Living in thailand

[stogie bear]

[Guest]

I think there just is no standard here.

It's like saying how much does it cost to live in the US?

How much it cost = how much are you willing to spend and what is your lifestyle.

You can live happily like Stogie, very cheaply, or Mai-Kee's, or mine, which is bit up again, there's no limit here.

I think the only difference in Bangkok (and Thailand) vs many other major cities is that the lower end is quite ok. You are not in a dump in a $100/month apartment. I pay for an apartment for May for that amount, it's brand new, new furniture, TV, internet free, outdoor pool, pristinely clean. I could live there quite happily. Likewise, eating on 25-100 baht / meal is eating very good food. In most other countries, the lower costing segment would be intolerable, but not here.

PS...going to Pattaya, u can go about 1/2 of the rental costs for the same style of place.

[Stewart]

I think there just is no standard here.
It's like saying how much does it cost to live in the US?
How much it cost = how much are you willing to spend and what is your lifestyle.
You can live happily like Stogie, very cheaply, or Mai-Kee's, or mine, which is bit up again, there's no limit here.

Yep, just trying to get a range of views and what the differences are and where I would feel comfortable slotting in

[stogie bear]

It was good re-reading this almost 2 year old thread... $3,000 US doesn't get you what it did back then!

I don't think I've ever been to a place where the haves and have-nots mix so freely together and nor have I been to a city that caters so easily to the very poorest as well as to the very richest.

Like Ziggy says, you can live like I do or like he does... Your creature comforts and the amount of inconvenience you can deal with will determine what you will pay overall.

I wish I lived closer to Bangkok sometimes, but I like paying 4,000 Baht a month rent for my house MORE than I like living closer to Bangkok!

[Guest]

Yes it is certainly fairly easy to live relatively cheaply and still have a reasonable quality of life. I probably have a lifestyle somewhere between ziggy and stogie but I live right in the middle of the action. I mainly eat Thai food but also go out to nice restaurants a few times a week. I spend a bit on alcohol and entertainment also.

Apart from my first month here where I was speding like I was on holiday I am now spending roughly what I though I might when I calculated my costs before I came here.

[moe666]

Ozzie, what is the round figure you are living on, if you don't mind.

[stogie bear]

I'd say that Ozzies life, expectations and budgetary considerations most closely match most people here. It's good to see some good common sense threads and comments about living in Thailand on this forum.

There are bound to be a few out there living like teachers (like me) and there are plenty of people on the top or upper end of the scale too. But for a good balanced sensible lifestyle I think Ozzie has a pretty good hold on most of the forum readers here.

[moe666]

It's like anything a bit of discipline goes a long way.

[stogie bear]

Even 'discipline' is cheaper over here!

[SukhumvitRoad]

I don't really buy into the myth that 'life is cheaper in Thailand.' I've lived here nearly fifteen years now and I've always thought that real life in Thailand was considerably more expensive than most people realized. Particularly over the last year or two, I've noticed that prices of all sorts of things have been rising at an alarming rate and that it has become clearer and clearer that life here is indeed very expensive on the whole.

There are some things that are clearly much cheaper in Thailand for equivalent value than they are in the US: rents, property prices, medical care, and anything with a large larbor component in their cost come readily to mind. There are other things that are vastly more expensive: cars and car insurance, gasoline, household utilities, wine and liquor, equivalent western restaurants (believe it or not), any non-locally produced food items, and almost anything else you might classify as 'stuff' since it is mostly imported and Thai retailing is utterly and completely non-competitive. You can't go to The Good Guys to get a deal on a TV. The same TV costs the same everywhere.

On the whole, over any extended period, we used to find that we would spend almost exactly the same amount to live in Los Angeles as we did to live in Bangkok, again living roughly equivalent kinds of lives in both places. Over the past year or two, however, I have to say that we now find it costs us 15-20% MORE annually to live in Bangkok than it does in LA.

Having said that, it's probably more respectable to live in Thailand at a lower economic level than it would be in, say, California. At the end of the day, I think that's what most people really mean when they say that you can live more cheaply in Thailand than in the US. It's not the absolute amount of money you spend to live an equivalent life here because that's not really any less at all.

For whatever value it might have, that's one man's experience over the last decade or so........

[divertwo]

... if you have lived in Thailand the past 15 years, you may not be up on how it compares to LA in 2007. I'm from CA, now living in Hawaii........gasoline is over $3.50/gal now(27.6baht/liter), utilities after CA Governor Gray Davis's screw up are sky high...$0.20/KW(7 baht/KW), median CA home is $566,640(houses in East LA $250,00), a simple 1 bedroom apartment in Ventura(not a pricey LA/Orange County suburb is $1,000(35,000baht), my auto insurance for a 2 yr old sedan, $1000 deductible, was $680/year, minimal HMO insurance(Kaiser 20% co-pay is $190/month)......sure California was not a bad deal 15 years ago, but today, it's pretty expensive. BUT having only visited LOS, I can only go by what you guys on the ground are actually spending to live there(not vacation)
.....so I'm very interested to hear all opinions.

