The thread about teaching pay got me thinking a bit. What is there to do, besides teaching, for someone who really enjoys living here? I’ve been here a while, teaching English and really enjoy the teaching part, not so much the other stuff that goes around most offices i guess. I don’t want to keep working insane hours forever, but is there an alternative? I make about 70k a month and that’s not too bad, but I have little free time and work on weekends. I know a lot of you aren’t teaching at all, so it would be great if you could share how you earn a good living and whether there’s opportunity for others to follow 
You could always start your own school. You won’t get much time off though.
[quote=“smirnoff”]The thread about teaching pay got me thinking a bit. What is there to do, besides teaching, for someone who really enjoys living here? I’ve been here a while, teaching English and really enjoy the teaching part, not so much the other stuff that goes around most offices i guess. I don’t want to keep working insane hours forever, but is there an alternative? I make about 70k a month and that’s not too bad, but I have little free time and work on weekends. I know a lot of you aren’t teaching at all, so it would be great if you could share how you earn a good living and whether there’s opportunity for others to follow [/quote]Hi Smirnoff, it’s a good question that many have asked before. Read through these threads:
Work outside of teaching–how did you get hired?
Other work besides teaching
Non-teaching jobs
Jobs besides teaching English
For a work permit for a non-teaching job, you need to prove two years of related experience (with a Bachelor’s) or one year (with a Master’s). Pay varies, of course, but many “entry-level” foreign professional jobs such as editing pay between 50-70k. Companies may well expect you to do some unpaid overtime.
If you’re not really interested in office jobs, you could probably make more money by teaching specialised classes. You could do exam prep classes or other niche stuff. Obviously it takes a while to find good jobs like that, though.
[quote=“tomthorne”]You could always start your own school. You won’t get much time off though.[/quote]Anyone thinking about doing this should crunch the numbers first. It’s not as easy as it used to be.
What are your other skills? I believe you should start from that. Because what if I tell you that you can get a great job working for a circus, what good will it do you if you don’t have any circus skills? I’m serious.
What I’ve found about Taiwan, is that you use your foreignerness to your advantage. Say, for example, that you have experience working in sales in your native country. Taiwanese companies who have not yet broken out into Western markets, but have that ambition, will need consultants to train their staff and/or represent them in those markets.
You’d have to do your own networking and know how to sell yourself to find this kind of a job, but they’re out there.
Not sure you should leave this thread in Teaching English, though. I browse by “24 hours” and click on threads with potentially interesting titles. But a lot of people browse by forum. If I did that, I would never have looked at a thread from Teaching English or Parenting or Legal, etc.
In other words, posters who actually do something other than teaching English, might completely miss this thread.
How about buxiban? That’s not teaching.
[quote=“tash”]Not sure you should leave this thread in Teaching English, though. I browse by “24 hours” and click on threads with potentially interesting titles. But a lot of people browse by forum. If I did that, I would never have looked at a thread from Teaching English or Parenting or Legal, etc.
In other words, posters who actually do something other than teaching English, might completely miss this thread.[/quote]If the original poster wants me to move the thread to another forum such as Living in Taiwan or Work, I’ll certainly do that. For now, though, I’ll keep it here as it might still go in a teaching-related direction (the OP said that he/she really enjoys teaching, so he may find it interesting to discuss ways to keep doing that kind of thing and make more money/work less).
Hi again! Thanks so much for the replies so far - it seems there is light at the end of the tunnel :bravo: I wasn’t sure where to post the topic, so if you feel it would be better somewhere else, please move it and I’ll follow on from there. I’m really happy here and have no issues living in Taiwan. I love teaching kindie and would like to continue with that. It’s buxiban, working every Saturday and sometimes even Sundays that’s getting a bit too much. Would love to learn Chinese, travel and actually enjoy life a bit for a change. Guess one gets to that point in life where you really just want to enjoy stuff not having to arrange everything you do or want to do around your class schedule. Editing might be a good option or even as some of you have mentioned, working at a company. Having a food stand at a nightmarket is a last resort 
A friend of a friend saved up some money, opened a restaurant, and then another. Now he teaches part-time in the morning for an ARC and makes pretty decent money. I think about 130K a month? I’ve thought about franchising and opening up a branch of his newest restaurant but it’s a big investment(about 1.5M NTD). I’m not sure about the legality of all of this though.
A Canadian guy I know teaches part-time, has his own English soccer school part-time and sells mexican food at the night market in Danshuei. Apparently he can do all of this legally because he’s married to a Taiwanese.