Are you able to cover your costs when living on the stipend provided by the school?

The stipend is more than enough to cover your living expenses, weekend travel expenses, and still save a few hundred dollars each month. As for the accommodation, I believe it is always private but you probably will have a one room studio apartment. A lucky few scholars from my intake had 2-3 rooms in their apartments but the majority of us stayed in one room flats

It has been very long since I left TaLK.

However, I remember nobody complained or had a hard time because of payment.
Scholars paid very well. The salary was more than enough!

I wanted to keep the job forever!

Yes, the stipend was enough to cover my cost of living. Some people decided to save money that was left over from living costs, but I decided that I would not have the opportunity to be overseas like this in the future, so I spent all my extra cash that I had on the weekends! Lots of traveling and meeting other people. Also, since you're with TaLK, you'll meet a ton of people at orientation, so you'll automatically have a network throughout all of Korea (as long as youre not a jerk). That's probably the biggest advantage of doing TaLK rather than a private hagwon (afterschool private school). Private hagwons may pay better, but their contracts are not as useable in court (I've heard nightmare stories of teachers being stuck in Korea b/c the hagwon decided to fire them and not pay for their airplane ticket), especially korean court, so TaLK is the way to go since it's the actual Korean government and wont screw you over. Anyways, I am still friends with TaLK teachers and keep in contact with them! TaLK was a life changing experience, but like any experience, it's what you put into it! I went out of my way to meet with other TaLK teachers as well as locals, so that made living and traveling in Korea even better.

Also, the government bus system in Korea is absolutely amazing (nothing like the greyhound buses in the USA), so taking that from your rural town to the big cities are no problem and super cheap! The crowd isn't as sketch as greyhound's crowd either, a lot of people are nicely dressed. I lived in Wando, a tiny island on the most southern tip of South Korea, and a bus ticket to Seoul was $50 I think?

Also, I did TaLK before going to dental school (I've since graduated and have been a dentist for a year), so doing TaLK is a nice little resume builder for whatever you're going to do in the future, it shows that you're a leader and can adapt to changes in foreign places! Just writing all of this brings a big smile of nostalgia, I hope you do the TaLK program and can look back at it the way I do!

I was easily able to (plus I saved about $10,000 over the year) because I lived in a home stay situation with a family who was very generous and provided all of my meals, etc. I was only responsible for my travel expenses (for which I also used the cultural experience money provided) and things I got on my own. At the time, we received a generous amount to travel (reimbursed with receipts), which I used a lot as I traveled almost every single weekend. I'm not sure they still do that. This was in 2009.

Friends who lived on their own were responsible to pay for all of their own food and utilities that weren't covered by the housing allowance, and therefore had a harder time saving, but I don't think they had to pay out of pocket for those expenses. It all depends on your spending habits, where you are placed, and especially your housing situation. In general, things in Korea are less expensive (food, utilities, travel), but again it depends on your habits as well!