My company has offered an internal job-rotation opportunity to move to Taipei. The ballpark salary offered by the company is in the range of NTD 200K-230K per month plus one-time relocation expenses (no housing or education benefits).
If I were to accept the offer, I would be moving with my better-half and two kids (ages 11 and 15). We will be looking at sending our kids to international schools.
After reading thro various posts in this wonderful forum, I do understand that 200K NTD /month in itself is a decent salary in Taiwan. But, I am not sure if this is enough to send two kids to International school.
We are prudent with our finances and don’t intend to live lavishly.
Could you please share your thoughts on whether we will be able to live a middle-class life in Taipei, rent a 3 bedroom apartment and send two kids to international schools on a salary of NTD 200K-230K per month?
It would also be helpful if there are any suggestions about what would be a decent salary to cover my situation.
Finances: For school year 2022-2023, the annual tuition rates are as follows: lower school: NT$870,860; middle and upper schools: NT$960,365. The annual registration fee is NT$; the one-time capital fee is NT$350,000. Optional round-trip student transportation costs are NT$58,000.
Just your first year cost comes out to be NT$109,000 on average per month, allocated over 12 months for just 1 student.
You got 2 kids, and a registration fee. Good luck!
Taipei European school is cheaper than TAS, but will also be around 1.5/million year for 2 kids.
its possible to do this in your salary range, but the school will leave you with very little spare income and ability to save.
aim for 3 million a year at least.
If you’re thinking about the American or European schools and living in that area then no, you wouldn’t be living a middle-class life on that salary and you definitely would not have a vehicle.
That is a gross salary so not net yes? Take out Taxes health insurance and living costs, that income is really too low if you want your children to attend an international school. Being prudent is good but you may be worse off coming here as you said you have no educational or housing allowance. What about airfares?
yes and no,
you can live in shilin or beitou, and not Dazhi or xinyi.
shop at px and carrefour and not at city super.
drive a honda and not a Porsche.
you can make it work even without being.uber wealthy, but little to no money left for savings, home trips or just vacations in TW proper…
a suggested budget i find reasonable :
rent for 3 bedroom : 50K a month
food for family of 4: 25K a month
utilities : 10K a month
transportation : 10K a month (publc transportation and occasional car rental )
misc cash expenses : 30K
this brings us to 125K a month for family expenses.
on top of that school costs
you need at least 250K a month net (3million a year).
I have a friend that spends 80K monthly with an international school for his kid.
For the PO, 230K would be not enough to send 2 kids to an international school, and with their age (teenagers), you will spend much more money on adaptation and etc.
If you remove international schools from the bill, that salary your family would have a comfortable life in Taipei. If you have the option to move to another city more south, definitely with that salary you will have a very good life standard.
As others have said, TAS or TES would be out of the question on that salary. You’re right, its a great salary if you don’t have tuition to pay for, but those two schools in particular will drain your bank account, not to mention your children’s classmates will mostly be extremely wealthy, old money types, so the social competition based on how much expensive stuff that have will be on. Especially cuz they’re adolescents and the opinions of their peers will matter a lot.
You can look into fake international schools, but, as I have pointed out in many places on this forum, they are pretty much all expensive independent private schools with “international” in their name. Those will run you more in the NT$20-40k/month range though, so its a lot more doable than TAS or TES. If you go that route, make sure you check the actual makeup of the classes (rich people buy passports to developing countries to get their kids in, find out how many of those kids have ever attended school abroad for more than a day) and, MOST importantly, make sure their teachers are actually qualified. The vast, vast majority of private schools in Taiwan have random foreigners with little to no teaching qualifications. I have worked in some. You can always check the school’s hiring page (the school itself, Facebook, Glassdoor) and find out what they post as expected teacher qualifications. If it says “bachelors and at least two years of teaching experience or an APRC and open work rights”, dont even begin to think of wondering if maybe you should consider sending your kids there.
not necessarily, i have friends that send kids to Morrison or Dominican, and they have good feedbacks about the school, but those schools are Christian schools with a religious agenda.
another important question : how long woll this posting be? will your eldest son graduate high school here? will IB diploma be relevant for him? or he needs your home country’s high school diploma for university ?
Not even close to enough to do that. Even those other schools like Morrison are not cheap either. You can send them but it will chew through all your money.
Thank y’all for your helpful responses. Its wonderful to see people helping with such useful information.
It is clear now that 230K won’t cut it.
It looks like the Hsinchu International School’s fees are relatively lesser than Taipei. Is it a good school?
And, is it possible and practical to live in Hsinchu and commute to Taipei (say 3 days a week) for work ?
Thanks
Do you know if the are they overtly religious, to the extent of interfering with curriculum and teaching - e.g., deciding/censoring what is taught in the Science class? Or just have additional religious topics to learn? And do these schools accept nonreligious or non-christian pupils?