[quote=“RockOn”]I earn more than $100,000pm @ $800+ per hour excluding huge bonuses. My Taiwanese wife contributes $20,000 pm to family expenses, bringing our household income to over $120,000 pm. We have a kid, a few dogs, one car (with comp. insurance), no domestic help (at all), life insurance / private health insurance, no apartment of our own (renters), school fees, and a ton of misc. expenses. We haven’t been on a vacation outside of Taiwan in 3 years and I haven’t been back home in more than 5. We’re not scraping by, but we don’t live in the lap of luxury, either. I’m almost 40 and I’ve been teaching more than 10 years, and the thought of teaching another 10 scares the shit out of me.
To save myself from early death (=10 more years of teaching children), I’ve been saving and investing like a maniac. The point I’m trying to make is that as a foreigner in Taiwan with no local family to support you or help you out, you better have a plan B. Teaching in Taiwan until you’re 60 isn’t a plan. Spending all your money every month isn’t a plan. Traveling all over Asia and the world spending your money isn’t a plan, either. For those of us who are lifers nearing our 40s, if we don’t have a plan B (or a rich family at home), we’re fucked.
I read about 50 or 60-year old people becoming completely destitute when they lose their jobs or get divorced or through personal injury and it keeps me up at night. I have a “good” job, reasonably stable marriage (YEAH RIGHT!), and private health insurance to cover my expenses if I can’t work for an extended period of time, BUT I’m IN CONSTANT FEAR OF NOT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY WHEN MY LUCK TURNS. My household expenses are running at TWD85,000 per month, which is more than most salaries in Taiwan, but preparing for LAT (LIFE-AFTER-TEACHING) is my main focus in life. I have another 5-7 years of teaching in me before I suffer a massive fucking coronary event. I kinda feel like my life is just passing me by at this point and that all the worrying is just making the reality worse.
But this is the life I chose. In 5-10 years, hopefully, my investments pay off and my worries stop. Then finally, I’ll be able to live again. A SAD, BUT TRUE TALE OF LIFE, WORK, MONEY, AND HOPE.[/quote]
Okay, so since you’ve posted on here about your situation you should be open to advice. Therefore, what I am about to say may not initially sit well with you, but don’t take any of it personally. You really are going to have to think about this kind of stuff and it really is a serious matter and tough decisions will have to be made.
Before I start I want to say that I have been in Taiwan for 3 years now and I am looking at being a lifer myself but I have put some really serious thought into everything during the last two years especially into how to make that all happen.
Let’s begin where everything started with me here in Taiwan. I was promised a private school job that fell through when I arrived in July 2012. I came with far too little money to get started here and spent two weeks finding a job. I got a whack-ass kindy job way out in New Taipei City and was living in the (in)famous Taipei Hostel around Shandao Temple Station. I was fired from the kindy in less than two months and found myself looking for a job again for a period of five weeks. I was in and out of the hostel and was lucky enough to find a couple of one month short term inexpensive leases, but mostly lived in that hostel in the dormitory.
Now when I was living there, there were 3 people that really stand out to me as people who had completely fucked up in life. They were some of these people that you kind of describe, 50-60 years old and completely destitute. There was one guy who was over 60 who had been living in Taiwan for a while as some type of contractor so he said, telling me how he had been making over $100,000 USD year at certain points in his career but had to leave Taichung for one reason or another and ended up in Taipei Hostel with nothing to show for himself over all that time. In fact, he had mismanaged his money so much that he needed to get a repatriation loan from AIT just to get his ass on a plane back to the US. That’s right, he couldn’t even afford a one way ticket home. It was quite mind boggling to me that this guy said he was making so much money, I think as some type of engeineer, and had nothing, NOTHING, to show for it when he was 60 +. Part of me doubts that he ever did make that much but it was clear that he was not good at managing his money and no job he ever had provided a pension or any type of retirement and he clearly had not planned or saved for the eventuality of retirement.
Another guy that was there around the same time was about 50 years old and also completely flat broke. He was looking for English teaching work at cram schools at his age in Taiwan. It was really pathetic honestly. He couldn’t get hired anywhere. He said he had no money, but was living in a private room and getting drunk nearly every night. He had come over from mainland China I believe, because he got fired from his job there. I guess in the end he went back there because it was much easier to find work there than Taiwan at his age, although he said he had taught in Taiwan about a decade prior and had found the landscape for teachers had changed considerably during that time period. Before he departed he said something along the lines of a friend had wired him a few hundred bucks for his visa and plane ticket back to mainland China.
Another woman, over 40, also completely destitute had been fired from a cram school and was flat broke on her ass, also getting drunk every night on mijyo. She couldn’t find work probably due to her age and her apperance. She was missing several teeth and just looked like hell, like she had been doing crystal meth or something, honestly. She ended up out on her ass when she didn’t have enough money to even pay for a bunk in a dormitory and probably had to get money sent to her from her father if she ever wanted to get out of Taiwan and not become a homeless street person. I’m guessing she probably made her way back to the States with family or went on to mainland China for work.
