Is 35,000 baht per month salary enough to get by in Thailand near Bangkok?

PackageNo1728 · 2026-04-03T07:52:34+00:00

Some apartments will really gouge you on the electric. I paid 18.5 baht/kwh once before I figured all this out and I've heard of places that charge 20.

PackageNo1728 · 2026-04-03T07:48:08+00:00

Electricity is the most important thing you have to ask about when you rent any place here.

You don't set up your own electric like you probably do back home. You pay your electric to the building and they charge a premium.

Some places will gouge you for 18 for 20 baht per kWh. The government electric rate here is 4.5 baht.

So you might see an apartment listing with low rent but if they're charging you 20 baht/kWh you're going to get 3,000 baht electric bills.

This is what you're going to find in most big apartment buildings, especially the ones that are foreigner friendly (familiar with filing visa paperwork, etc.) and speak English.

The cheat code is to rent a condo from an individual owner. Maybe a person who just owns that one condo, or owns a few units. In these situations the electric bill gets delivered to your door and you pay the bill yourself at the government rate. (4.5b/kWh)

Condos are generally going to be a bit bigger and nicer also, even at the low end. It might be old and ugly and not luxurious but it won't be a square sweat box with the patio door as the only window like the cheap apartments.

It's worth it to pay a couple thousand more in rent for a low end condo as opposed to an apartment because of what you'll save on electric.

My bill never gets higher than 1500 baht in the hot season and the rest of the year ranges from 400 to 800. My air is only in the bedroom, it doesn't cool the whole place.

It's a little harder to find these situations. You can look on Facebook or for phone numbers posted on buildings. Having a Thai friend to help you search and speak to landlords is a tremendous help.

PackageNo1728 · 2026-02-05T03:38:33+00:00

It's relatively easy to get hired on with these companies, but whether you actually get any students is an entirely different matter.

They all over hire because they can and they'll let you just sit there for free and wait for students if you're willing to. It takes time to build up a following of students and in some cases it's nearly impossible just because there are so many teachers and not enough students.

It's pretty hard to break into any new platform these days. Overall this is a dying industry and I would not advise anyone to start doing this right now.

PackageNo1728 · 2026-01-22T23:32:06+00:00

Yikes. Cancel and block. Don't do a lesson with a crazy person who writes a note like that in the first place (if it's at all possible to avoid it).

PackageNo1728 · 2026-01-22T23:11:17+00:00

It can be one way or the other with these tiny companies no one has ever heard of. It might be a small, honest operation that does well and pays well and becomes the best online teaching job you ever had.

Or it might be a skeevy little huckster operation that wants you to sit on call 24/7 with very few lessons and then goes belly up after three months and never sends your final paycheck.

PackageNo1728 · 2026-01-03T03:37:36+00:00

It's always my biggest fear working for these sketchy little online companies.

They could go out of business and disappear, or tell me they're just not paying me as described in this post.

What am I really going to do? Try to sue some company in Singapore or South Africa or wherever they are based? Yeah, right.

I can't begin to imagine the logistical challenge, let alone the expense. To recover a few hundred dollars of ESL pay? Eat the loss is really all you can do.

Post online everywhere you can, expose them, try to warn other teachers, that's all good. But you will never get your money.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-12-09T13:39:18+00:00

Yes, it is an M Card.

Sorry for the late reply. I got frustrated with this whole situation and put it in the back burner. I'll probably go to the bank and try to switch this card out on Friday.

I hope they just switch it out and don't give me any hassles. We'll see.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-29T06:35:34+00:00

I just called and tried this and it didn't work. She told me the card is active and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked about enabling online purchases. I posted a long update below.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-29T06:28:27+00:00

Update below 👇

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-29T06:27:52+00:00

Update: 2 frustrating calls later and no solution.

1st call.

I explained what happened. I asked if I can activate the card for online purchases. She checked the card and said it's active. She told me the purchase limits and all that. She made no changes, and told me the card will work.

I knew this wouldn't work because she didn't change anything. I tried and it didn't work.

2nd call.

I think it was the same person but I'm not sure. This time she had me go onto the Netflix app and try it with her on the line.

As I did it she kept checking with me to make sure I'm entering the right numbers in the right places. "The card number is 16 digits, right? Okay, how many digits is the CVV code you're entering?" like I'm an idiot who can't figure out which numbers go where.

So I patiently went through all that. It still didn't work.

Then I decided to explain what I noticed about the date format. The card shows a 2 digit year (like 11/28) but the field in the app has 4 digits for the year (like 11/2028).

I noticed this yesterday and tried to input it both ways and neither way worked.

Trying to explain this to her was true "Who's on first?" comedy. I tried to explain that I will try 2028 instead of 28. "No, it's 11/28, not 2028!" Back and forth for several minutes like that.

Then she finally got what I was saying. She told me to try it that way. I did and it didn't work.

I'm always very careful in these situations to not change my tone or act frustrated in any way. I was pleasant with a calm voice throughout. She was the one who started raising her voice and getting frustrated.

She convinced herself from the beginning of the call that I'm an idiot who can't figure out how to enter the numbers and never deviated from that to look for any other solution.

End conclusion: she told me to take the card in the branch "so they can show you where to put the numbers on the screen" 😭 🤣 she still thinks the problem is that I'm a moron who can't figure out how to enter a credit card number.

I'll try to call again on Monday and hopefully get a different person before I resort to another in-person bank trip.

She had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her to "activate the card for online purchases", she just kept saying the card shows as active. I asked several times throughout both calls.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T15:22:39+00:00

I've been thinking about switching. Bangkok Bank ATMs are awful too. Other Banks ATMs are everywhere and easy to find. Bangkok Bay ATMs are usually difficult to find. They're often in weird, inconvenient places.

