I used to trust Google Reviews much more… I really think YMMV, and I especially think there are a lot of disingenuous google reviews out there too.
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Wow, you ARE a big spender! I don’t know anyone in Taiwan who eats cereal. Gotta cut that imported stuff out of your diet!
The rice is there because Asians won’t feel full unless they eat rice, but you can opt for self-serve places where you can control the quantity of each item that goes into your box, and just fill it up with meat and veggies. Still shouldn’t cost more than $150NT.
The same amount of food would cost a lot more in the US.
In 2018 is more like 40nt for fried rice
Yeah I found the vegetarian self serve joints to be about the best on offer. Even then it’s at least $200nt just for me. With the purple mixed grains rice. And I can eat that 5 times a day. So it’s really not an option.
Food quality in Taiwan is quite poor. And most people don’t understand food. I’ve seen such poor food options served up to kids over the years. High animal fat, poor quality meat, very small choice of vegetables, served up as standard fare. That pork fat and rice meal would have to be the worst. Some kids eat it 3 or more times a week. I feel sick just looking at it.
Good fats are expensive here. And you just don’t know what you’re getting. There’s plenty of fake olive oil being sold at ridiculously high prices through supermarket chains here.
It seems to me that cost of living for you is higher than the average Forumosan due to your need to eat imported foods daily, which would definitely throw off anyone’s budget.
That would definitely explain why you perceive the cost of living in Taiwan to be close to the West.
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My budget for a family in Germany is 2500 usd. This including public transportation, rent, 3 kids 2 kindergarten, some trips, food, car ownership and mentaince.
To me Taiwan was always expensive.I doubt can run a family of 5 on 75k twd
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Sure. If eating healthy should be punished then why not. Eating healthy should not be considered a luxury. I try to buy local and in season. As much as I can. But when brown rice grown in Taiwan is two or three times the price of brown rice back home (grown there but also imported is about the same price) you have to start scratching your head and asking why. The reason why has been explained often and by numerous people. There are too many middlemen wanting their cut. Unfortunately the end result is most Taiwanese have a very poor diet. And that poor diet leads to health issues in the long term.
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75K TWD is how much most mid-to-late career professionals make in Taiwan, so I’m sure it’s doable.
Definitely don’t know how you could survive on $2,500US/month in Germany though. My monthly expenses were $3,000 in the US, and I’m a single guy with only one mouth to feed.
Liter of milk cost me 25 twd and public kindergarten 6k twd.
Families in Taiwan survive with 75k twd only cause they live rent free at grandparents place and kids are watches by the family members.
I had kebab for 3 euros yesterday. You will have difficult time get high amount of calories for 100 twd in Taiwan.
Lucky! You won’t find anything like that in the US. The cheapest meal you can eat in the US is McDonald’s, and even that costs US$6-10 for a “value” meal. Even the kebabs from street-side vendors (if you are lucky to find one, for example if you live in NYC) are at least US$5.
I think mostly Taiwanese families survive on $75k because they don’t drink milk every day. That stuff is expensive!
The grandparents thing is definitely true for some people, but most modern Taiwanese couples I know rent their own apartment after having kids, especially if they have more than 2 kids. If anything, the grandparents live with them, but they are the ones paying rent, not the grandparents.
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I think it depends on what kind of job you want to do. But mostly, it’s difficult to stay here long term without a taiwanese spouse
Compared to the US I find Taiwan to be quite cheap. It’s one of the reasons I live here. Even in Taipei, rent is significantly cheaper than in comparable major cities back home. Add that to savings on taxes, healthcare, eating out, drinking, transportation (including not needing to own/insure/register/maintain/park a car), phone, internet, utilities, etc., and I’m able to save tons more money here. It really adds up-- it can ultimately mean retiring a decade earlier.
I do buy most of my clothing and consumer electronics back home, as those can be more expensive and lower quality here, and I splurge on some western-type groceries here, but those things are a drop in the bucket compared to the savings in all the other areas.
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@cdn1234 Your plan is possible but it would be a long-term investment IMHO. I would say full professional fluency would take at least 5+ years. Some people may have achieved it in less but they would have had done some intense studying and I don’t think it could be done in less while teaching English. Unless the laws have changed, you need two years of professional experience abroad before you can get a work permit for non-teaching white collar work. After 5 years of teaching you can get permanent residency with open working rights and then you could work in other white collar professions. If you don’t want to stay in Taiwan that long, then you could study Chinese to an intermediate level and then continue on your own time, but that would make achieving full professional fluency more difficult.
If you can accept 5 years of teaching and learning Chinese before working and getting experience in a Taiwanese mandarin-speaking environment, then your plan could work well. You would take a large pay-cut to go from teaching to other work that isn’t English focused (copywriting, marketing in English, etc.) but after a year or two your salary could quickly catch up to the English teaching salary range.
If you are interested in Taiwan, then it could be a really fun and rewarding experience, but it wouldn’t be lucrative in the short-term. I would recommend keeping your cost of living as low as possible by studying outside of Taipei and being as frugal as possible. Taiwanese culture isn’t as obsessed with displays of wealth and status as some of the other Chinese speaking countries, so you wouldn’t be judged for living on a budget. Try to accept as few teaching hours as your work permit and budget allow (don’t accept contracts of over 20 hours per week) so that you can focus on learning Chinese without burning out.
If you can achieve full professional fluency, then you will have lots of future opportunities to use Chinese. But if you only get a middling grasp of Chinese, then you will probably have a slightly more competitive resume but your Mandarin ability probably won’t be career-defining. Whatever you do, don’t get too comfortable teaching English because it happens way too easily, unless of course you fall in love with teaching. Good luck on whichever path you choose.
Where in the us?
Living in Milwaukee, the rent was cheaper than here especially if you consider price per ft/ping
You have to compare apples to apples, so the most expensive places in Taiwan to the most expensive places in the US, average places in Taiwan to average places in the US, etc. If you do that, Taiwan rent is cheaper across the board. If you’re comparing Milwaukee to Taipei, probably not. Milwaukee to Kaohsiung, probably. New York, DC, or SF to Taipei, absolutely.
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Yeah but 1. Those cities in the us are outliers compared to the rest of the country
- Major cities that have similar populations (like phoenix for example) provide plenty of affordable housing, food prices, etc for plenty of income. You also have a wider variety of housing to choose from.
Taiwan does have it’s advantages, but cost of renting or buying is definitely not one
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As is Taipei compared to the rest of Taiwan. They’re also where some of the largest numbers of people live.
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