I’m a Thai actor. I can’t speak for all actors, but I get paid ~250k baht per episode for a lakorn (TV drama). A typical lakorn has ~15 episodes. I usually do 1 per year. Add to that the salary I get from the TV network to stay with them.
You must log in or register to comment.
I do GIS, which is basically computer mapping, for an energy company. Because we work in the energy sector, we’re unionized with the electricians and with that we have a fantastic pay scale and benefits. USD I make ~$70k/yr
That’s, what, $107k/y? That’s a good, solid middle-class income in the US, unless you live in an expensive area. E.g., it’s a great salary if you live in Manhattan, Kansas; it’s not a lot if you live in Manhattan, New York. What’s the cost of living where you live?
I’d go by the price of eggs, but they’re outrageously expensive under our current regime.
regime
It’s still a government, give it a couple of years.
Good point.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Bangkok Here’s a general overview.
43% less expensive than where I live yet milk costs the same as here 🤔
Milk prices vary widely. The Midwest has a lot of cows. Milk is pretty cheap in most places, although Big Dairy flattens that out a lot. I’d expect milk to be very expensive in Japan, which isn’t conducive to dairy farming.
I only just now realized that, when doing cost of living comparisons, you really have to consider lifestyle. For example, my wife has a dairy allergy, so I’m the only person in the house who consumes any dairy. If you don’t eat gluten, bread prices are irrelevant, and you really should factor those out in the cost of living index.
Maybe it all averages out, in the end. “Housing”, “food”, “gas” - whatever indexes they use, they’re just aggregates.
Could be subsidies in your country. Could be geography of Thailand. When I was there it didn’t strike as the kind of land with expansive dairy ranches. As an example, New Zealand produces almost 20x as much dairy as Thailand.
I’m a waitress, I make about 60K USD give or take 5K. It varies significantly throughout the year, though. In Chicago, that’s enough to support a family of five.
I am amazed that you can support a family of 5 with 60k!
That said, i am also amazed that you can make 60k being a waitress! Is that after paying taxes?
before taxes
the secret is simple: no car. It’s a huge expense and in a city like Chicago, completely unnecessary. I never would’ve been able to buy a home with that millstone around my financial neck
You have a house and 5 people on 60k in Chicago… That’s crazy
I push buttons in my basement in my underwear.
Pay is pretty good because I know what buttons to push in what order.
Could be a DJ, gamer, streamer or only fans…
Computer programmer
Close. I talk to the customers so the engineers don’t have to.
Excellent people skills
OSU!
Pharmaceuticals in the US. Fairly early in my career, get paid just short of $100k/year. All it took was getting a doctorate and selling a little bit of my soul.
Sometimes I miss academic research. But at the end of the day I’m getting paid about 4x as much while working 1/2 the hours, by my estimate I’m 8x as happy now. Plus, there’s something to be said for working on projects that actually affect people’s lives instead of overstating the impacts of my research to compete for a dwindling pool of federal grants. Seeing the policy changes in the US this year, I’m very glad I left academia but I’m not convinced I’m 100% safe from changes made at the FDA.
Air trafic controller (Europe, not FAA…)
It’s honestly a kind of dream job as I work around 2 weeks a month, have 7 weeks of paid vacation + I can call in “unfit to work” anytime with no question asked. We get paid health cure and the job is not that hard or stressful when you are good at it (I’ve done it for 15 years, it’s like a second nature now).
The pay is very good, around 100k (€/$/chf, it’s basically the same) at entry level and around 220k after 20 years of experience. I’m at 150k for a 80% part time contract.
The only downsides are the working hours, 24h a day 7 days a week which gets tiring as you age. And that much money for not much work makes me lazy, not being at risk means I’m not making efforts to gets better. I dream of being an independent worker, working from home or anywhere in the world on my framework 13 by making creative work, but I’m not pushing hard for that dream as everything is ok with my life and job.
I know, that’s totally a “1st world problem” and I’m not complaining at all. It’s just that being too comfortable in something does not push you forward.
