Why Was Nobody Interested In A Teaching Position?

[SlyAnimal]

@SlyAnimal .. Are you single mate ? If restricted my missus to 100B a day for her food i would be heading for a divorce.

I would spend 100B a day at school, I guess 50% of that would be on fruit and water.

Those estimates are a minimum cost of living for a single guy. As I said earlier in this thread, I used to spend around 15-20k per month when I was single (including going to a city every weekend to drinking) but now that I've got a gf we spend around 25k per month (before car repayments) and drink less.

[harrry]

To move to a small town you have to consider.

Accomodation...The best available will probably be only a basic fan room with no cooking and very limited internet. It will cost about 3000baht if it is mosquito proof and half liveable. The alternative is a house which is cheaper than Bangkok but will almost certainly not be furnished with more than possibly a bed.

In Bankok a single person can pay the same for a room and have the advantages of ready access to entertainment and a variety of food which will not be available in the country.

Good for experience but at that wage not a good deal at all.

[inutil]

Thank Buddha that not all people like to live and work in Bangkok. 25 K in Det Udom is pretty much the same than 30 K in Bangkok.

The person who'll get this job could get a higher salary with the right qualifications.

I made the northeast to my home and I love the people here. Always glad when I'm back home from a trip to the capital.

The post was just made to help a friend, who wanted to have me as his English teacher,as I was the one who'd held a four day seminar for Thai directors to prepare them for the ASEAN community.

It's just an offer, nobody MUST apply for this job. -

Someone always bites at the end of the day. But i did see the original thread where you asked people to not complain about the salary and also this thread where you wondered why it wasnt being snatched up. I wouldnt have answered to the original because well, thats kinda crapping your thread. But it seems a smidgen disingenuous to make this thread when you have the statement about pay right at the bottom of the original. Of course you know why. So i figured we were asking the more meta question:

Is 25,000 a fair salary.

And the opinion of almost everyone in this thread is that no, no its not. But someone will bite. Someone always does. Hell, people will agree to a 160,000/month salary just so they can work in Matsumoto of all places.

[Johnnie99]

This is why we hire bi-lingual Thais. Farangs are just so inflexible, too much trouble and unable to communicate with the students.

Obviously you too are not getting quality foreigners. Calling them 'farangs' isn't helping your case either.

[inutil]

To move to a small town you have to consider.

Accomodation...The best available will probably be only a basic fan room with no cooking and very limited internet. It will cost about 3000baht if it is mosquito proof and half liveable. The alternative is a house which is cheaper than Bangkok but will almost certainly not be furnished with more than possibly a bed.

In Bankok a single person can pay the same for a room and have the advantages of ready access to entertainment and a variety of food which will not be available in the country.

Good for experience but at that wage not a good deal at all.

Exactly right. People talk about bangkok like its this uber expensive place to live comfortably. Its not. Its got choice coming out of the whazoo. You can find a nice serviced apartement with a pool and with a gym for 10,000/month. Or you can find a nice fully furnished quiet, clean apartment for 4000/month.

Go rural and your options dry up. The places i was shown for 5000/month were horrendous. Ants everywhere, gaps in doors and floors, dark, dingy, nasty rat holes. I paid an extra 2000/month and got somewhere liveable with an aircon, but windows that were more like blinds, mosquitoes buzzing around me all day, ants (of course), and even frogs. Oh, gekkos as well, but thats a given. I think i even got a tookai at one point. The door had a good 3 or 4 cm gap with the floor. i kinda liked my frog visitor mind you. Theyre bloody loud in the rain though. Its like living in a cow field. And by this i mean they moo. Frogs that moo are awesome. Actually frogs are awesome so ill never mind having frog visitors.

Then i moved to the apartment the school hooked us up with. 3500/month. Yay! no working air con. Humidity you could take a bath in. No furniture upstairs and downstairs other than a very old knackered bed. The cooking facilities were out what with the fridge being ancient and broken. Not to mention the thousands of army ants trying to figure out a way to drag their dinner (a dead cockroach) from the sink. Yuk yuk yuk Yuk YUK YUUUUK!!!!

Then there was the location (baka beyond) and the fact that the one road to town on it gets routinely flooded by the newly created rubber plantation having pulled out everything but rubber trees from the land making the ground quickly saturated and running into the non draining road. I cant count the number of times i waded through, thigh deep in my flip flops and swimming shorts (i kid thee not), to get to work.

