What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

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fazur
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by fazur »

decent income? enough not to worry about enjoying life after paying basics.
theKid
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by theKid »

monomial wrote: Mon May 04, 2020 9:28 pm I always love these questions because so much depends on your perspective. My definition of a decent income in Cambodia is $6000 per month.

Why? Well, assume you have a wife plus 2 kids. You have a mortgage payment on a single family house with a small amount of land in a decent borey in Phnom Phen. Mortgage Payment? Around $2000 per month. Now you have 2 children that you have to put through private school. That's around $20,000 per year. Not including all the extras. You'll need 2 cars. One for you to go to the office, and 1 for the wife to do the daily activities and haul the children around. Add another $1000 per month for car payments and maintenance for that. Now add various insurances. Add food for the family. Add the cost of a maid. Add incidentals.

Frankly, how anyone with a family can live a modern lifestyle on less than $6000 astounds me given the current prices of things in Phnom Penh.

So I laugh when I see numbers like $1000 per month. Or as the OP says, $1300 a month. Yeah. The Cambodian girl is right that you are too poor to raise a family on that. Can be done obviously. Millions do it on less, but with sacrifices.

If you are a single, beer guzzler with no responsibilities and only yourself to think about, then maybe that kind of money is OK. If you are a poor Khmer with no particular skill and few other options in life, then maybe that kind of money is OK. But if you are a talented Khmer with genuine skills and someone expects you to work for $1000 per month, you get a year or two of experience straight out of school and then you quickly leave to some other country that is going to pay you what you are actually worth.

Which is why there is nobody left in Cambodia that is actually worth hiring. And you wind up hiring 10 people that put together are not as productive as the one guy who quit and went to work in Japan. The days when Khmers were naive about salaries outside of Cambodia are long gone.

Nobody with any kind of skill sticks around when they have the opportunity to head off to South Korea, or Japan, or anyone of a dozen other countries that come to Cambodia actively looking for talent to exploit at wages that are 3 times higher than what they can earn in Cambodia, but still less than what they have to pay to the natives in their country.

So decent income under what circumstances? And do you actually mean decent, or merely livable? Do you mean for yourself, or are you talking about starting a business here and wondering how much you should pay key employees to keep them?

If I'm a Cambodian lady, I am going to be looking for that guy who can support me at the level shown on the TV screen. And that can't be done on $1300 a month.
Absolutely agree. I love my lifestyle of travel and being able to spent freely. If I like a girl, she gets to have that lifestyle too. I need a multiple of the $1300 thats being kicked around here to allow me to have that lifestyle.

When it comes to my businesses, hell, my running costs alone are well over 40,000 USD per month.

But i guess it has something to do with the nature of expats here vs those living and working in other Asian capitals.
The kind of expats that live here and have high income jobs, serious careers, run successful businesses are just a very tiny minority while in cities like Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo etc they’d be a majority.
rexwell
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by rexwell »

1. Mr Micawber's famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness:

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

The currency may have changed but the formula still holds true today.
epidemiks
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by epidemiks »

Is OP legit? Absolute weirdo.
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Bitte_Kein_Lexus
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

monomial wrote:I always love these questions because so much depends on your perspective. My definition of a decent income in Cambodia is $6000 per month.

Why? Well, assume you have a wife plus 2 kids. You have a mortgage payment on a single family house with a small amount of land in a decent borey in Phnom Phen. Mortgage Payment? Around $2000 per month. Now you have 2 children that you have to put through private school. That's around $20,000 per year. Not including all the extras. You'll need 2 cars. One for you to go to the office, and 1 for the wife to do the daily activities and haul the children around. Add another $1000 per month for car payments and maintenance for that. Now add various insurances. Add food for the family. Add the cost of a maid. Add incidentals.

Frankly, how anyone with a family can live a modern lifestyle on less than $6000 astounds me given the current prices of things in Phnom Penh.

So I laugh when I see numbers like $1000 per month. Or as the OP says, $1300 a month. Yeah. The Cambodian girl is right that you are too poor to raise a family on that. Can be done obviously. Millions do it on less, but with sacrifices.

If you are a single, beer guzzler with no responsibilities and only yourself to think about, then maybe that kind of money is OK. If you are a poor Khmer with no particular skill and few other options in life, then maybe that kind of money is OK. But if you are a talented Khmer with genuine skills and someone expects you to work for $1000 per month, you get a year or two of experience straight out of school and then you quickly leave to some other country that is going to pay you what you are actually worth.

Which is why there is nobody left in Cambodia that is actually worth hiring. And you wind up hiring 10 people that put together are not as productive as the one guy who quit and went to work in Japan. The days when Khmers were naive about salaries outside of Cambodia are long gone.

