Gary
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 50,000
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
I get a 45,000 baht salary from the Thai secondary school where I work and I generally bump that up by 5,000 baht a month doing the odd private student either on-line or face-to-face.
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
It varies between 5,000 and about 20,000 I guess. I have managed to save about 100,000 baht in the twelve months I've been here so far and I am going to use that money to pay for a trip home in March / April.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I just moved from a centrally located Bangkok apartment, for which I was paying 8,000 baht a month, to a similar apartment in the suburbs for 6,000. I didn't make the move to save money on rent. There is simply less temptation to spend money where I am now because it's a quieter neighborhood. It's also slightly closer to work.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I ride a bicycle actually so the 10-15 ride to school and back costs me nothing. I might take the odd taxi at the weekend but generally my monthly transportation costs are very low.
Utility bills
I get a nice breeze coming in off the balcony if I keep the back door open so it enables me to stay away from the money-eating air-conditioner. My bills come to about 1,500 a month for electricity, water and phone. Not bad at all.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I love my food but I've cut down on the amount of Western food I eat because I think most of it is extremely poor value for money. I think Japanese food is expensive as well here. When I arrived in Thailand, I wasn't a great fan of Thai food but I've kinda forced myself to like it. It's an obvious thing to say but you can really cut down on your food bill if you stick to Thai food only. But I still spend about 10,000 a month if you factor in supermarket shopping.
Nightlife and drinking
I still live alone (and prefer it that way) but the novelty of Bangkok's famous nightlife has really started to wear off now. Whereas I used to be out three or four nights a week. I've cut it down to just Friday and Saturday because I don't have to work the following day. I can get through a couple of thousand on a good night out so I bet this category costs me 12,000 a month if I add it all up.
Books, computers
I like my gadgets and I download quite a few E-books so this probably comes in at about 3-4K a month.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
As I said, I've only been here for a year but I'm delighted with how that first year has gone. I've managed to find employment at a decent school where I'm certainly not overworked and for the time being, I can live very happily on 50K a month. I've got a decent apartment and I'm not going hungry or lacking a social life.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Like most large 'international' cities, there's no limit to the amount of money you could spend but it's all about living within your means. I know the kind of lifestyle I can afford and it's all about not going crazy when your paycheck hits the bank account each month. I find Bangkok a very reasonably-priced city to live in if you can avoid those Western temptations.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
I think 50,000 is more than enough for someone in my position. I could push myself and earn more by taking on more private students (I'm always getting asked) but at this moment, I'm not really interested in killing myself.
Phil's analysis and comment
Gary sounds very happy with his lot. He's made a few modifications to his lifestyle, by for example moving out to an area of the city where the temptations are fewer, but that sounds like a sensible move. 'Always live within your means' - I got that same advice from my very first boss and I've never forgotten it.
A lot of teachers face the same situation as Gary - do I push myself and take on a few more private students to maybe make another 10-20,000 a month, but it's a trade-off. You're going to be eating into your free time and our free time is the most precious commodity of all.
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