What equals comfortable living in south korea? my wife and i...

I would say 4k would be easy. Depends on you. I make 2.3 and send 1k home a month after bills and lots of play time. I also have my GF who flysin 3 months at a time and I support. I would say best bet is expect to spend 800-1000 month a person. however, you can survive on less but would probably die before your year was up = ) good luck

Does the employer offer housing? Public transportation is abundant in the larger cities and medical insurance is much more affordable than in the west. Taxes are low on Korea. Just keep in mind that apartments aresparsely furnished, clothing is generally more expensive, and Western food is limited and expensive, so if you can live on rice, fish, and veggies then you should be fine.

Korea is the best place to save money ... period. As a Canadian or American citzen you will also earn a pension equal to about an extra one-month´s salary! However, make sure the school is paying into the pension! If it is a decent school ... and they provide a (free) nice apartment ... than you and your wife will be very happy with the savings ... just beware ... food in Korea is very expensive.

You are lucky to have a companion with you ... Korea is so boring ... and many problems with many schools in Korea ... the "head teacher", the principal, or the OWNER can be a nightmare to work for ... I only survived 6 months there ... but if I had a sweet girlfriend or better yet ... my wife with me ... it would have been bearable ... companion for dinner, movies, etc.

Good luck ... smaller conservative cities are very boring ... old men do not like foreign white men ... especially anywhere near Korean women ... you cannot even talk to them ... it is a very "closed" culture.

I was able to save quite a bit after working for the "nightmare" hagwon, but the second year I was working for an adult hagwon, and it seemingly was a better experience but I was still a "white slave" to say the least. Honestly if you and your wife combined your salaries and did the minimal traveling and just paid what you had to then you shouldn´t have any worries. Just make sure you aren´t being used and abused by the schools you work for, and the more foreigners you have around you the better imho. I was in the middle of a mountain town the first year and it wasn´t fun. I spent all of my spare time either traveling around the area or to Seoul, which was ridiculous in expenses to travel so far away, but ideally the situations had a purpose and the money really was SOOO much better than what one can make with 2 B.A.´s in the middle of America.

You can easily have a pleasant life and save lots of money on your combined salary. While Seoul is considered one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, you will be given free housing and round-trip airfare once a week.

You can save more than half of that money every month and still live well, even more so out of Seoul.
Good luck.