Nobody with any kind of skill sticks around when they have the opportunity to head off to South Korea, or Japan, or anyone of a dozen other countries that come to Cambodia actively looking for talent to exploit at wages that are 3 times higher than what they can earn in Cambodia, but still less than what they have to pay to the natives in their country.

So decent income under what circumstances? And do you actually mean decent, or merely livable? Do you mean for yourself, or are you talking about starting a business here and wondering how much you should pay key employees to keep them?

If I'm a Cambodian lady, I am going to be looking for that guy who can support me at the level shown on the TV screen. And that can't be done on $1300 a month.
If you're paying 2k/month on a mortgage, it means your down payment was way too small (imo).
Ex Bitteeinbit/LexusSchmexus
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lagrange
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by lagrange »

Maybe we need to take a step back and understand that, like anywhere in the world, people find happiness their own way at their own level. 2k mortgage? Wow must be some house. I had a 1.5k/15 year mortgage on a $600k house in NZ (ex wife's got it now). I think you will find a lot of retirees in Cambodia who have a small decent western style apartment, own or rent a moto, eat out occasionally, have a few beers now and then, do the odd bit of travel around the place, occasional female company but no desire for wife and kids, and all up they manage on their pension of around 1k a month. Yes it's a quiet life, but a lifestyle they would never get back home for the same price.
" Tried being reasonable. Didn't like it" (Clint Eastwood)
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Kammekor
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by Kammekor »

lagrange wrote: Tue May 05, 2020 4:18 pm Maybe we need to take a step back and understand that, like anywhere in the world, people find happiness their own way at their own level. 2k mortgage? Wow must be some house. I had a 1.5k/15 year mortgage on a $600k house in NZ (ex wife's got it now). I think you will find a lot of retirees in Cambodia who have a small decent western style apartment, own or rent a moto, eat out occasionally, have a few beers now and then, do the odd bit of travel around the place, occasional female company but no desire for wife and kids, and all up they manage on their pension of around 1k a month. Yes it's a quiet life, but a lifestyle they would never get back home for the same price.
Some call it 'they manage'.

Others call 'managing' a decent lifestyle.

Life in Cambodia is definitely cheaper than back home, but it comes at a price. I have to home-school my kid to keep the kid up-to-date, I constantly have some worries about health care and the house I live in is not up to Western standards. I have to buy expensive drinking water to keep me and my family healthy etc etc.

On the other hand the weather is so much nicer, I can work outside nearly every day overlooking the beautiful countryside (I could never afford a view like that back home, simply never), when I'm out of the house I can find a nice place to stay for small money etc etc.

All in all. The pluses still outnumber the bad stuff for me. But I couldn't do it spending just 1,000 USD a month. No way. I'd be on the first plane after this Corona shit was finished if I had to.
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lagrange
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Re: What is a decent income for living in Cambodia?

Post by lagrange »

Kammekor wrote: Tue May 05, 2020 5:02 pm
lagrange wrote: Tue May 05, 2020 4:18 pm Maybe we need to take a step back and understand that, like anywhere in the world, people find happiness their own way at their own level. 2k mortgage? Wow must be some house. I had a 1.5k/15 year mortgage on a $600k house in NZ (ex wife's got it now). I think you will find a lot of retirees in Cambodia who have a small decent western style apartment, own or rent a moto, eat out occasionally, have a few beers now and then, do the odd bit of travel around the place, occasional female company but no desire for wife and kids, and all up they manage on their pension of around 1k a month. Yes it's a quiet life, but a lifestyle they would never get back home for the same price.
Some call it 'they manage'.

Others call 'managing' a decent lifestyle.

Life in Cambodia is definitely cheaper than back home, but it comes at a price. I have to home-school my kid to keep the kid up-to-date, I constantly have some worries about health care and the house I live in is not up to Western standards. I have to buy expensive drinking water to keep me and my family healthy etc etc.

On the other hand the weather is so much nicer, I can work outside nearly every day overlooking the beautiful countryside (I could never afford a view like that back home, simply never), when I'm out of the house I can find a nice place to stay for small money etc etc.

All in all. The pluses still outnumber the bad stuff for me. But I couldn't do it spending just 1,000 USD a month. No way. I'd be on the first plane after this Corona shit was finished if I had to.
Probably right in your situation. I was thinking about retirees like myself, no wife and kids, bit of savings put away for a medical emergency, happy to potter about with no real responsibilities or major expenses. And yes if I had a family it would be very different.
" Tried being reasonable. Didn't like it" (Clint Eastwood)
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