John
Working in Rural Thailand
Monthly Earnings 30,000 baht
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
30,000 baht a month and the school also pay for the work-permit.
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
My pay goes straight into the bank and I draw about 15,000 baht out for the two of us (my wife and myself) - so half is saved.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I live in a very basic house which the school provides. The school also pays for utilities. Wi-fi is free but weak. My wife is in the same position as me – she also gets a house paid for by her school. We also pay 2,000 a month for a “permanent” rented house in another province.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I travel about 200 kilometres by motorcycle at weekends because my wife is teaching in a different province so it is about 250 baht per week for petrol and road tax. Add 500 per month for the cost and maintenance of the bike, which I have had nearly 5 years.
Utility bills
The school pays for them. The “permanent” rented house that I mentioned earlier costs about 700 baht per month for utilities because we are rarely there.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
We eat at home all the time and I either cook ‘British food’ or we buy food from the local market.
Nightlife and drinking
Usually it is only trekking in the hills or running events, apart from school “parties”. Entry fees and transport may be anything between 1,000 and 5,000 per month - so say 2500 per month average.
Books, computers
I buy a new computer every couple of years so say 500 baht per month.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
Very relaxed and comfortable and we can afford anything we want, but we just don’t want much.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
It has to be transport, rent and utilities, but also local fruit and vegetables.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
To survive anywhere outside central Bangkok, 15,000 is plenty for a person who lives like a native but you couldn’t save for retirement on that. We have income from other countries, which gives us security, but we never dip into it. All our international flights are paid for outside Thailand. The big drawback in Thailand is that foreigners can’t buy a house otherwise we would make it our home.
Phil's analysis and comment
I have to confess that I found a number of John's answers confusing and I ended up e-mailing him for clarification.
First, I wanted to know why he needed to rent a house for 2,000 baht a month, when he and his wife both have accommodation paid for by their respective schools. John said the house offered security and he felt less 'tied to the school' and he also needed somewhere for storage.
Secondly, what did he mean by 'his international flights are all paid for'? It certainly didn't sound like John was working at the kind of school that would offer free flights home as part of the benefit package. John replied to say that he always paid for flights out of his savings and not what he earned from the school by way of salary.
As soon as John mentioned that he had income from other countries, I felt the survey became 'less important'. That's not being disrespectful but it does imply that John and his wife may be teaching purely for 'something to do'. They clearly live frugally (and that's the way they like it) and both survive on 15K a month, but whenever a big expense comes up, they can dip into savings and that income from other countries. And we have no idea how much that income is. It could be 200,000 baht a month.
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