Can You Survive on a Teacher's Salary in Thailand?

Another question that people all always asking me if if they will be able to live on the amount of money they will earn as an ESL teacher in Thailand. My usual response is to say yes they can, but the more honest answer is that it all depends. The average wage for an ESL teacher who is a native English speaker is about 30,000 Thai Bath ( currently around 600 Euro or 900 dollars) a month; this will be higher inside Bangkok. This might not seem like a lot, but Thai teachers and many of the non-native English speakers (like the Filipinos and Indians) get as little as a third of this.

Is it possible to live on 30,000 THB a month? Well, that will all depend on what you expect from life. If you are prepared to live like an average Thai then you will live comfortably on this salary; so long as nothing goes wrong. I managed it for a long time. If on they other hand, you want to live the life of a party animal with all the luxuries that you would have in the west then you are really going to struggle. If you want to save money and plan to start a family here then it will not always be so easy; it can be done though.

Prior to getting married I actually managed to live on less than 20,000 THB a month for a lot of time; this was after I had given up alcohol. When I was drinking I was easily spending that amount every few days. Living in a Thai village my expenses were very low. Our house only cost 1,200 THB a month ( 35 dollars or 24 Euros) and the rest of my bills were less than 3,000 a month. My most expensive individual item was the internet which cost more than my rent at 1,300 THB a month. When it comes to food it was often possible to live on a couple of hundred THB a day. Of course this was in a village, but it is possible to live cheaply in a city too. Our current town-house only costs 2,000 THB a month .

When you get married and start a family things in Thailand gets expensive. I just had a new car financed and that is going to cost me nearly 10,000 THB a month. I also have my son's education fees to consider and in the past when he has needed to go to hospital it has taken almost all the months wage. It is lucky for me that I've money coming from other sources.

So yes it is possible to live in Thailand on teachers wages, if your expectations aren't too high, and your school pays for health insurance. After a few years here you should get a better paying job, but most people find ways outside of their regular work. This is usually extra teaching where you can almost double your salary if you are lucky. There is no real pension scheme supplied by the schools so most of us will be working until the day after we die.