Alex
Working in Nonthaburi
Monthly Earnings 85-110,000 baht a month
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
I earn 85,000 to 110,000 baht a month purely from teaching private students at my house. (see Phil's comment section below for more info)
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
I try to save 20K a month, which I put into a savings account for my daughters. However there can often be unexpected expenses, for example this month, both daughters were ill and had to stay in hospital. That cost me 20,000 baht right there.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I pay nothing as the house is owned by my wife. It's a 3-bedroom detached house in a very secure moobaan (housing estate) with a nice swimming pool - but rubbish gym.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I spend 9,000 baht a month on car repayments and 2,000 baht on petrol. Before I bought my own wheels, I was spending 6,000 baht a month on taxis so it is not that much more.
Utility bills
4,000 baht on electricity as I have the air-conditioning on at night and when students are here. 700 baht internet, 300 baht water. I was spending 1,000 baht a month on CTH (satellite TV) but I canceled that because they lost the football coverage.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I give my wife 12,000 a month for food and sundries for the family but I often have a monthly Villa Supermarket splurge where I spend about 3,000 baht and frankly don't see a lot for it. But any expat who walks around Villa will know all about the temptations. We go to a mid-range restaurant about twice a month so 3,000 baht for that.
Nightlife and drinking
I don't really go out in the evenings, but every couple of weeks I have friends round for a BBQ and so I spend a couple of thousand baht a month on that.
Books, computers
I sometimes buy UK children's books so about 300 baht a month.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
I have a great work life balance. I get to spend a lot of time with my family and live in a nice house in a safe moobaan. It's a standard of living I would be unlikely to ever achieve in the UK. There are two more expenses I'd like to mention. We go away about three times a year which costs about 15,000 baht each time. And my eldest daughter has just started school at 60,000 baht per term (10,000 baht per month)
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Most of the obvious has been mentioned in previous surveys, so I will go with cuff-links, I have a really large collection of them.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
This question I find very difficult to answer as it obviously depends on circumstances. For a family I think less than 70K a month would be a struggle. A single person would get by on about 40K in Bangkok, 30K outside Bangkok. Someone who likes the nightlife too much would need 150K at least.
Phil's analysis and comment
Alex also had this to say about his private student empire.
"The amount I make from private students varies due to cancellations but not massively as I have a two-lesson cancellation policy per ten lessons and the ten lessons must be paid for in advance. I live in a middle class area with no other foreigners so I charge 1000 baht per hour. I teach in the evening and weekends and my weekdays are totally free to spend time with the family. I also have a couple of friends come to mine at weekends as I am very busy at this time, and they teach a few lessons. As they are friends I only take a small percentage from them"
I have a guide on the website about teaching freelance and if you can hit it right - as Alex has done - it can be a very good living.. It's all about location, location and location. And as Alex says - surround yourself with potentially premium, high-paying customers and word of mouth will soon take you all the way.
And good to see that he has a strict cancellation policy in place. This a business! It's YOUR business! Thai students can be the cancellation champions of the world and cancellations will kill your business if you don't set down the rules right from the start. When I used to teach private students at home, I had exactly the same cancellation policy.
I was trying to work out how Alex's teaching hours would be broken up. By my reckoning he would need to teach at least 20 hours a week at home to make that 80K income. I'm guessing that in the evening he starts at about 4pm after schools close. So he might squeeze three to four hours in each evening. Even three hours would amount to 15 a week from Monday to Friday. And he can probably do in the region of eight hours at the weekend. It's certainly doable if you've got yourself well-organized.
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