I wanted to get into the Tower so bad when I was younger. I perform great under stress and I love that kind of job. But FAA regulations ban me outright because of a heart problem I have and now I’m too old. Haha.
Glad you enjoy it! It sounds like a really cool job
Wait, you’re expected to be working for 168 hours straight?
Yeah, work-life balance is very important. I love that in acting we shoot for a few months then have the rest of the year off during which you do various gigs and ventures and relax.
what’s your porn name?
Do you do one episode a year or one season of 15 episodes?
I assume you’re pretty well off considering you are in Thailand where living costs are relatively lower?
Thai dramas don’t usually have seasons. It’s just 1 show of ~15 episodes. I do 1 show. It’s great money but nothing like the top in big industries such as the US, China, S Korea, Japan, etc.
Comparison is the thief of joy. If you are happy with what you have, then there is no need to compare with what others get. There is no quarantee that that would make you happier. Maybe even you may be worse off but better paid 🤷
Nice try fbi
I help people do science and math with their computers. I make around 100k, double the median income in my area. My commute is an hour and a half each way, at least, and sometimes I only have around 3 hours to myself after I get back from work before I need to go to bed. Still, I have it better than most (although, with the current attack on science in the US, uncertainty about clients is rising…)
I own a small business consulting firm that the serves tech and energy industries. Generally, pay is good in consulting. Owning a company can be risky financially - we’ve had good years and bad years.
I tend to watch some Thai series (mostly on Netflix), so I find these numbers interesting.
I think that this salary is considered to be quite high for Thai standards, but knowing the prices, does not allow for lavish luxuries like expensive sports cars.
How long do those 15 episodes take to film generally?
6 months is a good average. The rate I get per episode is considered top level in the industry. Unfortunately the majority of Thai actors don’t get paid much and have to hustle on the side. Either way the real money is made through other things such as endorsements, ads, attending events, releasing your own stuff / business, etc. For example you can get paid 500k baht just to attend an event. Acting itself is more like the avenue to keep your notoriety high for these other activities.
Khob khun krap for the detailed answer.
To answer the original question in this post:
I work in finance in the space industry and make less in 12 months than you do in 6. Around 80-90k /year.
This guy is obviously borderline famous in Thailand, but all anyone here wants to know about is his money situation! Ahh Americans.
It’s literally how he started the conversation. It’s what he asked to talk about. smh
True
OP won the thread before the first response arrived.
I do physical therapy with school kids with disabilities. Almost $60k but only paid for 190 work days. People think we get paid for all those holidays and breaks, but we don’t - only paid for the days that we work plus five sick and vacation days. My husband makes a few times what I make as an engineer and my kids are grown (but not entirely off the payroll), so I feel pretty lucky to have the life that we do.
Electronics Engineer, UK (in the North), £39,000 after 5 and a half years of experience.
My field pays about the middling amount for the engineering profession. If I were to move overseas I could expect a 50% to 100% increase in pay.
Though my current company is great because they treat me very well. Hybrid work on offer with a minimum of 2 days in the office but since my job requires being in the office I don’t use that except for Fridays or when I’m not feeling great but still able to work, flexible working hours as long as I’m available during core hours of 10am to 4pm and Fridays are usually a half-day unless I’m very busy. There’s a pay-adjusted profit share bonus (the lower your salary is, the more you get from the bonus) and they try to match inflation with automatic pay rises.
Much better than my previous place which gave me suicidal depression, anxiety, and workplace-stress-induced PTSD where raised voices and slamming doors trigger an anxiety attack.
As an American, I’m pretty shocked at your salary. Is that comfortable for you?
https://plannit.ai/ppp-calculator/united-kingdom
It translates to around 53k US. Could be comfortable, depending on where they live.
This is so, so variable. Cost of living in US can swing dramatically with food and housing.
Eh it’s the best I’ve had and honestly, it’s about average for a mid-level Electronics Engineer without becoming Senior Designer / Team Lead or Manager.
