Walter
Working in Just outside Pattaya
Monthly Earnings Around 15,000 baht most months
Q1. How is that income broken down? (full-time salary, private students, on-line teaching, extra work, etc)
I work for a small private language school teaching conversation to small groups. The school pays me 250 baht an hour and I take however many hours they can give me (usually between one and three hours per day) You can't be choosy in your early 70's - and I'm not.
Q2. How much money can you save each month?
If I've got a couple of thousand baht left over at the end of the month, I've done well.
Q3. How much do you pay for your accommodation and what do you live in exactly (house, apartment, condo)?
My wife and I rent a small town-house a couple of kilometres outside Pattaya (well away from the bright lights) and we pay 5,000 baht a month. We're lucky inasmuch as we have a good relationship with the landlord and he hasn't increased the rent in the five years that we have lived here. It's a roof over our heads but that's really all it is. It's in a very Thai neighborhood with no Western temptations.
Q4. What do you spend a month on the following things?
Transportation
This isn't really an expense at all because I don't go anywhere. I can walk to the local market, etc.
Utility bills
Around 1,000 baht a month for electricity, water and phone bills.
Food - both restaurants and supermarket shopping
We have to keep this as low as possible so we always cook at home. Even a meal in a local Thai restaurant is a luxury. We buy meat, fruit and veg from the local Thai market and it's very cheap. Western treats like McDonalds, KFC are out of the question. I guess the total comes out at about 6,000 baht. My wife and I try to keep our daily eating to 200 baht a day or less.
Nightlife and drinking
Zero. Chance would be a fine thing!
Books, computers
I spend nothing on this. I have a five-year old laptop that's still going strong.
Q5. How would you summarize your standard of living in one sentence?
I got in touch because I'm one of those 'poor, starving' British retirees that seem to be the hot topic lately on Thai websites and discussion forums. And yes, life is tough at the moment. I get a state pension and a small works pension from the UK but it amounts to little more than survival money. The money I make from my part-time job at the language school is a life-saver! I really don't care how much the school messes me around or whether students cancel at the last minute and I don't get paid. As long as I can walk out at the end of the day with a few hundred baht in my pocket, then that's good enough.
Q6. What do you consider to be a real 'bargain' here?
Fresh food from the market. You can eat very cheaply if you shop where the local working classes shop.
Q7. In your opinion, how much money does anyone need to earn here in order to survive?
It depends on the individual's situation of course but for me I would like around 60,000 because I have myself, my wife and her school-age son to support. He doesn't live with us by the way. Yes, about 65,000 would be nice. At the moment I exist on nowhere near that.
Phil's analysis and comment
Ajarn sometimes gets criticized for displaying job ads from employers paying nothing more than survival money, however, I'm a great believer in that there is always someone, somewhere who desperately needs that teaching job. Walter is a prime example. That few hundred baht a day that he makes at a backstreet language school is probably the difference between staying in Thailand with his family and having to return home.
Come on! send us your cost of living surveys. We would love to hear from you! This is one of the popular parts of the Ajarn website and these surveys help and inspire a lot of other teachers. Just click the link at the top of the page where it says 'Submit your own Cost of Living survey' or click here.
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