Greetings all. First I would like to say thank you to Jacob, this website really blew my mind when I first discovered it a few years ago and it has been part of a staple diet of such information sources for me ever since. I shall go and buy your book this week, been thinking about it but never get around to actually doing it. I will do it this week.
So, I'm 39 and I came to Thailand from Europe when I was just 22 years old. Incredibly, as it almost seems to me now, I've been here all this time. I came here to start a new life for myself and it has been a real rollercoaster with just so much good and bad but has turned out very well for me in the end.
I am a teacher, been doing this the whole time. I have loved teaching over the years but in recent times the magic has gone. It's still good sometimes but I would like to either never have to do it or just enjoy doing a SMALL amount of it. I am well qualified with a good degree and teaching certs and fairly good at it but 17 years is enough full time teaching for me. As a foreigner, I am not legally allowed to do pretty much anything else. I think Jacob has maybe experienced this before? A foreign owned business is a possibility but they don't usually work out well here and I can't risk it plus I have no business background or ideas right now anyway.
A forced change to having to work evenings and every weekend of the year (save for three) for the past few years has got me debating my next move, this is where I would love to receive any input from ERE minded people. I can only ask for advice here because the normal workers in my life will think I'm nuts or trying to brag or whatever. I need objective input from people on our wavelength. I would also feel shy and awkward revealing such private financial details to people that I know in my real life, it needs to be people on the net who are in this circle!
There's a lot of info so I'll try and summarise it in bullet points to keep it as minimalist as I can, sorry if it's too much:
1) I am married, it's a very strong and happy marriage. wife has good job that she likes in stable field with good benefits. Wife is a Thai national but overseas educated. We have two children, 12 and 6. Because of this, I can always qualify for a visa here, job or not as long as I can show money in bank etc.
2) We own our luxury 200 square metre 4 bedroom and bathroom condo outright, it was a wedding gift and is worth maybe US 300k+ As a gift, we could never really sell it but we can live in it indefinitely of course. There is also a nice huge family house where my parents in law live nearby. We have a couple of rooms there also and would probably be expected to take care of them as they get older in a typically Asian nuclear family way (they are mid 70's now but good health and very active).Any expenses in that would be covered easily by them. So we can live there and often stay there on days off. Point being,although we have to maintain property and the costs that go with that, we have no rent or mortgage and will almost certainly never have to pay one.
3) Wife and I share all bills straight down the middle but otherwise have separate financial lives. Might seem odd to some, but has always worked very well for us. I know my wife is reasonably (maybe quite) wealthy and has old money wealthy and generous parents, I don't know exactly to what extent though. Our biggest expense is kids school fees of maybe 5k US per child, per year. Otherwise our lives are not expensive, we put 500US a month each into the shared account and that covers everything else pretty much.
4) As of the end of this year, I personally will have reached around US200k in my quest to be more free, it's mainly in cash and bonds (not yet ideally managed I know). It's difficult to invest as a foreigner but I can do mutual funds, tax deductible savings bonds (like 401 sort of things) and a few others.I'm learning but anyway as of right now it's mainly cash and only earning between 3-4% a year. I have no debts and we own two new recently bought Japanese cars outright. We typically get ten years min out of a car so no big expenses there for a long time.
5) My job forces me to work all weekend and many evenings so apart from the kid's school runs. I have been seeing less and less of my family and the kid's childhoods in recent years. My wife also has to do a five day work week at a busy job and then do the REAL WORK on the weekends looking after the kids, effectively a brutal 7 day week so that I may be free to go and do my job. She never complains but she is always tired and often gets run down and sick as a result. She is a trooper, what a woman.
6) I have the option to quit my full time contract and just work in the same field with no weekends, picking and choosing a few hours. Even just a few evening classes a week (maybe four at the most) would yield around 1200US per month after tax and this easily covers all my bills and the school fees and even some extra (my work is slightly better paid if done on an hourly basis as they have to make up for no paid holidays and health insurance) Yet strangely, for a full time teaching load at the minute including the horrible hours away from family I only get around 2100 us p.m after tax.Doing more work and hours than the hourly paid 'few classes' 1200us option almost seems to be the negative side of the 'marginal utility' that Jacob recently posted about. If I did this then I wouldn't even be touching the 200k US and could just focus on growing that by letting the 3-4% (or better) just keep compounding on and on. I would have to cover my own basic health insurance but that isn't too bad here at all for basic cover. I am fit and fairly lean and exercise a lot, I'm a veggie and very active, no smoking and rarely drink. My wife and kids still get health cover from her job. This way I would be with my wife and kids most of the time and ALWAYS on weekends. The teaching work I do is bomb proof and recession proof. I work for the best in the field and they are expanding in this economy even. The part time work would always be there and I figure even a full time retiree should 'keep their hand in' with a little job for a few hours a week right?
My wife is tired and I don't like the reality of our lifestyle in terms of hours apart and shifts. It seems nuts to me that for a couple in an otherwise highly fortunate situation we should live like this. I can understand doctors or airline pilots doing those hours for their money but weekends away from family all year round for a 25k annual salary? Seems messed up to me.
I am thinking of this now as a very serious option starting next spring (after I have had my fully paid teacher's long holidays of course!).
Does this sound crazy or would you go for it? I honestly think I could teach two or three classes a week for a long time and even be fairly happy doing it. Teaching is actually fun when you only do small amounts and you aren't overworked and relying on it, that's when my best lessons come! I could do this until I'm an old man if needed, probably would still save maybe 600US pm... worst case scenario is to run with this into my 50's and then I could probably live without even part time work anyway.
Thanks for reading, in return for bothering you all, any questions you need answering about living in Thailand I shall surely try and answer.
GR
PS. Do you see this as 'retirement' in any sense? I kind of do and I'm genuinely grateful for any feedback and opinions from fellow ERE people.
