Every May Day struggle

Prairat Senkram, 42, is a factory worker who sorts shrimps into different sizes for export at a seafood factory in Samut Sakhon. She works six days a week and receives 320 baht for an eight-hour day.

If Prairat is lucky, she gets to do overtime and receives around 60 baht per hour.

"My salary is never enough," Prairat said. "If there was no overtime, I don't know how I would survive."

The Si Sa Ket native took the job at the factory in 1995 when her brother invited her to work there with him. She came to Bangkok a couple years before that to work as a domestic worker.

Despite the gruelling work at the factory, the pay is about as good as the 300 baht national minimum wage work gets. Holding only an elementary school level of education, Prairat knows she has limited career opportunities.

"I wish I had continued studying," Prairat said. "But it was not easy at all. My house was really far from school. I actually started secondary school but suddenly all my friends stopped going and I had to stop too as I didn't have anyone to go with."

To survive, Prairat says frugality is key. She often spends just 15 baht for breakfast and 25 baht for lunch at the factory canteen. She spends a little bit more for dinner and usually buys from vendors outside the factory. In total, she rarely spends more than 100 baht a day on food.

Prairat also lives only 100m from the factory so she doesn't need to spend any money on commuting.

While over half of her salary goes to food and rented accommodation, she also puts a little aside for clothing and skincare. She tends to only shop at open markets though, where a piece of clothing can cost as low as 100 baht. 

At the end of every month, Prairat still endeavours to send money to her parents who work as farmers in her hometown.

Since Prairat only gets one day off a week, she barely has time to do household chores, let alone go anywhere far. Malls and movie theatres, therefore, remain largely uncharted territory. If she has any time left from doing housework, she relaxes by watching television.

"If I had a lot of money, I would go home to live with my parents, build a house and buy a car so that I could take all of my family to travel," Prairat said. "These is my dream and I'm working hard to make it come true."

 - Duangphat Sittipat

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Vilai U, 30, is a Karen man from the mountainous area of Thong Pha Phum in Kanchanaburi. He has worked a variety of jobs since arriving in Bangkok 10 years ago, including on the assembly line of a medical equipment factory as a daily-hired worker. Now a construction worker, Vilai earns 330 baht per day, or roughly 8,000 baht a month if he works 24 days a month.

Each month, he pays 1,200 baht towards the rental fee of a one-storey house he and his wife share with other workers on the outskirts of Bangkok. Around 200 baht a month goes towards the water and electricity bill. Other household expenses, such as mobile telephones, transportation fees and basic facilities come to nearly 3,000 baht per month.

The remaining 5,000 baht budget is used mainly for food. Vilai finds that the price of food in the city is much more expensive than in his hometown. So he buys ingredients and cooks every meal for himself. Unfortunately, the house where they live is too small to grow vegetables, otherwise, he would do so to save money.

"In Bangkok, it is impossible to buy three meals a day with only a 100 baht budget. Now, you have to pay at least 40 baht for a basic meal. Cooking my own food is the best way."

Vilai's family does farming in an area close to the Thai-Myanmar border. After losing the job in the medical equipment factory, he found work as a construction worker, but said that he is still looking for something better paid.

Vilai relaxes by playing football; there is a ground near his home where he and other labourers play.

Vilai never manages to get back home on the long weekends like most labourers. This is mainly because he has no Thai ID Card, and, he says, at every checkpoint, labourers without ID cards often have to pay money to officials. An average trip home, therefore, costs Vilai around 7,000 baht.

He does, however, manage to send money back home via ATM once in a while.

"I think I will live in Bangkok for another four or five years. I plan to go back home and help my mother do corn farming."

- Peerawat Jariyasombat

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Tham Dokchan, 40, is a sales clerk at a famous milk tea parlour chain at Siam Square. Her duties include making bubble tea, working as a cashier and cleaning the store when it closes. She has been working this job for 10 years.

Tham receives a fixed salary of 10,000 baht a month. She works six days a week from 10am until 9pm. She doesn't get overtime. Luckily, her husband is a motorcycle taxi driver, though, a job that she says brings in around double her salary.

"We are each other's lifeline," Tham said. "In our life, there is definitely no frittering away. We never eat at a restaurant. We never shop in a mall. None of those things are possible if we want to survive."

Tham and her husband share one goal - to work hard today for the future of their two children that are being raised by Tham's mother in her hometown of Yasothon.

Tham's parents were farmers. She left her hometown for Bangkok when she was just 13, right after finishing her elementary education. Once in the capital, she worked as a domestic maid for over 10 years before finding her current job.

"I wanted to continue studying, but the circumstances in my family didn't allow me to do that," Tham said. "It required money to study in the past, so I was left with no choice but to start working early."

Fortunately today, Tham's children can go to state school for free. Each month, however, she also spares 5,000 baht of her salary to send to her children. Whenever she has a long holiday, the only plan she has in her mind is going back to visit them.

Tham, therefore, caps her monthly spending at 3,500 baht and limits her daily spending on food at 100 baht a day. She uses the rest to buy household essentials at a supermarket she visits once a month.

One of the perks in marrying a motorcycle taxi rider, she says, is not having to pay a single baht to commute.

Tham rarely shops for clothing either, since she wears a uniform to work all day long.

"Of course, sometimes I get jealous of other people who have more to spend," she said. "Sometimes I feel down too. But I just have to remind myself that there are also other people who are more unfortunate than me."

- Duangphat Sittipat

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Every morning, Chutima Roongsaeng wipes dust from tables and chairs and sweeps the floor. Her job as a cleaner is to make sure the market near Wat Samian Nari is spotless before the place gets busy.

She works from 8am to 5pm every day, but takes a short break in between.

Chutima earns 9,936 baht a month working six days per week. She also receives additional income from cleaning other shops in the market, which makes for an extra 3,000 baht .

The lion's share of her salary goes to accommodation, as she rents an apartment for 2,700 baht, including electricity and water bills.

Chutima's husband works as a motorcycle taxi driver, but they have no children.

She has to be a smart buyer in order to live on such a low budget. She knows where to get the cheap food and which department store is currently running a promotion. She makes careful calculations before buying and tries every day to cut unnecessary expenses. She hardly ever spends money on holidays or for recreational purposes.

"I once used to spend 99 baht a week on the data package for my mobile phone. Now I use only 60 baht a month just to make phone calls," said Chutima.

It has been over 20 years since Chutima decided to leave her hometown of Ubon Ratchathani to move to the city and get a job to save money.

"Three years as a cleaner has trained me to be tidy. I can't stand dirtiness therefore I always spend my day off cleaning my room, then have a rest. That's enough to make me happy," says Chutima. "I normally don't feel like going anywhere. If I'm off work to travel but end up in debt, I don't really think the trip would be worth it."

At the end of every month, she is usually able to save 2,000 baht.

"I pretend that the 2,000 baht doesn't even exist," she says laughing. "So when I'm retired, I will have enough money to spend in my hometown, growing vegetables and working on a farm.

"But for the moment, my life is not bad at all. Just in a blink of an eye, again, it's the end of the month and here comes the salary," Chutima says. "No matter how much money we make, what's really important is the balance between income and expense."

- Pattramon Sukprasert