Its why i honestly enjoy rural. Its full of tiny little adventures and unbelievable annoyances over the things we all take for granted in civiisation (like an internet line that doesnt drop every time theres rain and when it is running, enjoy your 128k speed because youre now capped anyway). But rural isnt for everyone and this assumption that rural housing is better and cheaper than city housing forgets entirely how markets work and why nice clean (comfortable/liveable) hotels come into existence in the first place.

Edited December 14, 2013 by inutil

[SlyAnimal]

You had some bad luck, I have about 3-4 options for apartment blocks in my rural town for 3000 each which all have air con good wifi and reasonably clean etc (occasional geckos but that's countryside living lol). Not the ritz but all pretty decent.

[Phatcharanan]

. why are you working in Thailand or SE Asia?

just stay home... I mean back home.

Can't..............my country is full of immigrants now.

[attento]

I cannot believe the comment that if I want to have a home and a car that I should stay in my home country. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. If all of my Thai colleagues drive cars, then why do I have to drive a motorcycle? the comments about living like a Thai, what do you actually mean living like a farmer? Middle class Thais make a lot more than 25k to support a family. Teachers should be middle class and not less.

A family man with ability and qualifications who can provide more for students than a pronunciation monkey, deserves enough to live and not just survive. I have roots in the community and want my children to have a good education and have a future.

For backpackers looking to extend their holiday, students on a gap year, retirees who have a pension, income isn't a priority but for most professional educators trying to build a family and enjoy life, 25k for a full time job is just not enough.

When native speakers are getting paid less as teachers than many Thai teachers, it is time to move on. My wife earns about 28k a month and only has 12 teaching hours. Granted she has a crazy amount of meetings and paperwork that I would hate to do.

Bundoi: "If so surely you can earn more in your home country than you can in Thailand?"

Well qualified teachers have the option of working in International schools which can actually pay more and allow for greater savings than back in the west.

Bundoi: "This is why we hire bi-lingual Thais. Farangs are just so inflexible, too much trouble and unable to communicate with the students."

"I have interviewed many aspiring teachers. My experience is that Thais are the best teachers of English for Thai students"

First of all, I don't necessarily believe that you are in any position where you actually hire educators, but even if you are, what qualified you for that position? Do you have a Masters in Education or at the least TESOL? Or are you just another person who left their job and life in the west for some idylic life in a foreign country.

Your comments about Thais being the best teachers of English clearly shows your ignorance on what is needed in the classroom.

If you have read anything about the current system in Thailand, you will know that many schools in Thailand are having serious trouble with Thai teachers. First of all there was a test done a few years back where 80% of Thai teachers failed their subject tests. Second, recently directors and administrators are quite upset because recent grads are only learning theory because their teachers are only academics and have not spent much time in the classroom with young learners.

Now specifically to English being taught. Translating and communicating in Thai with students isn't helping them progress past lower level to intermediate ability. Bilingual teachers are typically those that can barely communicate or explain English rules or meaning in English. IF one is to build an active vocabulary, they need to understand the language through the language. If a student is just translating every word, then the native language interferes even more than normal. For very beginners, translation-lecture method is useful and can make the classroom easier to manage for the less motivated students. However, to get a higher communicative and comprehensive ability.

I will agree that those westerners that are looking for work and accepting low wages typically aren't the best teachers, but that is the problem. Thai teachers typically don't have a clue how to create an inteligent classroom that allows inquiry based learning. I would be surprised if most teachers could come up with 5 different strategies to teach/aproach the same material.

Even most barely qualified foreigners here so proud of their TEFL certificate at best learn about varrying their lessons a little to compensate for multiple intelligences. However even then they do little more than scatter their lessons with a few different activities thinking that will make them more student centered.

If Thai education is going to make it comparable with the rest of ASEAN, it needs to demand more from its teachers and pay them more,

Khun Zeichen

A clear and succinct appraisal of the situation would be my humble opinion. As a teacher with Masters' Degree Qualifications, who has been working in Thailand for the past six years, admittedly teaching at the older spectrum of education, I find that generally, Thai English teachers have difficulty stringing a sentence together without many grammatical errors.

This is why, of course, that Thailand is going to be at the bottom of English language proficiency tables within the forthcoming AEC if the OP and others continue to see Thai education standards through rose-tinted spectacles.