[dummy_plug]

You've described a California that I do not know! I'm from the Bay where you can't find a decent place on the peninsula that's within 30 minutes drive to the city (SF or SJ) to buy for less than $700k. Rent for two-bedrooms in decent neighborhoods (i.e. not the crackhead corner of Daly City) are running $1,700+ easily, and gas prices in the city were $3.70+ for basic petrol. My auto insurance, and I have a decent record, is roughly $1,200 a year and I probably spend a few hundred dollars on tolls to get around to all the places I want to go. Additionally, any time I go out for drinks I'm looking at $12 cocktails with commensurate food prices - even at mid range restaurants.

I'm astounded to hear you viewpoint that you're spending more to live in LOS than in the West. I've always had the perception you could live an equal lifestyle for quite a bit less, although I think that when most guys make the move over they tend to give up some of their luxuries that they might have had at home like the gas-guzzling SUV, backyard pool, etc...

[jadeite]

I came from California and have a good lifestyle for a somewhat less, but there is a lot of truth in the subtleties of what people say. SukhumvitRoad rings truth when he says "life in Thailand was considerably more expensive than most people realize" and dummy_plug "they tend to give up some of their luxuries that they might have had at home". You don't really want to transfer your exact living style to Thailand, you want to build a new lifestyle around life in Thailand. So one of those things might be lose acreage and live in a high rise with access to the bars. There are a number of tradeoffs and it's a matter of finding a lifestyle you like at a price that is worth it. In Bangkok, I am almost embarassed to say I now spend 100K baht per month due to the worsening exchange rate. My biggest expense is entertainment.

Don't get me wrong, you can get by in Bangkok on 5000 baht a month and most Thai's do. But that means you are limited to 20 baht plates of rice, sitting on the bus, no air conditioning at your pad in this heat, and can never buy a nice toy or do anything extravagent. On the other end of the spectrum there are expat families who swear you need 250,000 baht to have a replacement lifestyle. So you'll probably find your lifestyle somewhere between. Huge factors are how much is rent for the kind of thing you want in the location you want, how much nightlife you will indulge in, and what (if any) vehicle you want. If you can get a handle on those 3 things it should give you a good idea of how much you will be spending.

[mardhi]

The crux on costs is if the product is imported or made locally. The exception to that rule is BMW and Mercedes benz who price the locally made cars the same way as if they were imported.

Simple comparisons:

Mini car: UK costs about 16k for a fully loaded model (1,250,000b)
Same car in Thailand = 3,000,000 baht - however the tax actually only brings it up to 2,000,000 baht - BMW make a pure 1,000,000 of additional profit in Thailand over the profit level they are happy with in the UK.

BMW 318: UK Costs about 20k I believe, maybe less so about 1,500,000b
Same car in Thailand is 2,600,000 baht and its actually made here so there are NO import duties. Go figure that one Sherlock.......

Honda Accord 2.4l luxury equipped model sells for 1,400,000 baht which is I believe slightly lower than it sells for in UK.

The niche products are what get loaded - Thai logic dictates that, well if someone is crazy enough to pay way over the odds, then they are happy to pay even more, so just bump the price even higher.

Personally I think car Insurance is cheap here - however the deducatbles are a joke - if you have a car for 4 years, you may end up with a 40-50% no claim bonus, but when you sell the car, you lose the no claim bonus - your new car jumps back to full price. In essence your insuring the car, not the drivers record - thats why most expats I know claim everything on their insurance, as in reality there is no incentive to do otherwise.

Cheers
Mardhi

[moe666]

My two cents worth. I don't live in LA but in New Mexico If I go out I an looking at about 4 dollars for a pint of beer, any were from 6 to 12 dollars for a glass of wine at a nice restraurant or bar. If I go to my favorite Thai place it's going to cost me 15 dollars min. per person.
 Just finished lunch with a friend two salads, one water, and one ice tea 22 dollars with change and tip. In April I was feeding 10 people fantastic seafood for about 30 dollars in Hau Hin. Thats 3 dollars per person.
  Last year at Yuk Yor restraurant in Bangkok talking seafood again 50 dollars for 9 people. Sorry guys Thailand cheaper than home.
  If you havn't been in the states very much the last 2 or 3 years the cost of everything has went thru the roof with the higher cost of oil. About the only thing not up is a Asian t/s membership.

Premium Cable, digital, hbo the works over 125 dollars, internet 36 dollars.

  Friends who moved from Korea to bang Bau Tong can now aford to eat salmon and beef. The salmon in korea at a Tesco was about 20 dollars a pound as was the beef. In Thailand I believe they were saying it is in the single digits per pound exact cost I don't remember.

  Were I live because of the mountains many items are more expensive than else were, higher shipping cost.