Ned
Working in Ireland
Monthly Earnings 145,000 baht (before tax)
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
That is from a full time government school. I get two months off in summer (July and August), two weeks at Christmas, one week at Halloween and two weeks at Easter. My working hours are 08.40 to 15.00.
My salary works out at 145,000 baht before tax, and I get about 115,000 baht once the government is done with me. A similar take home pay to what I got in Thailand actually. I worked as a teacher in Thailand for four years before returning home.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
Absolute peanuts.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I rent a two-bedroom house in a nice area with a nice garden for about 48,000 baht (an alarmingly huge chuck of my salary). I paid 9,000 for a similar house in Thailand.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
You ready for this?? In my first year back my annual car insurance cost is 105,000 baht! My annual car tax is 10,000 baht. Finding gas at less that 70 baht per litre here is a cause for great celebration.
Utility bills
Electricity - 4,000
Wifi - 1,090
Phone - 700
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
I work hard to keep our weekly food shop to under 4,000 baht so about 12,000. A nice meal at an Asian restaurant is a nice treat at 2,000 baht a pop, lets put another 8,000 in for that.
Nightlife and drinking
Not much room for that. A six pack for home will cost you 500 baht.
Books, computers
Library here is fantastic so no big costs here.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
I don't want for much but I am saving nothing either.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
In Ireland? Absolutely nothing. I miss Thailand!
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
I'm surviving at the minute so I guess my salary? To properly live though? Pop another 60,000 on top please.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thanks Ned for an interesting combination of 'cost of living' and 'great escape'. The price of certain things really does sound mental compared to Thailand. Nowonder you miss the old place at times. 48,000 baht a month for rent? Wow! When I have nothing better to do and purely out of idle interest, I sometimes go on the popular UK property sites like Rightmove and Gumtree to see what the situation is and I'm just flabbergasted. Even a bedsit in a fairly rundown area of a city will cost you £700 a month and renting a room in someone's house doesn't cost much less. It's a huge chunk of salry to just fritter away.
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