Sir, you are a well qualified exception to my following remark.

Are you not surprised at the number of contributors here, claiming to be "teachers", having this same difficulty that you describe of writing sentences without grammatical error?

Could this be a result of the lax attitude in recent years towards English grammar in secondary and tertiary education in the UK, and maybe other English speaking countries?

Edited December 14, 2013 by attento

[Scott]

Discussion of poster's grammar and spelling is off-topic. Not everyone is a native speaker of English. Not everyone is using a standard keyboard.

It is an internet discussion forum.

[simon43]

but once a foreigner is fluent in Thai, she speaks Thai in class most of the time.

.. and that's a big mistake! I consider myself fluent in spoken Thai and good at reading and writing Thai. I would only use Thai language as a final option to explain a word/phrase that younger kids were unable to grasp - and then once-only!

Speaking Thai in a class would be an admission of failure on my part as a teacher..

Also, the OP's salary on offer is cr*p. (Just in case you hadn't yet got the message).

Simon

[Scott]

Off-topic posts deleted. This is not the appropriate place for a discussion of where to find an appropriate apartment in Bangkok.

[recom273]

I had free meals for the first semester of my Thai school life, was the best school food ever, the school was filled with minor employees of the King. Since then its been downhill.

At my current school, there is one of those big stainless tanks with "purified" tap water but i get put off when i see kids putting their chops directly under the tap, ( i used to get so sick back in the days when i thought i was immune to their mutant viruses ) put it in a clear bottle and there looks to be small alien life forms emerging from it.

Free fruit .. lol .. the fruit and drinks concession is owned by the assistant director who also owns the cash and carry that supplies the tuck shop.

I guess, i buy 2-3 bags of fruit a day @10B, a yoghurt and a few bottles of water (@6B seein' you asked ) .. soon adds up to 50B. I dont begrudge it, keeps me looking handsome .. I try to avoid the canteen, we have a huge canteen that runs the length of the football pitch, full of concessions, but i guess they pay so much in rent, the food is pretty low grade gristle and bones. Its better to go eat at the police station canteen down the road … Your pretty much guaranteed of quality there !!

I live like a Thai, in that i never begrudge paying for food, it's just to hi-light that 25K isnt enough and no one should be expected to lower themselves that much. There are more than 6000 kids at my school, each one spends 1000B approx at school per week, theres got to be 30 odd concessions (by 2.00 PM the canteen is totally rinsed and the old girls are on their way home) who we estimate paying 1000B a day to be there, Schools are huge money making machines. If its not food, its 5 uniforms, or the mandatory bag and rucksack, or the paying to enable them to pass exams (yup, my kids make no bones about that one ) the school fees are a minor. So theres some good tax-free money dropping into the hands of the directors. It's not just this current school, i have seen it everywhere.

@SlyAnimal .. Are you single mate ? If restricted my missus to 100B a day for her food i would be heading for a divorce.

I would spend 100B a day at school, I guess 50% of that would be on fruit and water.

Where do you work? How much is a bottle of water at your school? I know prices have increased, but fruit must be astronomically high-priced where you work. Alternatively, you could just eat massive amounts of fruit! Doesn't your school provide you with food and water for free?

Im glad this discussion has chilled out a little .. I saw a few posts back, people talking about bad apartments and the like. IMHO you get more for your money moving out to the sticks, look for a FT position that offers 30K ( even 25K if you feel like it ) if you work hard at it over the long term, put aside a dedicated ammount each month to build a life, we started with a polystyrene coolbox, lying on a duvet on the floor watching TV .. For some people it's way better than BKK. Like for F'sake, I was making jam the other week, I didnt see that one coming ever !!

There are so many houses in Thailand that cant be sold you dont need to be living in a shoe box anywhere for 4K when you can have a modern townhouse for the same dough.

Edited December 14, 2013 by recom273

[Eddy B]

25K as a salary for a teacher is terrible regardless of where you are in Thailand. Petrol, cooking gas, housing and food prices have increased and will continue to all over the country. Does the school offer housing allowence, relocation help, visa payments, health/accident insurance or does the applicant also have to foot the bill for all of these also? If they do, it's not a good deal. Thats my thoughts, when I first came here in 2005 I got 35k a month, after 3 months half my airfare repaid, 3,000 a month housing allowence. Money back for visa runs, including food and hotel room for the night and travel costs. Free insurance not the general social security. 10 days sick per school year, 10 days business a year and 10 pays personal. And all this for 20-21 hours a week. No schools match this now, they are squeezing as much money as they can out of the foreign teacher.

