Living and Working in Can Tho

Hi coreyrose19107,

Welcome to Expat-Blog

I suggest you post your resume in the Construction and Civil engineering jobs in Can Tho section please or maybe in the Teaching jobs in Can Tho section pls

Best of luck !

Thank you

Maximilien
Expat-blog Team

Coreyrose,

If Philly makes you feel trapped, I doubt that Can Tho or Rach Gia will make you feel any better, once the tourist hat is off.

coreyrose19107 wrote:

I am in th e US and I want tdesarately to leave here and get to Vietnam! I am in the beginning stages of planning my get-away and I have selected this area as my landing point.
I like Can Tho and Rach Gia as destinations. I am highly skilled in many forms of physical labor and have leadership experiences, I'm smart, have taught English in the city here, and have great people skills.
I need to get out of here so that I may have a life. I feel trapped here!
Please help!
How can I get out of here, never to return, get to Vietnam, and thrive there?

coreyrose19107 wrote:

i want to leave the US and get away from my oppressors. I am highly motivated and will be ready to flee in May of 2014

From your post here and in your profile under "About me", it seems you've made up your mind.  I assumed your "oppressors" are your boss/company/neighbors/politician or maybe even the winter snow. 

Regardless, you are asking for advice on how to get out of the US, live life permanently as an expat, and thrive in Vietnam.

It boils down to a good financial plan.  As you know the cost of living in Vietnam is about 10% of the United States.  Meaning, if you live an average life renting an apartment for $1,000 a month, you can live an average life (on par with an average Vietnamese) renting an "apartment" for $100 a month.

Similarly, you pay $10 for lunch in the US, you can expect to pay $1 (20,000 VND) for lunch in Vietnam.

That's a simple rule of thumb.  You can't apply the 10:1 ratio if you expect to keep your standard of living similar to the United States..i.e. a car, a "foreigner" apartment, air conditioning, washing machine.  If you're able to content yourself with Vietnamese standards..i.e. a motorbike, a "phòng trọ", fan, hand-washing your clothes, etc, you can apply the 10:1 ratio to your finances.

To give you a little extra cushion, use $500 a month for calculations. 

How long do you want to stay here?  10 years?  Then $500 x 12 = $6,000 a year.  x10 years = $60,000 USD.

Save that (or whatever amount your goal is) by May 2014 and you'll be fine.  Banks here are offering about 10% on long term CDs (certificate of deposits / time deposits).

If you think $6K/year is too low, then consider the average salary for a Vietnamese citizen is about $1,500 a year.  I'm sure in the metro areas, it's higher but Cần Thơ and Rạch Giá are two metros in the midst of rice fields/rural areas.  You can just be a farmer or live on a "houseboat" (see picture) like Mark Twain on the Mississippi if you like and just live on your savings alone.



Hope that helps and good luck on following your dreams to greener pastures.

.

not really 10:1 ratio, but 10:2 - 10:4 sounds better

cang_nduc wrote:

not really 10:1 ratio, but 10:2 - 10:4 sounds better

Probably for a comfortable life comparable to the standard of living in the United States, a 10:4 is needed.  However, the poster is looking to maximize his stay in Vietnam and "never go back".  Thus I'm advocating a life in the rural area or outside the metropolitan areas where you can really stretch the dollar for a 10:1 ratio.

A 10:1 ratio is a more achievable goal than a 10:4.  Based on my previous calculations, you're saying he'd have to save up $240,000 USD by May 2014 in order to live in Vietnam for 10 years?

That's a dream killer - nobody that has "oppressors" living in Philadelphia makes a salary high enough to save $240,000 in 8 months.

Of course, having more money saved up is better but to meet coreyrose19107's dreams of freedom from his "oppressors" by May 2014, he needs to save up as much as he can in only 8 months.  I'm not going to tell somebody that "want tdesarately to leave here and get to Vietnam!" that they can't live a life like the average Vietnamese.

You can do it!  Yes we can!

[Moderated: No free ad on the forum]

Trying to reopen this thread since most Cần Thơ related activity seems to have moved under  TPHCM thread where most won't see it. 

For those seeking to move here, finding accommodation can be very difficult as there are no realtors and availability of rentals and ales is by worth of mouth, signs on properties, and telephone poles.  A friend of mine has put together a web site, rentalpropertiescantho.com.  MODERATORS: this is NOT an ad, it's a free service with no cost to prospective tenants. 

About costs.  Rural living is cheapest but it is also exceptionally grim and food preparation is notoriously unhygienic.  Since the thread topic is Cần Thơ it makes little sense to talk about village life.  The cheapest way to live in CT is at a nhà trợ, but this is very spare and is mainly for temporary workers, however if you're only here a few months you can cover all the basics with 2 million ₫ (about US$100) a month.  One unfurnished room, a home base and little else. 

Hotels depend on location and quality; if you want to live downtown (e.g, Quân Ninh Kiều) you can expect about $10 a day, and they'll deal for monthly rates.

But if you don't need to be around traffic and yelling and the constant honking of truck horns you can live on the outskirts, like Quân Cái Răng, and rent a 3 story house for US$500/month.

If you're here to stay, buy a house, maybe $100K.

We went the latter route.  We built a four story house in Khu Dân Cư Nam Long in Cái Răng in 2010 and pay about 20 million ₫ a month to live here.  Prices for land and construction are a lot higher now, though.

did you get the link backwards?

http://rentalpropertiescantho.com/

Looks like I did, fixed, thanks