Nick
Working in Suphanburi
Monthly Earnings 40,000
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
34,000 is my full-time salary with the rest coming from private students. I live with my Filipina girlfriend who is also a teacher and she makes around 21,000 baht a month. We split expenses on a lot of things.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
15-20,000. We tend to plan a large trip once a month because we like to explore the world. That can change the amount that we save each month.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I live in a well kept apartment complex that costs me around 4,000-4,500 a month, split between me and my girlfriend. This includes water and electric (a/c).
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
I rent a scooter from a Suzuki shop and I pay 1,800 a month, plus about 100 baht a week for gas. We take the minibus around the region once a month or so for 200 baht total.
Utility bills
Included in accommodation as mentioned above.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
We spend about 6.000 baht a month on food, about 500 baht a week for groceries, and about 1,000 a week for eating out at various places. We tend to eat at a 'fancy' place once a week or so, i.e. pizza, sushi, McDonald's.
Nightlife and drinking
We rarely go out for entertainment and we spend a minimal amount on drinking, only buying a case of Leos to split with our Filipino friends once or twice a month.
Books, computers
We don't purchase much of this to consider it.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
We live a good life, planning our trips out and always being conscious with our spending, but not too much that we don't enjoy our luxuries.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Food, rent, beer. You name it.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
If you are able to 'do as the Thais do', then you can earn around 30,000 with no sweat for an individual.
Phil's analysis and comment
Thank you Nick. So what we have here is a couple of teachers living together with a joint income of over 60,000 baht. With less than 5,000 being spent on accommodation and 6,000 on food (the main expenses) you're both left with almost 50,000 in the kitty to spend in Suphanburi. Doesn't surprise me at all that you enjoy 'a good life'.
My best Thai friend comes from Suphanburi and he's fiercely proud of it. I've been there with my wife several times and I think it's a lovely town. Yes, it's quiet and there isn't an awful lot to do but I've always admired the polite, softly spoken locals and the whole place is kept immaculately clean. I could quite easily live in Suphanburi. It's not too far from Bangkok either.
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