The kids do make it sometimes feel like it does not matter about the salary but when you need to pay those bills it does matter at the end of the day.

Money back for visa runs??? You must be working without a work permit. When I was teaching I had a WP, and certainly never had to do visa runs.

When I mentioned visa runs(extentions) I was talking about yearly renewals to Immigration, not jumping over the border every 30 days. So yes I had a work permit all the time, no I was not working illegally.

[newatthis]

But they could be the best teachers, if the MoE would send all of those guys who'd like to become English teachers to study abroad.

From what I have seen, the Thai students with English speaking abilities will choose Engineering or science degrees.

The Thais who train as English teachers are usually those with such poor English speaking ability that they can't choose a more lucrative degree course and career. Not to mention the "pretties" who get a teaching job by being mistress of a government official, and they get planted in the language department because nobody will notice they can't do the job.

Agreed FiftyTwo. I met an ex-student of mine the other day who's studying at uni. His major is English and he is a clear speaker. My advice: Don't become a teacher Thank goodness, he has no intention to. My daughter was offered a scholarship to do a Master's, if she agreed to be indentured for ten years as a teacher. Again, she has more sense.

Edited December 15, 2013 by newatthis

[CWMcMurray]

Scott, that's good to hear... As I believe you work for the same school (chain) that my kids go to... So nice to hear that some of that tuition makes it down to the teachers.Good to hear that teachers are taken care of , as likely means that there will be less turn over and the teachers will stay for long periods of time ... Which is better for continuity and education for my kids.So From a parent's perspective, I like to hear that....My kids are still in KG1 &KG3, so still long way to go ....

Salary is important to most people. I doubt this thread would exist if it were about a rural area needing a NES and offering 50,000 baht starting pay. Many schools also provide meals and housing. Our cook was trained by the Khmer Rouge and got her advanced cooking degree from North Korea, but the food is free. The housing varies from the basic one-room with bathroom to very nice 3 bedroom houses (shared with other teachers, usually). When I started, I accepted a job that started at 12,000 baht per month. I had worked for a major business in Thailand before being transferred. I had an accident and working overseas wasn't going to be a possibility for a time, so I took the job. I was told a week later that the salary would actually be 15,000. When I actually got paid it was raised to 18,000. It was a summer term and since they had paid as they said, I returned for the regular term. It was then raised to 25,000, but after 3 months it went to 30,000....I now make over 70,000 with the same organization and have a very nice house provided free. Several people that I started work with have never managed to break the 40,000 mark. They keep changing jobs (or being forced to change), start over on probation, move on, miss the annual salary raise etc..

Edited December 15, 2013 by CWMcMurray

[NoshowJones]

25K as a salary for a teacher is terrible regardless of where you are in Thailand. Petrol, cooking gas, housing and food prices have increased and will continue to all over the country. Does the school offer housing allowence, relocation help, visa payments, health/accident insurance or does the applicant also have to foot the bill for all of these also? If they do, it's not a good deal. Thats my thoughts, when I first came here in 2005 I got 35k a month, after 3 months half my airfare repaid, 3,000 a month housing allowence. Money back for visa runs, including food and hotel room for the night and travel costs. Free insurance not the general social security. 10 days sick per school year, 10 days business a year and 10 pays personal. And all this for 20-21 hours a week. No schools match this now, they are squeezing as much money as they can out of the foreign teacher.

The kids do make it sometimes feel like it does not matter about the salary but when you need to pay those bills it does matter at the end of the day.

Money back for visa runs??? You must be working without a work permit. When I was teaching I had a WP, and certainly never had to do visa runs.

When I mentioned visa runs(extentions) I was talking about yearly renewals to Immigration, not jumping over the border every 30 days. So yes I had a work permit all the time, no I was not working illegally.

Extensions, yes, that's different.

[bundoi]

Apologies for the font glitches. Let me reiterate and elaborate - I have interviewed many aspiring teachers. My experience is that Thais are the best teachers of English for Thai students. If there are any farangs out there who can speak even Patom 1 level, please let me know ;-)

What do you mean Prathom 1 level? I know what Prathom 1 is having taught Prathoms 5 and 6. Your third sentence is wrong. Any Farang from a NES country will speak Prathom 1 level, but that does not mean they will be good English teachers. For TV members not involved with Thai schools, Prathom 1 is the same as Primary 1 in the UK.