These three people had set a very cautionary tale for me about how not to live my life in Taiwan. There was no way I wanted to be 40, 50, 60 years old and staying in a hostel because there was nowhere else for me to go. Being there at age 26 was bad enough. I couldn’t even imagine being twice as old and being in that situation, really, it would make me feel like a complete failure. It was very similar to me what my parents were like, in their 60s now and completely broke, still in debt. A lot of it might be generational, seriously, I think a lot of Baby Boomers are quite horrible at handling their money.
Anyway, I am not comparing these people to your situation. You are obviously much better off. I just use them as examples that I feel I was lucky to be exposed to of what not to do in life. It made me realize very early on that if I were to succeed in Taiwan, or anywhere abroad, or perhaps anywhere anywhere, that I needed to have a plan for the future, lest I end up like the aforementioned people.
I got a job at another school after a five week search and also had a few other lucky breaks as well, including getting some random substitute and guest speaker work and even getting to stay in a house rent free for about a month. I was seriously considering flying back to the US with my tail between my legs for a while but everything worked out so wonderfully in my favor somehow.
After a year of drudgery at my job, I had signed up for another year mostly because I hadn’t made any other plans and wanted to get more out of my Taiwan experience, since the first 5 months were so turbulent. I didn’t get my own apartment until five months after arriving and also had to neglect payment of bills for about six months and had to pay those all back just to catch up. I needed more time to be stable financially and to enjoy the fruits of my long struggle just to get a foothold in Taiwan.
The new school year started off very busy, but after that, there was a huge lull in my schedule. I was required to be at work from 8am-5pm every day, even though they had not created a schedule of classes for me. I was still getting paid the same, salaried position, but had nothing to do. I sat there every day for over two months thinking about what I should do with my life. This was also a blessing, since I had nothing to do but think and had a computer with internet access right in front of me (and still getting paid for doing fuck-all). I sat there and just thought all day, every day, about what I wanted to do with my life. I decided I wanted to teach but not like how I was at the time. I decided to go for a teaching certificate or degree. After doing some reserach and reading about The College of New Jersey Offsite Graduate Program here on Forumosa, I decided to go for that. It isn’t cheap, but it was an investment in myself. I am currently doing this program now and will finish in about a year. I started in October of last year. It’s one program that I can highly recommend. Many people in your type of situation are doing it to improve their lives here and to give themselves more options. Of course, one has to wisely save and invest their money. Even many people working at high paying international school jobs seem to spend their money foolishly on lavish vacations, expensive apartments, and going out all the time. We are on our own out here for the most part, so we need to save and invest wisely while living somewhat modestly.
This is but one possibility however. This post isn’t just for you, but for anyone that comes to Taiwan and wonders what to do. Let’s be honest, playing sticky-ball isn’t really a career or something you can do forever. Now, on the particulars of your situation. This is what I can suggest based on what I’ve read.
You are making a pretty good income but you are probalby working a lot of teaching hours, I guess over 30 per week of just teaching, not including any prep time or anything else. That is a huge load of classes. It is no wonder that you won’t be able to keep this up for much longer.
It sounds like your wife makes around minimum wage. Is she working full or part time? If she is working part time, can she pick up more hours at work? Is she hourly or salaried? I certainly hope she isn’t salaried. I know how evil Taiwanese bosses can be, making employees work overtime for no extra pay at a shit wage. If your wife is working full time, is there anything she can do to improve her career prospects and make more money? Any training she can do, any other jobs she can get?
In terms of expenses, when your car breaks down, do you really need a new one? Can you move to a place with cheaper rent? You say you have a few dogs, when they eventually pass away, will you replace them? I know these can be some tough things to think about but if you want to get ahead, you’re probably going to have to make some tough decisions. What are you investing in now?
I think you said you spend about 85K per month, so that’s a savings rate of about 35,000 NT per month, actually doesn’t sound bad at all. But you need to save and invest aggressively. Can you invest in yourself to upgrade your skills and credentials? Having a teaching degree could really do that for you. As stated, going to the Middle East could net you some real money. You said you don’t have any relatives here to support you, so why are you so attached to Taiwan then? A lot of these companies or programs will pay for your family members to come with you. Or you could go yourself and send the money back to Taiwan. Yeah, it would suck to be away, but if you really need to get ahead, you’re going to need to make tough decisions. At the very least, you should be able to get a well paying job that isn’t as stressful as teaching so many classes as you seem to be teaching now. It will give you more options.
Anyway, just some suggestions for you, take em or leave em, you were the one solisiting for advise here, so this is just my 
Also something for anyone living here without any real plan to consider.
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