Then they must either have APRC with open work rights, or they’ve been teaching long enough to have a high salary (rare), or their spouse must also be working, or the spouse is a home-owning Taiwanese who doesn’t need to pay rent.
Yeah I suppose as I no longer live in Taipei or Taichung and my age I don’t see the younger singles coming in nowadays. One of my friends bought the school he had been working at for 15 years as the owner wanted to retire. Walks out end of one month walks back in beginning of month to tell all he previous co-workers he was their new boss lol.
Life wasn’t meant to be easy.
I’m a home owning Taiwanese who doesn’t need to pay rent. My wife is now employed by the company I own. We worked for everything we have. No outside assistance. Woe is me.
She taught for a school then had her own language school for awhile after she came back from Philippines where she did her 5 year degree in Education including tesol and linguistics.
Lot’s of people who started off teaching have used that as a stepping stone to other things. It’s also a fall back should the crap hit the fan if some lose their other lively hoods.
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Yes, but you’re not on an English teacher’s meager salary.
Well I was for a couple of years. Twas a single father at the time had my son living with me. I scrimped up and saved and started my wee satellite business around 20 years ago. My wife started her little Mind Your Language cram school up here in the wilderness.
We are just a regular couple doing our own thing. Life’s a struggle, then you’re dead.
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cooking is wonderful and u should try it more, the more u get into it the more fun it is
Admittedly when I cook I stress myself out but it’s the best way.
I’ve tried it before. I hated it. Still do.
That might be true if one shops at the local markets and cooks Taiwanese dishes.
Last Sunday, I cooked a Western brunch for four people. I spent almost NT$ 1000 on the ingredients:
- 60 for the eggs
- 40 for some mushrooms
- 99 for a pack of Croissants
- 150 for a pack of cheese
- 80 for a can of beans
- 70 for two bell peppers
- 45 for two cucumbers
- 80 for a small pack of lettuce
- 80 for a bottle of orange juice
- 150 for a pack of bacon
Plus some milk (around 80 per liter), coffee beans, spices, oil etc.
Nothing „fancy“, but definitely not cheap. Just the price of cooking some „Western“ food and shopping at supermarkets. Especially milk / cheese etc. are definitely more expensive in Taiwan than in Europe.
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Yes, imported ingredients can be expensive. I avoid those (just as I avoided imported European products when I was in the US).
Actually I avoid cooking altogether. I find eating out costs about the same as cooking at home, if not cheaper. Eating out also takes less time, which translates to money.
Unless it’s something simple like ramen noodles, or just some random noodle or rice mixed with soy sauce (it’s a thing by the way, a poverty food in Taiwan), cooking at home is often more expensive than eating out I found.
At 250 per person you could have gone to a restaurant and paid more or less the same money for the same amount of food.
Which makes me wonder, how the heck do restaurants in Taiwan make money? If you’re doing business properly (as in you are running a business that isn’t LOSING money), your food ingredient needs to be 10% of the price on the menu (because you have other costs like electricity, rent, pay for employees, taxes, etc… That means a 250nt dish should have only 25nt worth of food ingredient in it. It also means a 80nt biandang should have 8nt worth of food ingredient in it. Just the chicken leg quarter alone costs more than 80nt in some cases.
How would you make any dish for that little and not have it taste off or bad?
In the US I could make a decent meal for about 2-3 dollars per meal using whatever ingredients I can find at HEB or other grocery stores. If I’m lazy I can just get a box of hamburger helper (about 1.25 for the box if you buy store brand), half a pound of beef (1.50), and a cup of milk (about 50 cents). It costs me more in Taiwan to make similar meals, because the meals are far too complicated to make and no easy stovetop products exist. I guess 2 packs of ramen noodle is about the cheapest I can do (a pack of ramen noodle costs 15nt). But it’s considerably less healthy than the hamburger helper because it contains no meat.
That’s not what I learned in my Food and Beverage Management class in university.
We were taught 30% food cost, 30% labor and overhead, 30% profits.
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I think I saw in Supersize Me that this is McDonald’s cost structure, food cost is 10% so they could offer bigger portions to upsell.
But 30% of 80nt (for lunchboxes) is about 24nt. How do they offer you a box with vegetables, rice, chicken leg quarter, and soup, for 24nt? Because when I asked wholeseller about chicken leg quarter I’m still quoted a price of 25nt for the chicken leg quarter alone, and that’s if I buy in quantity.
Something doesn’t add up.
Something definitely doesn’t add up. Where are you getting $80 lunch boxes?
Let’s go with the “standard” lunch box at the most famous chain 正忠排骨飯. Do you know how much those are? I pay $135 on Uber Eats but it could be marked up.
135 is a lot for lunchboxes.
The one near me, near Huilong Post office, offers lunchboxes for 80nt that contains a chicken leg quarter, fried, and 3 vegetables of your choice.
A railway lunchbox place near Furen University MRT station, halfway between the MRT station and Costco Xinjhuan store, also offers a similar lunchbox for 80nt.
If you check various industrial areas there are guys selling lunchboxes out of the back of their truck for 50nt each. It looks like the 50nt lunchbox 7-11 sells. A lot of these guys sell directly to factories because oftentime one of the perk of working there is the boss pays for your lunch, and they (or others, like churches) do big deals like this with factories by selling super cheap lunchboxes by the hundreds to a factory.
If you paid 135 for a lunchbox it’s either a VERY good one or you’re getting ripped off.
They’re definitively very good, but it’s also possible I’m getting ripped off on Uber Eats. I don’t know their in-store prices.
If you’re getting it through uber eats, yes they’re ripping you off because you pay to have it delivered to your door. Even McDonalds is a little bit more expensive through uber eats. They do charge a platform fee to the restaurants.
Yeah, and I pay for delivery too. The $135 doesn’t even cover my portion of the delivery fee. Total cost is $195 (including a $30 delivery fee, and an optional $30 priority fee which I always pay so the food arrives hot).
Around 30% in the US. I don’t get the impression overhead is higher in Taiwan, you can probably be successful in Taiwan with a higher relative food cost.
Scale matters. What quantity were you inquiring about?
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Sorry but you’re really getting ripped off, considering that you can just walk 20 feet to a 7-11 that will have lunchboxes there for less than 100. And chances are there are no less than 5 lunchbox places within 500 feet of your door that will have it for around 100 or less as well. Unless you live in a remote area in Taiwan.
No, overhead is insane in the US. Thanks to the fact that the US has no universal healthcare a good portion of the price of anything made in the US includes healthcare. This is one reason why companies hire fewer full time workers. Taiwan has none of that cost, because their worker just pays the minimum 850 a month and they have better healthcare than most Americans (who pays over 200 US a month for). This is why restaurants charge nearly 20 dollars for food not including tax and (mandatory) tip. That’s right, they’re not even paying their workers yet they are charging too much for food.
Probably about 10 chicken leg quarters as that’s the amount I can reasonably store in a freezer. I guess lunchbox places goes through hundreds per day.
Those are frozen meals, not lunch boxes. And I need two of those to get full, so I spend $180.
There are probably 20 of those that cost around $90-$100, and they all taste horrible. They only exist as an alternative to the cafeteria food that the nearby students eat.
Even most “standard-tasting” lunch box places are not worth my money IMO (they usually cost $100-$120).
The $135 place is one of the few lunch box chains I enjoy in Taiwan.