Sorry Possum; I meant Patom 1 (or Prathom if you prefer to transcribe it differently) Thai. I assume all farang English teachers can speak junior-school level English, though I have met a few applicants who struggle with higher secondary level (seriously).

[bostonman]

IMO all teachers deserve to be paid a higher wage. If bi-lingual Thai teachers are only making 12,000 a month than something serious is wrong with the policies here.

I heard teachers were held in high respect in Thailand, but hairdressers make more money.

The "proof is in the pudding": as some NES might understand. And the pudding has an off flavor here. No motivation or discipline in the public schools to learn English, for either the students or the teachers.

An hour a day is not a lot to learn a foreign language and it is difficult. But near impossible if no respect is given, to either keeping good teachers or to keeping the children motivated. When being ignorant is considered cool there will be a problem.

Come now , come later, Ignorance is not bliss.

[FiftyTwo]

IMO all teachers deserve to be paid a higher wage. If bi-lingual Thai teachers are only making 12,000 a month than something serious is wrong with the policies here.

I heard teachers were held in high respect in Thailand, but hairdressers make more money.

The "proof is in the pudding": as some NES might understand. And the pudding has an off flavor here. No motivation or discipline in the public schools to learn English, for either the students or the teachers.

An hour a day is not a lot to learn a foreign language and it is difficult. But near impossible if no respect is given, to either keeping good teachers or to keeping the children motivated. When being ignorant is considered cool there will be a problem.

Come now , come later, Ignorance is not bliss.

Thai teachers do get poor pay, BUT

They get free private medical for them and their entire family (about 3k a month), secure employment for life, a pension, cheap government loans to buy a house (8k a month), and plenty of opportunity to extort money from their pupils.

Which would you choose

12K plus the above or 25k plus nothing?

Edited December 15, 2013 by FiftyTwo

[bundoi]

Guys, what I'm really having difficulty understanding is...

if you want a salary that pays a mortgage (on a house you can own), and a nice car, and a holiday in the sun once or twice a year and health care and pensions whose provisions you can understand...etc etc... why are you working in Thailand or SE Asia?

just stay home... I mean back home.

Oh the penny drops... the reason why the majority of NES here don't stay home is that they aren't qualified to teach English in their home countries, even with their degrees in non-related subjects.

[bostonman]

I guess it evens out somehow. Maybe. But I know I would be a good teacher, I speak a bit of Thai and would feel good about contributing to the Thai people. But no way will I work for 25k to teach a group of disrespectful children. Even when I was in school I tried to be nice to the substitute teacher, from what I hear here it is time to go crazy when the English teacher comes in. And I thing the Thai teachers who rely on a paddle or ruler to keep disciple in their class are secretly giggling, making bets on how long the Farang will last.

[NoshowJones]

Apologies for the font glitches. Let me reiterate and elaborate - I have interviewed many aspiring teachers. My experience is that Thais are the best teachers of English for Thai students. If there are any farangs out there who can speak even Patom 1 level, please let me know ;-)

What do you mean Prathom 1 level? I know what Prathom 1 is having taught Prathoms 5 and 6. Your third sentence is wrong. Any Farang from a NES country will speak Prathom 1 level, but that does not mean they will be good English teachers. For TV members not involved with Thai schools, Prathom 1 is the same as Primary 1 in the UK.

Sorry Possum; I meant Patom 1 (or Prathom if you prefer to transcribe it differently) Thai. I assume all farang English teachers can speak junior-school level English, though I have met a few applicants who struggle with higher secondary level (seriously).

I believe you. There was a guy from Australia on TV asking about getting a teaching job here in Thailand. His post was covered in mistakes, no capital letters and bad grammar. Other posters as well as me commented on it. Personally, I think it was a troll.

[Scott]

I will once again remind posters that it is poor netiquette to criticize grammar and spelling, unless the poster has specifically asked for guidance on the issue. It is completely off-topic. There are a variety of reasons, including using mobile devices which can make posting correctly difficult.

Please stay on-topic. This is an internet discussion thread.

