i was very dissatisfied with the amount of lifetime my job in the US was taking from me with so little in return, so when i came across an ad for English teaching that advertised half my hours double my pay i applied, when i was offered the job right away, i accepted, made a bunch of money for 3 years, had savings and plenty of breathing room, invested most of my savings.
with breathing room, i thought about what i wanted next and how much it cost:
i wanted to never work again unless i wanted to, basically retirement. I had traveled a bit and realized that with 200 countries, i could literally choose my cost of living and cost of retirement. i picked Thailand to start my retirement since i had visited before and knew the costs. i needed $250 USD/month to start($100 month for a hostel, $150 for food and beer).
i had nearly that coming in from investments, so i signed up for a conversational English speaking app and doubled my income to about $500 per month by chatting 5 hours a week. i used the extra money for private places, extra food and beer, renting a moped, museums, etc.
i traveled for a year working up to 5 hours a week, received an offer to open my own school in China, went back and saved money for two years until i had plenty of passive income to lived abroad indefinitely(USD 500+/month), and here i sit 8 years later, on the way to jeju south Korea after a month in Mongolia, Japan next week.
advice: make a change sooner rather than later, time is finite.
…sooo basically the FAQ in the travel community, hahaha.
yea, esl teachers often need a work visa depending on the country, but schools generally sponsor your visa if they hire you, so that’s all taken care of by the school staff or they’ll walk you through the process. if a school doesn’t offer to sponsor your visa, they’re not worth the trouble.
it was awwwesome and i got to retire very early, so it’s tough to complain about anything.
Really there were no challenges with the job itself, speaking basic english and playing learning activities with a bunch of respectful, dedicated, cute students for 45 minutes at a time(including a 10-minute break), watching them improve and leaps and bounds evey week, get paid USD $35 per class minimum. Rent/food/everything pennies on the dollar. My most expensive apartment was about three hundred and fifty U.S. dollars right in the middle of Beijing, but the studio I rented the longest was $120 a month. 4 classes and my monthly rent and utilities were paid for.
the only challenges were with other administrators after i ended up co-owning the school that hired me, they were pretty bad at business and it was frustrating to see this extremely successful business that was fun to work at run so poorly.
oh, i was in beijing, so the smog was the other main challenge, but it’s such a comfortable and convenient country to live in, I still ended up staying there very happily almost six years altogether, and have great friends that I still talk to and actually just visited last month.
Wayyy more ups and downs.
there are tons of chinese cities that aren’t smoggy, but Beijing was where I started and that was my journey.
i wanted to never work again unless i wanted to, basically retirement. I had traveled a bit and realized that with 200 countries, i could literally choose my cost of living and cost of retirement. i picked Thailand to start my retirement since i had visited before and knew the costs. i needed $250 USD/month to start($100 month for a hostel, $150 for food and beer).
i had nearly that coming in from investments, so i signed up for a conversational English speaking app and doubled my income to about $500 per month by chatting 5 hours a week. i used the extra money for private places, extra food and beer, renting a moped, museums, etc.
i traveled for a year working up to 5 hours a week, received an offer to open my own school in China, went back and saved money for two years until i had plenty of passive income to lived abroad indefinitely(USD 500+/month), and here i sit 8 years later, on the way to jeju south Korea after a month in Mongolia, Japan next week.
advice: make a change sooner rather than later, time is finite.
…sooo basically the FAQ in the travel community, hahaha.
Wow that sounds like an amazing time! What challenges did you face? Did you have to get a work visa?
yea, esl teachers often need a work visa depending on the country, but schools generally sponsor your visa if they hire you, so that’s all taken care of by the school staff or they’ll walk you through the process. if a school doesn’t offer to sponsor your visa, they’re not worth the trouble.
it was awwwesome and i got to retire very early, so it’s tough to complain about anything.
Really there were no challenges with the job itself, speaking basic english and playing learning activities with a bunch of respectful, dedicated, cute students for 45 minutes at a time(including a 10-minute break), watching them improve and leaps and bounds evey week, get paid USD $35 per class minimum. Rent/food/everything pennies on the dollar. My most expensive apartment was about three hundred and fifty U.S. dollars right in the middle of Beijing, but the studio I rented the longest was $120 a month. 4 classes and my monthly rent and utilities were paid for.
the only challenges were with other administrators after i ended up co-owning the school that hired me, they were pretty bad at business and it was frustrating to see this extremely successful business that was fun to work at run so poorly.
oh, i was in beijing, so the smog was the other main challenge, but it’s such a comfortable and convenient country to live in, I still ended up staying there very happily almost six years altogether, and have great friends that I still talk to and actually just visited last month.
Wayyy more ups and downs.
there are tons of chinese cities that aren’t smoggy, but Beijing was where I started and that was my journey.
How many beet are we talking? Do you have a beet guy in Thailand already or are you lookin for a beet hookup?
Thailand does have a lot of beet farmers. and beat farmers.
thanks.