How much money do I need to live comfortably in Taiwan?

I have seen similar topics in this forum on the topic of “How much money do I need to live comfortably in Taiwan?”, but they all seem to date back many years.
I am seeing teaching jobs that offer $800,000NT. Is that enough to live off of in some nice area of Taiwan ?
My wife and I just have each other (and her family members that already live in Taiwan).
Can someone also recommend a reputable school for teaching English ?
Thank you,
Jack

You can live on that in many cities. If you live outside of expensive cities then can be comfortable.

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What is comfort? Such questions can never have any answers but such topics are good to have a post with many replies

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No

You can live with that money, but you will really need to control your finances and live like a local. If you go to any other city “NOT TAIPEI”, it would be better.

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Yes, for one person, if you don’t live in an expensive area. If you’re splitting that between two people then you won’t be buying nice things or going on vacation, and you’ll really need to budget and use coupons.

I’m single, eat out every meal, and live in a comfortable but inexpensive city. I can comfortably live on TW$30-45k/mo if I don’t make any new purchases, or $60k/mo if go shopping and go on trips.

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as a single salary: possible outside of Taipei, but not with comfort.
if both of you are working and naking roughly the same you can live comfortable lives even in Taipei.

$66,000 per month. I would not consider that living comfortably even outside Taipei.

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I can live comfortably on $45k, and I’m not in Taipei.

I spend $14k on rent (all inclusive) in a luxury serviced studio apartment, and $30k on meals and misc. expenses. I only do Uber Eats, and 1-2 restaurant meals a week. I don’t have to cook, or go to Costco, or go outside in the heat to buy takeout, which most people have to do. So the total comes to $44k, which is enough for me to live comfortably.

If I want to live really comfortably and buy new clothes and shoes every month, and go on monthly road trips, then I need to add another $15k-20k/mo. Although this doesn’t include large annual or biannual expenses like new phones or electronics.

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I spend between 30k and 40k excluding vacation. For me that is comfortable life but probably not for others, I WFH and mostly cook food from Costco and I already bought everything a need(tv, Xbox, speaker, etc). I don’t do night life, just restaurant sometimes, otherwise I would spend way more. The rest save and investment.

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Cooking and going to Costco are the two most uncomfortable things that I can imagine. :laughing:

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And for me is scroll Uber eat and get bad quality food :sweat_smile:

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First define “ comfortable “, second “ where in Taiwan ? “. When we know answers to these two , we might be able to give you a better reply.

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Yeah, one of the reasons I love Taiwan so much is that I don’t have to cook at all and I won’t spend a fortune eating out every day. Not many middle class folks can afford that back in, let’s say Switzerland, and somehow we call Switzerland rich :smiley:

I think 66k a month is okay-ish to live and survive for a single person, but for a couple or family that’s gonna be a struggle. If you double that, then a couple can survive maybe even with kids, but again I would not call that comfortable.
Definitely too little to save any money for down payment, retirement etc.

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800,000 is what they offered for teaching jobs 25 years ago. You used to be able to live pretty well on that.
if you were Taiwanese you could live pretty well on it if you had a free house to live in. That’s why Taiwanese will tell you thats a good salary.

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Is she Taiwanese? Does her family happen to own an empty apartment that you can live in?

Being married to a Taiwanese also gives you extra benefits from the government that us regular aliens can’t access :slight_smile:

One thing few people here mention is that it can also be expensive to have relatives in Taiwan… The extra benefits might not look so attractive after factoring in the cost of socializing with wife’s family and the gift/red envelope giving…

Unless you live rent-free, two people won’t be able to live comfortably with that amount. Cost of living might be lower outside of expensive cities, but you will need a car (I would not consider riding a scooter as “live comfortably”), which will cost at least NT$10K/month…

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You’ll get wildly different answers on here as everyone has a different standard of living.

What can make a big difference is if you wanna eat out in western restaurants for 3 meals a day (1000nt+), or you like cooking at home (a few hundred)

Because if you take food (and alcohol) out the equation, everything else here is pretty cheap.

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True. I realized that I spend around 30K plus mostly on takeout meals. Takeout meals in Uber and FoodPanda would cost you around 200 NTD and that’s the cheapest and mostly Taiwanese food or snacks. For around 300-450 NTD you can get decent full meals that’ll be filling, including non-Taiwanese food.

Groceries are also a factor. I spend around 500 NTD a week for groceries.

Fixed it for you:

Everything here is pretty cheap, especially food.

I assume OP is interested in food prices here compared to Western countries, not compared to SE Asia or Africa or something.

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