[bundoi]

)

If you're single, like Thai food, get around via motorcycle and don't really drink you'd be looking at around the following costs:

Food: 100฿ per day x 30 days = 3000฿
Rent: 3000฿
Power/Water/Internet: 1000฿
Phone: 500฿
Petrol: 500฿

That's around 8000฿ per month for 3 meals a day, power, electricity, rent (including wifi) and food. That leaves you with 17,000฿ disposable income per month for whiskey /good food/ travel / clothes and savings. But that's as a single guy in the countryside which isn't a lot of fun. If you have a gf or wife you spend more because you are more likely to goto nice restaurants etc. If you're single and in the countryside you'd want to be saving more than this.

Thanks Sly, I think your numbers are pretty good and genuine.

Most of my basic costs are paid for me (let's say the 8k), including recently the complete works of William Shakespeare (3,000 baht), as elementary grammar has its limitations and I need diversions for my own mental health.

Re whiskey, with my farmer friends I often drink farm lao kao, 15 baht a bottle, otherwise JW Gold, 1,500 baht a bottle.

Travel, my school has paid for international business trips, otherwise I'm too busy working.

Clothes, I aleady have too many yuppie suits, shirts, ties, etc etc.

Gogo bars - none here (fortunately).

SAVINGS - this is the killer, how and WHY should a westerner expect to earn enough to save much from working in Thailand?

[zeichen]

bundoi, I find it quite funny that you actually quote yourself. I guess you must really like what you have to say. Your assumptions and conclusions are quite ridiculous. Since no one teaching here is teaching English in the same manner as they would in their home country, your point is irrelevant.

Sly: I like your simple accounting, I wish that budgets were that simple. I challenge you to take 96k baht and put it in a bank. Then only use money from that account for an entire year and do not touch a single baht from an outside source and see if your budget remains true.

Things break and need to be repaired or replaced, people get sick, people tend to snack which usually runs 100 a day at least, Wtih your 100 baht a day for food, please call me in a year when you need a blood transfusion. You do realize that 3 meals at a food stall at 30baht each wil not give you the vitamins and nutrients most people need. Fresh fruit and juices wil raise your food budget to about double.

Don't forget getting taxed on that precious 25k,

Or paying back the money you invested for a TEFL, flight to Thailand, 3 months rent, security deposit, initial start up costs for appliances and what not. Replacing your computer every 2-3 years.

Sight seeing, holidays and a trip back home once every other year or so. This things never get added into a monthly budget but tend to take a big chunk out of your money.

[Colabamumbai]

Many shcools now are only signing 5 month contracts so they do not have to pay for the holiday months.

It sad there is so much apathy, since there are posters here all the time looking for jobs.

I am working in Isaan at 25,000 a month, Uni. Degree and only teaching 13 hours a week, 5 subjects, all to same home room class. I am used to 30,000 in the area but at 63 I will stay where I am and take what I can get.

[bundoi]

bundoi, I find it quite funny that you actually quote yourself.

Sly: I like your simple accounting, I wish that budgets were that simple. I challenge you to take 96k baht and put it in a bank. Then only use money from that account for an entire year and do not touch a single baht from an outside source and see if your budget remains true.

Things break and need to be repaired or replaced, people get sick, people tend to snack which usually runs 100 a day at least, Wtih your 100 baht a day for food, please call me in a year when you need a blood transfusion. You do realize that 3 meals at a food stall at 30baht each wil not give you the vitamins and nutrients most people need. Fresh fruit and juices wil raise your food budget to about double.

Don't forget getting taxed on that precious 25k,

Or paying back the money you invested for a TEFL, flight to Thailand, 3 months rent, security deposit, initial start up costs for appliances and what not. Replacing your computer every 2-3 years.

Sight seeing, holidays and a trip back home once every other year or so. This things never get added into a monthly budget but tend to take a big chunk out of your money

Z, forgive me if I can't remember who you are, bur as far as I remember you're doing good in China...good luck... so why are you on this forum ?

[SlyAnimal]

bundoi, I find it quite funny that you actually quote yourself. I guess you must really like what you have to say. Your assumptions and conclusions are quite ridiculous. Since no one teaching here is teaching English in the same manner as they would in their home country, your point is irrelevant.

Sly: I like your simple accounting, I wish that budgets were that simple. I challenge you to take 96k baht and put it in a bank. Then only use money from that account for an entire year and do not touch a single baht from an outside source and see if your budget remains true.