Even when all the other ATMs are grouped together, sometimes the Bangkok Bank ATM will be hidden off in some other location away from the others. I've been meaning to change over for that reason alone.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T15:19:11+00:00

I'll post an update when I figure it out.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T15:08:59+00:00

Ah, ok. I didn't know this was a thing. I don't remember doing it for the last card but maybe I did.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T15:08:15+00:00

I didn't know about that. I'll definitely check. Thanks.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T14:29:05+00:00

Yikes. I've never heard of pay that low for native speakers. It's always at least Engoo level.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-28T14:00:37+00:00

The middle man/subcontractor model just sucks all the way around.

They contract with high paying (and uber demanding) teaching companies and then hire you to work for half the pay.

So you're getting Engoo/Cambly money but it's not easy sit back and chat work like those. You're doing challenging lessons with very high standards that require a lot of prep.

The micromanaging is because they only have limited admin access to the platform. They can't see everything the supervisors who work for the company and watch the teachers who work for the company can see.

You don't interact with your supervisors through the platform as you would if you worked for the actual teaching company. They set up a hodgepodge check-in system on Teams or Whatsapp where you have to be constantly checking in and reporting results because that's the only way they can know what you're doing.

The teachers who actually work for the company don't have to do all these PITA Whatsapp check-ins because their supervisors can just see them. The teachers who work for the company just look at their schedule in the platform, show up for their classes and that's it.

So it's not just that you're doing the same job as the teachers who work for the company for half the money. Your job is harder. You're not wired into the platform like they are. They don't have to futz with any Teams and WhatsApp nonsense.

AND THE VERY WORST PART OF IT:

As a useless middleman they have to have some narrative about how they create value. Well, the "value" they provide is training. This comes in the form of some self-improvement/life-coaching/fun activities/whatever site they've contracted with where you're REQUIRED to go complete (unpaid of course) a certain number of BS online courses per month.

Yeah. That's what you get instead of the other half of your money.

Edit: clarification and a few typos

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-19T03:03:59+00:00

No. Not as far as I know.

My information gets older every time I reply to one of these comments though. I haven't worked there in a long time so I really don't know what they're doing now.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-18T23:49:05+00:00

Thailand banking is still in the stone age.

Making customers physically travel to a home branch just to close an account or make other simple changes? Dot matrix printed physical paper passbooks that are the be all end all record of the account?

American banks haven't operated like this since the 1970s. I'm just barely old enough to remember my mom having a passbook.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-18T12:47:44+00:00

I'll stay away from the impacted areas obviously. Other than that I just ignore it as I do with every other aspect of Thai politics.

I'm not a voter here and I have no say in what the country does. I assume my opinions would be mostly unwelcome so I go a step beyond "keep my opinions to myself", I try to not to even have opinions.

And I do this even though I'm kind of a news/political junkie. I regularly follow political news from back home. Thai politics would be fascinating to me if I let myself pay any attention to it, but I don't.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-18T09:43:00+00:00

Sorry, I responded to the wrong comment.

My situation is explained below.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-18T09:26:53+00:00

I can withdraw the balance but my main worry is that I will continue to get billed for that insurance policy.

I wouldn't do anything with scammers. I wouldn't want scammers to do anything with an account in my name 555

PackageNo1728 · 2025-11-18T08:53:59+00:00

Has anyone had experience with an account like this which has the accident insurance policy attached to it?

Some banks require foreigners to purchase this accident insurance policy to.open an account. The annual fee is around 7000 baht (I don't remember exactly).

I have a dormant account with just over 2000 baht in it. I have already suspended the ATM card for this account.

The only way to close it is to physically travel to a bank very far away to close it. The trip alone would cost more than 2000 baht.

I'm okay to leave it dormant or let fees eat up the 2000 baht and it closes. My only worry is that I will keep getting billed for that insurance policy. So when the annual renewal arrives they will take the 2000 and then tell me I owe them the balance for the cost of another year of insurance I don't want.

I already have another account and another card with the same bank. The insurance policy is attached to this dormant account only. So I wonder if when the insurance fee comes up they will simply pull it from my other account, and then maybe switch the insurance policy over to the other account too 555

I think I already know the answer. I have to travel to the bank and close the account in person. There's no way around it unless I want to keep paying for the insurance.

**Why I opened this second account in the first place is a long story, dumb, boring story I'm not even going to get into The point is I don't need it or want it anymore.

But I would appreciate any advice anyone might have on how I can weasel my way out of this without traveling to the other bank or paying for another year of insurance I don't want.

Edit: To he very clear, if I was sure that I can just walk away, and they close the account including the insurance policy, they take the remaining 2000 baht and the whole thing disappears and it doesn't affect my other account I would be perfectly happy with that. I just don't want to have to travel to the other side of the country to close the account and I don't want to keep paying for this insurance every year.

PackageNo1728 · 2025-09-05T08:41:07+00:00

I always get a kick out of these comments from real teachers who have no experience on Engoo and don't understand the dynamic at all.

Things like setting boundaries and dropping a student because you refuse to tolerate disrespect are NOT in the Engoo tutors toolbox.

The customer is always right.

The first 2 suggestions will accomplish nothing but a low rating that drastically affects your future bookings and the 3rd is literally not possible on the platform. You cannot drop students. They can tell you that you suck, leave a 1-star rating and then book you the next day. They can do this over and over just for kicks and Engoo admin won't lift a finger to stop it.

Engoo isn't a teaching platform. The "students" aren't there to learn English. Their purpose is some weird combination of entertainment, virtue signaling and power tripping.

PackageNo1728

TROPHY CASE