Jane
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 26,000
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
I work at a language clinic and I earn 26,000 baht a month with a 3% tax deduction on that full-time salary. I don't have any part time jobs yet.
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
I can save at least 8,000 baht a month excluding the money I send back to my family in the Philippines.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I rent a bachelor type studio for 3,500 baht a month (fridge/ air-con included) with electricity and water bills I pay at the most 4,500 baht including the rent.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I use the motorcycle for 10 baht, bus for 6.50 baht (use the red old buses if you don't mind it not having a/c. if you're lucky you might be riding the free red buses and songtaew 7 baht. One month total of 1,815 baht. Sometimes when I am in a hurry I use the air-conditioned bus for 13 baht.
Utility bills
I bundle it in with the rent as mentioned above.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
My groceries come to about 2,000-3,000 a month plus 1,500 baht for food allowance. I limit my spending to 50 baht a day for food at work
Nightlife and drinking
I just bike around the markets buying 20 baht drinks or snacks and it won't cost me more than a 100 baht
Books, computers
I use the computer at work for everything that I need including information for lectures. I can find almost everything in Google. We do have our own books at school. I sometimes download e-books on my ipad and that costs nothing.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
It is better compared to the life I had in the Philippines. Life here is easy as long as you know where you spend your money.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food, without a doubt.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
Survive? Even the highest paid teachers here can't survive if they don't budget their money. If you find yourself saying to yourself you can't afford to save money right now, you are lying to yourself. Most of us started with the basic salary and then moved to another company with higher salary. It still wasn't enough because we still keep on moving/changing jobs. I'd say you can either survive or live a nice life depending on how you spend your money.
Phil's analysis and comment
I think many Western teachers (me included) just don't know how Filipinos survive on the money they earn, especially if - as many do - they are sending money back to help families in The Philippines.
Limiting your daily food budget to 50 baht and riding the non-airconditioned bus to keep costs down certainly won't be many people's idea of a good time but if it still means that life here is better than life back in the homeland, who am I to argue?
On the topic of Filipino teachers working in Thailand, Benito Vacio wrote a couple of blogs for Ajarn dot com before he returned to The Philippines last year. He had noticed many Filipino teachers had made the decision to reurn home. Was the love affair with Thailand coming to an end?
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