myenglishisno

Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Location: Geumchon

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:07 am Post subject:

schwa wrote:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

I don't understand people who don't drive. In the West, if you don't drive then you can't see other people and have to become a mooch ("can you give me a ride?") Also, driving can be one of the most enjoyable things one does.

It's one of the things I miss the most about my life back home (and the freedom it entails). I could/occasionally do drive here, I just can't justify owning a vehicle 24/7.

r122925

Joined: 02 Jun 2011

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 6:22 am Post subject:

myenglishisno wrote:

schwa wrote:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

I don't understand people who don't drive. In the West, if you don't drive then you can't see other people and have to become a mooch ("can you give me a ride?")

That depends very much on where you live.

myenglishisno wrote:

Also, driving can be one of the most enjoyable things one does.

I don't doubt that it is for you, but people enjoy different things.

I drove in the US because I had little choice, but I can't think of anything that I enjoyed about it. To me it meant traffic, stress, and lots of expense (insurance, gas, maintenance, etc).

I understand the freedom aspect of it (go anywhere, anytime), but I find the public transportation in Korea to be so good that I never really feel limited. Maybe I would feel differently if I lived in a more rural area, but not needing a car is something I enjoy about Korea.

The Floating World

Joined: 01 Oct 2011
Location: Here

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:06 pm Post subject:

myenglishisno wrote:

schwa wrote:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

Depends where you live. London, NYC, Torronto, you don't need a car and in fact it would be a pita more than anything else.

Personally, give me a motorbike anyday (until I have a family.) I say that coming from England though, where there is a lot of traffic. Out in the states in the midwest did some nice driving on highway 101 and other roads, nice long stretches of open road baby.

Yaya

Joined: 25 Feb 2003
Location: Seoul

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:17 pm Post subject:

myenglishisno wrote:

schwa wrote:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

I understand why I don't drive. I'd be a friggin' heifer if I did drive everywhere instead of getting exercise and such. A study found that TV and driving are the two biggest reasons Americans are the fattest cows on the planet (and believe it or not, it's gotten even worse).

myenglishisno

Joined: 08 Mar 2011
Location: Geumchon

Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:21 pm Post subject:

The Floating World wrote:

myenglishisno wrote:

schwa wrote:

As a lifelong nondriver, I'd say Korea serves me awesomely well.

I prefer motorbikes too. I've had two in Korea and might get another one soon.

It's just that having a motorbike is a bit impractical if you live in a country that has a winter season. I can't ride in the winter, I just really don't like to.

Quote:

Within reason. I meant driving as an activity to relieve stress, not driving to get to your mailbox or driving to your neighbours house. Even here, most older Koreans will drive two blocks if it means they don't have to go outside. I had that behaviour.

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