Faisal
Working in Ratchaburi
Monthly Earnings 25,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
I teach at a big government school on the outskirts of Ratchaburi town. My full-time salary is 22,000 baht a month but I can increase that to 25,000 almost every month with some extra tutoring. For my full-time salary I teach from Monday to Friday and have 18 contact hours.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
I try to save 5,000 - 10,000 baht a month to keep in the bank but sometimes I have a large expense. This month I needed a new fan and a kettle. That was 1,500 baht gone in the blink of my eye.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
My school provides an apartment in a building just five minutes walk away. It's just a small studio with a balcony but comfortable for one person. The rent is 4,000 baht a month and the school pays half of that amount.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
Nothing because I can walk to school. I don't really have any other option because I don't live on one of the regular songthaew routes and there are no motorbike taxis around me.
Utility bills
My electricity and water bills come to around 1,000 a month but I have to pay that myself. I have aircon but the unit is very old and I think it would be expensive to run so I don't switch it on much. The weather has been boiling got this last month though so I had to run it for a couple of hours to survive.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I get breakfast and lunch provided at school so I only have to buy an evening meal. I usually pick up something from the street or in the market. There is a fantastic selection of food sellers that set up each night in front of the school to catch the kids as they go home and you can pick up meat on a stick for 5 baht, which goes well with sticky rice.
Nightlife and drinking
I don't drink it all. If I go out in the evening, it will be just a walk along the river and perhaps an ice cream or some other snack.
Books, computers
Nothing.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
It's very basic and I know that as a non-native English speaker my salary is not that much but I only recently finished university and this is my first job. I really love teaching and love my students so the money doesn't matter so much at this time in my life if you know what I mean.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food is very good value here and if you are not a night bird and can stay away from the alcohol and other temptations, then you will not need to spend much money.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
I can survive on 15,000 a month at the moment. That works out at 500 baht a day and it's surprising how that stretches when your food costs just 30 baht and your coffee is 20 baht, etc.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thank you Faisal. It's good to hear from the non-NES section of the teacher market, which is of course generally lower paid. It's good to hear that you can still live relatively comfortably. We would like to hear from more teachers in this wage bracket. What about the thousands of Filipinos working here? By doing one of these surveys, you would be helping thousands of other Filipinos who want to come and teach here - but we rarely / never hear from you.
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