Your first month in Korea (What you spend your money on before payday) with Chungdahm

When you first begin looking into teaching in Korea, especially through Aclipse, they will reassure you that you really only need $1000-1500 until you get paid.

Is this realistic? NOPE.

I'm actually not super sure why they decided to budget with such low numbers. Especially since everyone starts training in Seoul where food is the biggest expense. 

What your $1000/1500 should be spent on according to CDI: 

Food: ~$200-250

Transport to the hotel: $25

Alien Registration card: $20

Photos for health check and ARC: $5 

Realtor fee for your flat: $250 

First month's rent: $800-1000 

Realistically: 

1) Food was my biggest cost alone. If you eat out a lot or simply buy coffees/take away drinks expect to go over your $200 budget quickly. It is possible to eat cheaply, but you're not gonna have time to really cook (and the hotel isn't super well furnished in the kitchen area), so get used to convenience store food quickly. I kept track of roughly how much I spent on food my first week alone was over $100. How is $200 supposed to last a whole month. My first month's food bill was over $400 and I think I did more than my fair share of eating from the convenience store. If you're not paying attention or you go drinking a lot it's pretty easy to drop tonnes of cash before you know it, especially with beers ranging around 5-9,000 won and mixed drinks running above 10,000 won. 

2) Realtor fees are definitely above $250, mine was $330. A friend did a simple title transfer (took over another teacher's apartment) and still had to pay like $150 for that when the realtor only had the sign some papers in an office. Expect to pay more than what you might be told. Budget probably like $400-500 and then be surprised when it's less. This is assuming your branch uses the same realtor and has a set deal with them. 

3) Rent is probably the only thing that's budgeted for properly. It does suck cause it means that you're expected to spend more of your own money on rent than the $600 stipend that you'll get. If you really don't want to deal with that then try to find a housing included contract but expect them to be in not so ideal locations (ie small cities and more rural). I said straight away that I want as close to $600 as possible and the closest they could get me was around $700. I got shown 4 apartments within my range and I chose one. Some people were not so lucky and ended up with more expensive places. Also expect these flats to be small and somewhat janky in some way or form. Luckily, mine was nice is most respects. 

4) Furniture expenses: 

Try to get as much of it as you can free or cheap. Ask around, look on FB. Use Gmarket if you need something more expensive as they will ship to your flat for cheap or free. A lot of it is cheaper than IKEA.

Things I bought new:

A korean sleeping pad (I decided on this a long time ago): $75, but I am going to upgrade to a nicer $200 one soon and keep this for guests. Ask around at your branch and see if you can borrow a bed before you order one (a real matress even) online from Gmarket or sleep on the ground for a day or two while it comes. 

A rug (probably didn't specifically need on right away) $40

A standing mirror $30 

A drying rack $20
misc kitchen stuff $30

Things I got cheap (mostly from a flea market near my flat):

Toaster oven for cooking/baking: $15

Pot/pan: $25

Bare minimum kitchen stuff: $25

Plates/bowls for 4: $20

Things I got free: 

Router for wifi (from a coworker)

Cabinet/shelf thing (found by my building's dumpster)
Couch (2 different couches actually, switched one for the nicer one, both found near the dumpster)

Giant desk I'm going to use as a table (also dumpster)
Some misc kitchen things (coworkers)

Unexpected things I needed to pay for: 

ATM fees - I was surprised by how many ATM withdrawls I had to do. Apparenlty many ATMs have low withdrawl amounts, plus so many surprise limits on my cards that my bank didn't tell me about. I ended up having to do a lot of ATM hoping before figuring out which ones worked best. I discovered that the Woori and HanaKEB Global ATMs had the highest limits, around $1,000USD. I paid about $10USD for a 500,000 won withdrawl. What is the worst thing about this is that it means you have to stratigically plan withdrawling enough to pay rent.


Final thoughts

Overall, I spent almost $2200 just getting set up. This is for my first month alone in Korea, it was another month before I got paid, so plan accordingly. It would be great if CDI would just say that you need to bring ~$3000 with you or have someone close (ie mum or dad) who's willing to lend you the money until you can pay them back after your first paycheque. 

Edit: April 20, 2017- name change to make it easier to understand what the topic is.