Things break and need to be repaired or replaced, people get sick, people tend to snack which usually runs 100 a day at least, Wtih your 100 baht a day for food, please call me in a year when you need a blood transfusion. You do realize that 3 meals at a food stall at 30baht each wil not give you the vitamins and nutrients most people need. Fresh fruit and juices wil raise your food budget to about double.

Don't forget getting taxed on that precious 25k,

Or paying back the money you invested for a TEFL, flight to Thailand, 3 months rent, security deposit, initial start up costs for appliances and what not. Replacing your computer every 2-3 years.

Sight seeing, holidays and a trip back home once every other year or so. This things never get added into a monthly budget but tend to take a big chunk out of your money.

I think I did say in my post, that there was then additional disposable income, some of which could be used for "good food", my point was that you could cover your basic/regular expenses quite easily. Savings are to cover things like flat tyres, broken toilets and special dinners etc, not just for travel & new motorcycles.

Also I DID used to live on that much, sorta. I was earning 35k per month when I first came to my current school. Sunday night - Friday afternoon I'd spend around 100 THB per day on food. Admittedly though, I don't eat breakfast, so would just have a rice dish (35) + som tum (30) for lunch & a rice dish (35) for dinner, and would drink the free water at restaurants. I'd buy the 20x 1 litre bottles of water for 45 THB, so water was a negliable cost. Occasionally I'd buy some chocolate or ice cream etc, but as I say, that's where the discretionary spending comes in.

On Friday afternoons I'd withdraw 5000 THB and either bus or drive 90km to the city I previously lived in. When I got there, I'd book into a hotel for Fri/Sat night, and then go out drinking with my mates til 4am each night, eat KFC, pizza and any other food which I wanted, and then head back home on the Sunday afternoon. Whatever money I had left I'd use for my expenses during the week, and if I still had money left over on Friday, would leave it in my money box, and still only take 5000 with me.

I did have a free house/electricity as part of my employment agreement, and the school house was too far from the exchange to get the internet, so my fixed expenses are completely different to the expenses I posted. I managed to save over 70,000 in my first 4 months there, which means I was living on around 17500 per month, or if I had of lived in my current apartment instead (3000 rent, 100 internet & say 900 power) I would have been living on 21500 per month, while pissing most of my salary up against the wall every weekend.

I know that 21500 isn't 8000, but I was probably spending 3000-4000 each weekend on "discretionary expenses", so if you took say 14,000 (4 weeks x 3500) away from that figure, I'd be under 8000.

Could I have kept going in the same fashion long term....for ever, definitely not, for a year or two.... if I had of had the internet at my house I could have, as it was only the boredom during the week which was pissing me off (It was great for my Thai / fitness though, I put on quite a bit of weight once I met my gf and started eating better food lol).

Also you're thinking of street restaurants, the restaurants I'm talking about are restaurants, they're just cheap, although still have reasonable quality ingredients, and usually offer a full menu (Although a few of the more time consuming dishes like "Spicy mango salad with deep fried fish" usually aren't available, and some of the more expensive ones like "Chicken & Cashew Nuts" are either not available or cost more)

[sirchai]

SirChai, maybe you can ask your boss to take a look at this thread and then he can think about anything else he could do to make the job more attractive

Seems that a non native speaker will take the job. The position I'd offered in Det Udom isn't the school where I'm working, but we deal with similar problems.

A highly qualified female American teacher, holding a Masters in education had signed a contract for a year making 26 K/month. No words needed.......

But you're right, a wake up call might do the trick, as we both ( the other five are Filipinos) have decided that we'll leave the sinking boat by the end of the year..-

Edited December 16, 2013 by sirchai

[smotherb]

Guys, what I'm really having difficulty understanding is...

if you want a salary that pays a mortgage (on a house you can own), and a nice car, and a holiday in the sun once or twice a year and health care and pensions whose provisions you can understand...etc etc... why are you working in Thailand or SE Asia?

just stay home... I mean back home.

jpbs here

I made over US$12k/mo 20 years ago in Thailand. There are many well-paid jobs here today, but you need actual education and experience in a discipline other than English. Teaching English in Thailand when your only qualifications are you can speak English, will never be well-paid.

To all of you who insist you can live well on B25k/mo anywhere in Thailand; have you really convinced yourself you're living well?