I came here with the attitude that because everything is so cheap here it would be easy to save lots of money. However, expenses can creep up and you might find yourself with little to none of your pay cheque left at the end of the month.

Here are some tips that would have helped me in the past:

1. Only eat Korean food and drink Korean beer and soju

This is pretty obvious and self-explanatory. Any food made in Korea is generally cheaper than stuff from abroad. You’re looking at 4000 to 6000 won for a hearty Korean meal versus the same price for unhealthy and poor nutritional value American fast food. Or plenty more 20,000 to 50,000 for a great-tasting meal at a foreign restaurant.

Korean alcohol is also dirt cheap. At most places, 650 cc of Korean draft will run 3,000 to 4000 won, versus 6,000-7,000 for imported draft. Import bottles are even more expensive. Wa Bar has the nerve to charge 12,000 won for a 355 ml bottle of Guinness!

Soju, the ultimate cheap alcohol, is unbeatable at 1,000 won for a bottle at convenience stores. It’s so cheap that most Western-style bars don’t even serve it. You can get it easily at any restaurant or hof for 3,000 per bottle. This is the ultimate cheap way to drink in Korea, though your head will not be thanking you the next day.

2. Try not to go out on weeknights

The more you go out, the more money you spend. Naturally, you can nip this by not going out on weeknights. Study Korean, take a class, work out, or just plain go to bed early instead of going out.

Let’s say the average night out cost is 30,000 won. If you go out once a week you spend 120,000 won in a month. If you go out four times per week you end up spending 480,000 won! So try to stay in as much as possible.

3. Take the subway or bus

Though taxis in Korea are super cheap compared to the west the cost still adds up, especially for traveling great distances. You can’t beat 1,000 to 1,500 won per trip, versus at least 2,500, closer to 7,000 or 8,000. This adds up a lot over the month.

4. Don’t put stuff on your foreign credit card

If you spend money using your cash or Korean check card it gets deducted from your bank balance immediately. You know exactly how much is left. If you put stuff on your credit card, you tend to forget about it. You’ll end up receiving a bill at the end of the month with lots of stuff you forgot about. This is an easy way to overspend your monthly budget. Plus, you might end up paying more money for things if the value of the won drops since you purchased those goods (since they are purchased at the daily exchange rate and you’d be paying them off at the end-of-the-month rate).

5. Pay dutch

Koreans have a tendency to treat each other when going out. Each time they go out a different person will treat the group. Ideally, this would work out to be even, however, in practice it is not the case. If you’re a particularly generous person you might end up paying more than your fair share by accident. Plus, foreigners tend to go dutch so if you are generous enough to treat them for the first round they might forget to pay back the favour!

6. Don’t buy a car or motorcycle
Motorcycles are dangerous. I know of numerous teachers who have been injured by cars through no fault of their own. Gas is cheap but they do break and regular maintenance is required. Cars are an especially stupid purchase since you get dinged with high gas prices, yearly insurance, and taxes every six months.

7. Don’t travel

Places like Vietnam and Thailand are super cheap. However, simply getting there involves spending major coin on round-trip air tickets. Plus, those nights in hostels and motels add up over time. And there’s no way you’re going to travel and not party at night.

8. Make a budget and stick to it

Set realistic spending limits for the categories of things you need to purchase (entertainment, food, transportation, etc.). To figure this out for the first time, each time you spend money write it down and categorize it. At the end of the month, plug all of this into an Excel spreadsheet and total up your expenditures for each category. This gives you an idea of how much money you need to spend so you can set your budget around this.

So, there are seven tips that you can use to try and save money.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 at 12:03 and is filed under Social. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.