Bob
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 50,000 baht a month averaged over 12 months
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
It's very difficult to put an exact figure on what I earn each month because I juggle around private language school work at two different schools (which pays about 400-500 baht an hour) and corporate work (which pays 800 baht an hour)
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
I don't save any of it. I am in my late fifties and have a few investments and pension plans that provide me with a modest monthly income. The money I earn from teaching goes towards covering all my monthly living costs.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I rent an 8,000 baht studio apartment in a modern building about 5 minutes walk from the MRT station in Saphan Kwai. I've lived there five years and the rent has never increased in that time.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I go everywhere by MRT and BTS because it's so convenient. Probably about 2-3,000 baht a month I guess.
Utility bills
The air-con goes on the moment I walk in the door and stays on until I leave. I couldn't live without my air-conditioning. The electricity, water and phone bills come to about 4,000 baht a month.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I tend to either eat out at local Thai restaurants or snack on what I call 'fridge food' - stuff that's easy to put together like ham and cheese sandwiches or salads. I've got one of those sandwich toasters but that's as far as actual cooking anything goes. I probably spend about 8,000 a month on food.
Nightlife and drinking
Could be as much as 16,000 baht. I tend to limit myself to a big night out on Saturdays and I can easily drop 3-4,000 baht. Saturday is a very busy day at one of the language centers so I limit myself to a couple of beers on Friday nights. I would love to go out more but I've got used to just going out once a week. On weekdays, I'll often be teaching corporate classes until well after 8pm. After that I just want to go home and relax.
Books, computers
Almost nothing. I have a nice laptop but mostly use the computers at school. I download e-books for free. Does anyone actually pay for books anymore?
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
Very comfortable indeed but I might be singing a different song if I didn't have my other incomes. But a single guy should be able to live fairly well on 50,000 a month.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
I don't think anything is ridiculously cheap in Bangkok anymore but none of it is outrageously expensive either. I suppose imported foodstuffs cost silly money. I often pick up something from a supermarket shelf and think 'who on earth is stupid enough to pay that?' But people obviously do.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
In Bangkok, I would say a minimum of 40K a month. But 50K is better. That extra 10,000 baht makes all the difference.
Phil's analysis and comment
Ah, the life of the private language school teacher who's also doing a bit of evening corporate work as well. I juggled language school and corporate work around for many years and it's not a bad combination if you hit it right.
Two other things that Bob told me. Firstly, the two language schools that Bob works at and the office of the company who provide him with corporate work, are all within ten minutes of each other by skytrain. That's smart! Why commute from one side of the city to the other if you don't have to?
Secondly, the two private language schools offer Bob more work than he can handle. Why? Two magic words - student requests. Private language schools are businesses. They are there to make money and put bums on seats. The popular teacher who goes that extra mile to kep students happy (and re-enrolling on courses) will always do well.
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