Thing is that there’s not much of an industry here in the UK compared with the States. Also it’s not a direct one-to-one as if I were to move to the states they’d probably pay me about $80k because they’d want some value (saving on wage) for going through the extra effort of a H1B visa. On top of that there’s also whatever I’d be expected to pay for health insurance.
Do you think the HS2 will change things by opening up more tech positions and making it more competitive?
If they ever finish the fucking thing properly.
They made two classic British engineering mistakes:
Mistake A: Bundling the whole thing as one humongous engineering project and creating a single entity to deliver it.
Mistake B: Starting construction in London.
WARNING: ENGINEERING RANT AHEAD!
On Mistake A:
A single entity created for this huge megaproject makes for good political hay when raising interest and funds but that’s where the usefulness stops. What it devolves into, particularly with the UK’s rainforest-worth of planning laws and frameworks, is massively over budget and horrendously delayed.
What it should have been was a broad vision with dozens of smaller projects funded and implemented separately with constraints in place so all the individual sections line up once the whole thing is finished.
This fixes two things:
Fix 1: Breaks the scope of the project down into more manageable chunks with separate design authorities, construction contractors, and project management. So when they inevitably run into planning issues, they can be resolved much quicker through the courts and the committees because they’re dealing with 1/10 of the fucking reading material! It also keeps cost ballooning down as large projects work-hours scale logarithmically not linearly.
Fix 2: Allows them to bundle in small related upgrades that will have a more immediate effect once the smaller projects are completed.
For example, a new station section needs to be constructed for the high-speed lines. Well since you have to partially demolish the station to create new walkways, utility connections, toilets etc. why not also upgrade the passenger common areas like the departure boards, the outside areas, the retail space, the existing low-speed tracks and points that haven’t had any fucking upgrades done since steam was rolling on them!
Dozens of these smaller changes gets more local stakeholders (i.e. residents and commuters) on-side and more willing to put up with disruptions because, see Fix 1, the project won’t be as heavily delayed.
On Mistake B:
Starting in London might look to make sense at first glance since it is the largest city by both population and GDP per capita. But it means that the later stages of the project, when it inevitably gets delayed and spirals in cost, are the ones that are much more easily axed. This goes against the whole point of the project which was to shorten the commute to London from Northern Cities like Manchester, Leeds, and eventually Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Cardiff.
What we will have now is a very slightly faster journey time between Birmingham and London. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to regularly travel between Leeds/Manchester and London you’ll be aware that all of the delays and cancellations happen immediately north of Birmingham.
Birmingham to London is already well serviced whereas an upgraded route between Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham would have a measurably better impact on passenger numbers and reliability. This is because Westminster has NEVER cared about infrastructure beyond Cheltenham and only goes to Birmingham out of convenience as the next largest population centre.
In and around London, by far, is also the MOST expensive place to build anything, blowing most of the initial budget within the boundary of the M25.
By applying Fix 1 and Fix 2 you can start implementation by using Fix 3: Start at multiple locations.
Starting the station and track construction from the other population centres of Manchester, Leeds, and Birmingham with these smaller projects means that you can then source funding from combined local authorities, implement the projects faster because of the lower density and cost to build than London, AND insulates the overall vision from being scrapped when the political climate changes.
The north is very cheap to live. And they put gravy and cheese on their chips (as a non-Northerner sounds revolting until you try it).
Lol. Like poutine?
The average salary in most US states is only a little more than this, and this is for Northern England where you can expect to earn 50-100% less than London depending on field
That’s the average salary overall. An average electronics engineer makes $109k a year in the US. and even more in places like California.
This is true, but you asked if it’s comfortable for them, which is more a factor of average salary than the wage gap of a specific field. They are pretty much spot on average for northern areas.
Yeah but making average wages doesn’t necessarily mean they’re comfortable.
I’m a Scrum Master working in Financial Technology. I made $145k last year although that was because I worked a ton of overtime. My base is closer to $130k. Although I do have to provide all my own benefits
