Abraham
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 20,000 to 60,000 baht.
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
I have worked at a private language school in Bangkok for one year and teach 12-18 hours a week. I supplement my language school hours by teaching business English classes for another school. Over the course of this first year, my average month has been around 30,000 baht but my earnings vary dramatically. In October last year, I made just over 60k. This month (January) I will be taking home just over 20k. In December last year, I took home 27K.
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
Honestly, my savings are non-existent. Whatever money I bank at the end of a good month, gets spent in quieter months. I am half way through a non-immigrant visa and work permit, but my first few months cost me a lot with all the visa runs etc. Last month was a little unfortunate as I had to renew my passport.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
My accommodation saves me. I currently pay 6700 for a spacious studio apartment in Bearing. I have a huge balcony with enough room for a kitchen and table; which ultimately makes up for it being a studio.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
Due to my school being next to a BTS station, I always buy a BTS Rabbit card (50 trips) at 1,100 baht. I have to add 10 baht each time though, so it totals to about 1,600 baht by the time I've finished. My travel expenses for business trips are covered in each contract. On days off, I usually get a bus or songtaew to where I need to go. The occasional taxi to Mega Bangna costs me about 200 baht there and back. My total monthly spending probably works out at around 2,200 baht.
Utility bills
I use the air-con occasionally, but being in a low-rise area, my balcony gets a nice breeze, so my water and electricity usually tops out at about 2,500 baht each month. I pay 100 baht for WiFi.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I always eat out. I have kitchen space, but I haven't managed to accumulate the same facilities that I had when I lived in the UK. I would love a place with a proper kitchen and an oven, but for now, I mainly eat at restaurants. I often end up paying for my girlfriend's meal, so dinner costs are almost doubled at about 150 baht. Lunch is relatively cheap, ranging from around 50-100 baht per meal.
Nightlife and drinking
I am not a drinker at all and Bangkok's nightlife scares the s*** out of me.
Books, computers
I brought my laptop with me and so I rarely spend money on books or films. I go to the cinema occasionally, but cinema tickets aren't too expensive so I'd say that I rarely spend more than 500 baht on techy/entertainment stuff.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
I am fortunate that my room is comfortable for just 7k a month but I wouldn't say my standard of living is great. Life is uncertain due to inconsistent monthly pay. This stops me buying things I want as I am never sure if I'll need the money later. I spend a lot of time taking photographs (which is free) so that helps. There are many things I would like to buy but just don't have the spare money. I enjoy teaching but wish I had more hours and maybe a monthly salary.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food. Utilities. Basic survival costs. I also had to take a recent trip to the dentist and that worked out much cheaper than back home. Transportation is also relatively cheap, but taking the bus can be painful if you're on a busy route. If you want to live a Western lifestyle or purchase Western goods, or even technical goods like TVs, phones or games consoles seem to work out more expensive, generally because of the difference in wages.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
To survive, 30,000. To live and be comfortable with an opportunity to save, probably more around the 50,000-60,000 mark.
Phil's analysis and comment
I begged Abraham to do this cost of living survey because when I chatted to him on Twitter about his teaching work, it took me back to the ten or so years when I worked in the private language school business in Bangkok.
For most months of the year, I would earn in the region of 30-35,000 baht a month (more than enough to survive on back in the mid-90s) but then along came December and January and students would cancel lessons left, right and centre. My Japanese business students and housewives would return to Japan for Christmas and New Year and Thai students would do whatever they had to do. Suddenly your monthly earnings plummeted to 20K a month.
And this is exactly what we are seeing with Abraham's figures above. The private language school game hasn't changed - and it never will. As Abraham points out, you can never truly enjoy your peak earning months because there's always a low earning month just around the corner.
Fortunately, I've always been pretty good with handling my finances and I always kept a bit back for the lean periods. I remember plenty of other teachers who didn't care though. Then when December came, they found themselves living on pot noodles for half the month. Not a good situation to be in at all.
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