Living in Vietnam(Ho Chi Minh City) as a Married Couple

Living on 1200 a month big city is not enough.  Rent already 500,  school fee is 2k for private school. U do the math

Apartment in VN in general is not large. For two adults, we could have one-bedroom apartment in the States. Here, we need a two-bedroom unit. Our rent and utilities are $850 conservatively. Groceries, health care (for one person, my spouse; haven't got round to find one for myself yet), transportation, and miscellaneous take up between $550 and $650.

Even without the baby, your $1200 (is this salary net or gross?) is still a very tight budget. Many Vietnamese families certainly live on less than that, but they often do not have health insurance.

Expenses: Our 2 bedroom + kitchen 74meter furnished high rise apt in Skygarden suburban District7 expat area, clean and safe = US$650 w/utilities. Mobile phone + 3G = $5. New family motorbike $1200 - $2200, less used. Uses much less petrol than a car! Local clothing and Vietnamese food cheap. Mall shopping and Western or Korean food = much more.
Two of us spend about $1300/month w/o travel.
Add baby expenses. Add medical/dental. Local medical cheap, international clinics more but much less than US.
Unless he is a genius (of course he is!) your baby won't need school for a few years, international schools are priced for executive expats, you can move someplace else.

Salary: I am not a teacher but I hear: the range is wide bc of different kinds of schools, $1500 - $1800 in Saigon not unusual, some supplement with tutoring. CELTA needed for more jobs and higher pay. You can get a CELTA here for $1750.
So search for job postings and ask teachers.

Of course you should always have a nest egg to fall back on. And what if you don't like it here? The heat, people, culture, traffic, job etc.

One very important additional fact, Vietnamese usually do not have a mortgage or rent payment because they live in the homes of their ancestors.  My wife's family and extended family, I am not aware of any of them paying a mortgage and rent is foreign to them!  She keeps telling me we should live in VN because we would have so much more without a mortgage payment. 

Good think her family hasn't figured out they could all come to your house to live for free. 

thanks for the laugh, oh troi oi that is hilarious, but not really!

If you live in an expat area, Phu My Hung, Thao Dien, D1 you can expect to pay more than the average VN suburb. My wife and I live on way less than 1200usd a month, but we dont have a child and we live in an outer area.We also eat at home most nights and dont go to expat style bars or restaurants very often.

vietcong161 wrote:

Living on 1200 a month big city is not enough.  Rent already 500,  school fee is 2k for private school. U do the math

Yogi's doing da maths.    One problem, he's not yet getting the $1200 & no guarantees he will.

Martin, coming here without a tidy sum as a nest egg is crazy.  Personally I'd come here for a holiday , sus it all out and then make a decision.    I know teachers here only getting minimal hours and some guys are only getting $600 a month...and they don't get it every month.  There's often downtime where there's NO cash .     You've got to cover for that with a backup plan or two.

I've really got to admire the Vietnamese for living on the budget they do.   They stick together as families and all kick in.   In my building it's common for 4 generations all piled into a small 2 bed apartment.    Dunno how that'd go back home.😳   Just getting a few relatives together for Christmas dinner is a diplomatic nightmare.  Glad that was only once a year .

Ideally you'd want a dual income. Hard to do with a baby, though.

Yogi007 wrote:

vietcong161 wrote:

Living on 1200 a month big city is not enough.  Rent already 500,  school fee is 2k for private school. U do the math

Yogi's doing da maths.    One problem, he's not yet getting the $1200 & no guarantees he will.

Martin, coming here without a tidy sum as a nest egg is crazy.  Personally I'd come here for a holiday , sus it all out and then make a decision.    I know teachers here only getting minimal hours and some guys are only getting $600 a month...and they don't get it every month.  There's often downtime where there's NO cash .     You've got to cover for that with a backup plan or two.

I've really got to admire the Vietnamese for living on the budget they do.   They stick together as families and all kick in.   In my building it's common for 4 generations all piled into a small 2 bed apartment.    Dunno how that'd go back home.😳   Just getting a few relatives together for Christmas dinner is a diplomatic nightmare.  Glad that was only once a year .

It didn't go well in London a few days ago.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

But for really crowded accommodation try Hong Kong. Last time I was there an associate invited me to her place in Kowloon for dinner. Her entire apartment is about the size of my study. It is modern and is filled with state of the art technology, but its tiny.

A mate of mine lives over in Saikung, Hong Kong and he can reach the tap in his kitchen sink by stretching over from the sofa in front of the TV.

Anyway, back to the point. Yogi (as usual) is right. Better to come here for a visit and sus the place out before arriving unprepared. As for teaching jobs, I have heard some real horror stories about teachers being short changed on salaries and cheated WRT working hours and salary levels.

I was asked by neighbours where I live if  I would teach English to their kids. My (Vietnamese)  wife counselled against it, saying that it would be too problematic. She was dead right. The pay offered was 30 USD/hour - but only two hours a week and only at the weekend. Then there was a range of kids ages and abilities. So far there has been 4 teachers employed, non of which stayed for more than a couple of months.

Remember the 7 P's!

- In my opinion you and your wife should earn about 3500$ in Vietnam. You know, foreigners have to pay more than vietnamese : rent for house (300$), International School for your Son (700$/month) and Insurance for your family (i don't know this cost), helper (250$) but food in vietnam is very cheap. So you should think deeply for your decision. You can try another places in Vietnam except Ho Chi Minh city

$3500 a month teaching........
Yogi doesn't know much about the teaching game , but @ $20 an hour , that's a 44 hour week.     Martins wife has a child to care for , so it will be him solely doing the shifts.   

Most teachers I've met are lucky to get 4 hours a day....and not every day.

As Gobot indicated...$1500- $1800 PM is more the budget he should expect.    But you've got to get the job first.

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback, yes this is our plan to come the end of the year for a short trip, just to check everything out (look at apartments, the culture etc.) Then we will go back to SA and start to plan our trip....

I was also advice that maybe we should first move to a smaller city (cheaper there) and then, after the baby is a little bit bigger(and he can be in daycare), my wife can also start looking for something to do.

Once again thanks :-)

M from South Africa wrote:

Hi guys

Thanks for the feedback, yes this is our plan to come the end of the year for a short trip, just to check everything out (look at apartments, the culture etc.) Then we will go back to SA and start to plan our trip....

I was also advice that maybe we should first move to a smaller city (cheaper there) and then, after the baby is a little bit bigger(and he can be in daycare), my wife can also start looking for something to do.

Once again thanks :-)

Just curious, you are from SA and thus, of all the places in the world one can move, why Vietnam?

Vietnam is not our end goal, we really want to go to an Middle Eastern country (but unfortunately they all need TEFL teachers with experience) and the Asian countries just prefer you to have experience... So after my two or three years as a TEFL teacher, then we can move to an Arab country were my wife will also be able to work, and our son is a little bit bigger?

We also tried China but they have difficulty to grant a visa for my wife (seeing that she is Egyptian and not yet South African).  We also have two friends living currently in Vietnam (so it just seem like the obvious place)