Life cost every month in Seoul

[lhm2007]

Hello everybody,

I'm from Belgium and i'm going to Korea next year as volunteer in orphanages and care about street children. Well, i would like to know how much money i need every month to survive? (without location and foods)

Thinking about hang out with friends 2 or 3 times every month, visiting some places, buy some clothes and gifts, mobile prepaid card, post office, transport with T-money card,...

Any others costs did i forget?

Is it enough from 350 euros to 400 euros???

thankx a lot for your help because i'm not living there and i need make my mind clear and plan everything about finance...really thanx a lot

Thomas

[gillesvdp]

Hello Thomas (looks like Belgian people are getting in the place :p),

The exchange rate these days is extremely favorable for the euro these days.
With a budget of 350-400 euros excluding housing and lunch (I suppose ?), I think you will be living quite comfortably.

I tried to take your list but in each of the category, you could have very different situations depending on what you actually do. But I tried to do the list as reasonably as I could:
- Hang out with friends 2 or 3 times a month: It depends what you actually want to do and where you will go (some places can be outrageously expensive). I guess if you guys share the expenses and are into noraebanging, take into account 150.000 wons.
- Visiting some places: entry fees (maximum 5.000 wons) [+ extra transportation (if located outside of Seoul) 20.000 wons]
- Clothes: are you into branded clothes or will namdaemun be ok for you? anyway it will be cheaper than what you can get in Belgium
- Gifts: again it depends, but 100.000 or 200.000 wons is good
- Mobile phone: 20.000 wons a month
- Post office: no idea
- Daily transport: 2.000 wons a day

All in all, I think you will be quite fine.
Goof luck

[matthew254]

lhm2007, I would love to hear more about the program you're interested in joining. Would you mind telling us more about it? I'm looking to get into a similar program next year, too.

[Monkey_Monk]

I was reading about hostels that have lodging for only 21 usdollars a night. they looked clean. One even offered breakfast. Here's the link to the page i was looking at:
http://www.beewonguesthouse.com/en/
I think there are links to toher hostels in other cities somewhere in that site.