Sebastian
Working in Bangkok
Monthly Earnings 65,000
Q1. How much do you earn from teaching per month?
My salary after tax is around 65.000 baht a month. I work for a very large and prestigious secondary school in Bangkok and although the wage is decent, they expect you to maintain a high level of performance. There are no slackers here!
Q2. How much of that can you realistically save per month?
Some months I spend more than others so difficult to put a figure on it. I try to save at least 20,000 baht a month I guess.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
I live with my Thai partner in a brand new condo development. Our one-bedroom apartment costs us about 25K a month but it's very nice and the condo facilities (gym and pool, etc) are excellent. I should add at this point that my Thai partner earns more than I do. She brings home about 80K a month from her job with an international auditing company.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
About 2,000 baht a month. I use public transport from Monday to Friday. My partner has a car so we drive everywhere at weekends. I've toyed with the idea of buying my own car but so far resisted the temptation.
Utility bills
We use the air-conditioning a lot when we are at home in the evenings and weekends and with water and phone, the monthly bills are about 5,000 - 6,000 baht.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
We will eat out twice a week on Saturdays and Sundays and usually somewhere mid-range or better. rarely do we drop less than 1,000 baht on a meal. From Monday to Friday, I cook at home and my partner will grab something on the way home from work. I guess about 20,000 baht a month. We don't skimp on food at all.
Nightlife and drinking
We don't really go out. The very occasional evening at the movie theatre and that's about it.
Books, computers
I enjoy browsing in second-hand bookshops (but don't seem to get enough free time to read) and my partner and I both have laptops, which we replace every couple of years. But this is not a significant amount of money each month.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
Far better than I ever had back in England. I live in a nice place and we don't go short of anything. My partner has been offered an opportunity with her company to work in Vietnam or Cambodia and we're chewing it over. It would only be a 12-month contract but it would mean quitting my job and renting the apartment out. But it would be a fantastic opportunity to taste life in another country.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
I wouldn't class anything as truly unaffordable but as others have said in this cost of living section, Bangkok is definitely becoming more and more expensive.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
Once you've been earning over 60,000 baht a month, you can't ever imagine going back to live on 30K, but I did for several years and survived perfectly well. But in Bangkok, I'm not sure I would fancy living on less than 40K these days.
Phil's analysis and comment
Almost 150,000 baht a month coming into the drum and no kids to worry about. That's always going to get you a nice standard of living. There's a price to be paid though and it's an all too familiar one. Sebastian also said that he and his partner are like ships in the night during the week. His partner especially works long hours and often returns home very late at night.
I've been in this situation myself and wondered whether the hard work is all worth it when you have little or no time to spend with your significant other. Oh well, that's modern life I suppose.
Funny enough, my wife was in the same situation as Seb's partner as regards re-locating to another country. Her bosses started talking about needing someone to transfer to Tokyo for a year or two. My wife was apprehensive about approaching the subject with me but I said "Tokyo! For 12-months in a serviced apartment with all the trimmings? Where's my suitcase?"
Truth is I would have loved the opportunity to spend some time in Japan but unfortunately the offer never became anything more than idle speculation.
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