Cost of living: Utility bills

For anyone interested in coming to Cheorwon, here’s a table with the usual expenses for utilities and amenities...

For those who’re new to Cheorwon or Gangwon-do in general, here’s what you can expect to pay during your time here. By now you've probably had one or more bills come due, so I hope this helps with planning your budgets!

Based on 2 years of living here, here are my monthly utility expenses in KRW (won):

Electricity	8,000-35,000
Gas (Heating/hot water)	8,000 (warm weather)-275,000 (winter)
Water	800-3,000
Apartment maintenance	10,000
Internet (KT Olleh)	37,000
Phone	60,000 (For a smart phone) Note: Before I switched to a smart phone, my “dumb phone” bill ranged from 30,000 to 80,000 per month based on usage.. The smart phone bill follows a flat rate.
Total per month	126,000-417,000
Note: The 275,000won bill came about because I was running the heat every day during the winter in 2012. I learned my lesson and only ran it for a couple hours at night during the winter of 2013. As a result, the expenses dropped ~100,000 won. Heating can be expensive because our apartments use LP (propane) gas to heat the ondol floors. The LPG comes in a tanks, so it is not connected to a gas line like many other areas are. Warm weather means roughly April to September. Also: Apartment maintenance, Internet, and phone bills are automatically debited from my bank account. All other bills are paid at the bank.