To be fair I used to make more than that without breaking much of a sweat. Not in one location, though.
Kindy is the ideal gig for someone without qualifications who is willing to work hard and play a little fast and loose with the rules. Daytime work allows for evening and weekend side gigs.
My experience is that @Wee’s estimates of kindy teacher average earnings is a tad on the high side; however, kindy remains an easy way to max out income.
I suggest you watch this.
You can easily make close to 200k as a teacher if your no lazy, sure the hours might be a bit long but then again you don’t have to do so much.
Stand in the class room, say some stuff and encourage the kids to say some stuff
Are you sure your TES friend is telling the truth? Teachers there get paid loads (about 120k a month after tax) with a bonus month salary, flight allowance and world wide BUPA health care. If your friend is being paid on the side and not declaring it they can get sacked with no notice. Not really worth the extra money if they lose everything because of it.
What is truth?
EDIT: Sorry, flippancy isn’t clever. He’s not a friend of mine, so I don’t know if he’s bullshitting or not. Then again, I’m not 100% convinced with friends either.
4k an hour is far from unbelievable. I’ve yet to hear of a teacher getting fired for doing private side gigs (assuming they have open work rights).
Right, I’ve met a few teachers who have two full time jobs. Kindergarten in the day, 9 to 3 then cram school, 5 to 9. In that case, sure they can make that type of money. It’s not sustainable long term and I doubt the teaching quality is very good doing that many hours.
Kindergarten is also illegal, so there’s that.
But yes, you’re right. It’s possible. But I think we shouldn’t pretend the exception of the norm for people reading.
My new contract says that if I tutor or work anywhere else I’ll break the contract and lose my job. They take it pretty seriously and I’m not going to risk it.
You clearly value your current job very highly, which is good. How much are they paying you?
That’s the way I’ve always viewed everything. You have to believe you are the best and that you have good luck and the universe will bend to your will. That’s what every yoga teacher teaches too! But they stress breathing and being non-reactive. I think the way I run my schools making teachers basically half owners is dead on with his philosophy to increase the luck of others.
That said, there are tons of lazy good for nothing teachers still earning over 100K in Taiwan. It’s easy to have good luck there.
Enough for my current situation. Things are much cheaper down here in Taichung. It does say I can ask permission to tutor, maybe I’ll ask after I’m done taking care of babies.
If they like you, they’ll agree to anything. Stay on their good side. 
When you stay in the same system for a few years is easy to maintain a high level of teaching because you have everything memorized. You know exactly what you need to do and how you want to do it just by reading the syllabus. Plus lots and lots of tea and coffee and lots of exercise. That keeps energy levels up. My father worked straight 12~14 hours every day and ran a farm after coming home for 40 years. It’s definitely possible.
If you work in the public sector, you cannot take on side jobs, end of discussion.
This applies to teachers, police officers, government officials, etc. It’s not a work permit issue. It’s concern by the government that your side gig will influence your behavior in your main job (think police officers running KTVs or government officials having anything to do with housing development). Sure, people do it, but it can land you jobless and in court if someone rats you out. Tell a Taiwanese person that your middle school math teacher in the US worked at the grocery store on the weekends and see how they react. In Taiwan, they’d be fired from their teaching job in an instant. The same does not apply to private/cram school workers, as that’s private sector.
This is a problem with posters not quoting other posters. If you track my comment far enough back you’ll see I wasn’t referring to public sector workers. You’ve done nothing wrong, by the way.
I wouldn’t say you cannot do it. As it is possible, but highly unlikely. My current contract says I need written consent from my school and permission from the city government. Which, I highly doubt they will give.
As if anyone is living on 70k or so. Everybody on that is doing side gigs. What over choice do they have? You just don’t make it obvious.
This is an interesting point. What amount of money are you satisfied with? How much do you actually need to sustain your lifestyle? Currently, in Canada, after investments, pension, and taxes, our family of 2 adults and 1 child lives on $30,000 Can a year; this is approximately 660,000 NT$ a year or 55000 NT$ a month. This does not include money for travel or eating out (which we do rarely), both for which we separately save. Personally, 70K NT$ would be more than enough, and would cover some of our “extra” expenses as well, but we have simple tastes.
Personally, my issue with the government teaching gig is the sitting around doing nothing while you are expected to be “around” the office (or worse, at your desk) for the entirety of the day. No thanks.
I would much rather teach for 5 block hours a day at 650+NT$ /hr, from 2-7pm, with occasional evening hours, for 65000+NT$ every month. That way my day is free from morning until 2, and also in the evening. Yeah, you don’t get paid at Chinese New Year, and possibly some of the summer, but I think the freedom is more than worth it.
Two adults, one child. We spend around 70k NT a month. The rest is savings.
You live off just 55k NT? Wow!
I’m making a little above 70,000 after taxes/insurance/laobao. No side gigs presently. Getting by just fine. I don’t buy crap just cuz it’s there, but I also don’t not buy something (or not go somewhere) due to funding fears. I live in an apartment in a decent area (and with a kitchen!) and still have enough left over at the end of the month to average USD1,000 retirement/stock investments. Not needing to think about trips home at the moment is huge, but I’ve got my emergency fund built up in case I need cash to get the hell out of dodge.
You’re spending around 40,000 a month then?
I could get down to that, but I’d need to sell the wife and kid.