Owen`

Another possibility is the internet service is noting use of utorrent and given such users have been recognized as heavy users, they get throttled back when such packets are identified on an ultra high speed service. This would not be service inadequacy per se. Many services do this all over the world. You can surf on this to investigate workarounds. eMule, perhaps. Or maybe some utorrent camouflaging plugin.

Shilo, I think there is a uTorrent based limit on downloads if the person is not doing original seeding. It may have nothing to do with your link. The utorrent people do this to get more content available.

At this particular point in time, there might be merit in addressing the question in two parts, rather than one. Rather than looking into "Is it a good idea to buy rental property in Pattaya?" maybe a different question might be better to ask, namely . . . "Will I know the answer to that question better one or two years from now?" Meaning, investment decisions always have three answers. Not two. It's not Yes or No. It's Yes, No and maybe later.

I missed this thread when it was more active. My only comment is to caution guys to greatly de-emphasize their personal experience with regard to inflation and more or less almost anything else. This is not the world we all grew up in and I think the odds are very poor that it will ever return to what it was. If the future is to be devastated by scarce oil, then there will be no economic growth anywhere in the world -- and oddly, despite the scarcity of oil, probably not much inflation. If that is what unfolds, then the focus should be on safety because crime will be rampant from the hundreds of thousands who can't find work. If money printing means a future filled with inflation, we have different problems to solve. My overall point is neither scenario looks anything like our lives to date. It's very hard to reach our ages and then face a need to reject all those years as experience of no value, but that's my read.

Continued excellent data. The problem with discussion like this on this board is that far too often it turns into "I don't do that, I do this! I do that!" And then there's argument about what the poster should or should not be doing and criticism of what makes him comfortable and it's more or less insane. This is an excellent presentation of what a 1000 pounds per month lifestyle looks like in Jomtien and it's valuable. I'll bet somewhere along the way someone is going to have an idea of how some specific something can be found cheaper elsewhere. That doesn't criticize a choice. That saves money, which is pretty much always a good thing. Let's also not forget there is no amortizing the visa cost or health care in this presentation, yet.

Stole your aftershave? Did you call the UK embassy? This is an act of war!

Very good data. 1000 pounds a month and then detail. Very good. Could you add just a bit about how much of a drinker you are? And how many girls a week. Not how much you spend but how many beers a night. That sort of thing. You can drink and grab women however much you like. I think it might be useful to know how much of that defines the 1000 pounds a month lifestyle. And one trip out of country in that six month period. Also very good data defining the lifestyle of 1000 pounds a month. Thanks.

There are many threads on search about this. They cover the subject extensively.

I'm not going to get into the argument of who gets good advice where. I am curious about an aspect of Thai real estate (condos). Namely, insurance. Anyone ever have a place burn down and make a successful claim? What are the Thai insurer ratings and regulatory processes that ensure the insurer isn't collecting premiums with no intent ever to cover claims?

If they already have it, then its cost is X per year and gets added to the rest of the cost of living per year. If they think they don't need it, then its cost is 0 + the amortized yearly average of all medical expenses they will ever have. Theoretically the first number will be greater than the second averaged among all the people, since the company makes a profit. Anyway, it would be nice to know the going rate for health care insurance for CM expats.

FYI, it's not the cold. Plenty of them in Alaska. It's wind. That's why fans work. There isn't much horsepower in a mosquito engine so when the wind speed is up to about 7 mph, they go to the ground and stay there. Wind blows, no mosquitos. Fan blows, ditto. Air con is cold, but it also has a blower.

Keeping an eye on this thread for the always elusive present price of healthcare insurance.

Do more than just your homework on this. Look past numbers that are quoted, because many are wishful thinking at best, and outright lies at worst. There is an enormous disconnect between sales and engineering. It's almost inconceivable that you could have enough surface area in panels to power air conditioning. The technology just is not there yet, and frankly, physics being what it is, it may never be there. Don't think in terms of payback. Think in terms of possible.

I will have to apologize to the UK BMs here. I was vaguely aware that there was a requirement that they buy annuities in some time window, but it slipped my mind and I spent all my time trashing the concept in general -- which derived from the US centric perspective. Let me grab out quotes from the comments above: That's from utip and I'm not going to say I disagree, but let's examine it closely. We're talking about M62's situation which can be summed up as age 58 and smokes like a chimney. No offense. :) Here's the thing. The magical 4% derives from history (which, in the end of the world scenario that is unfolding may NOT be particularly informative about the future) and it gets you 30 years of inflation adjusted money. An annuity is not going to outperform that if all the parameters are fairly compared. If you have been quoted 6+%, it's because . . . as you said . . . there's no indexing and they expect you to croak at 68. Inflation will affect it. The magic 4% number extracted from your lump sum if you DIY is indeed inflation adjusted and if you don't ask 30 years of it, you can get it up to 6 and 7 and 8% withdrawls from that approach. If you are going to croak in 10 years, clearly you can take about 10% out a year if there are no fees (see how they got down to 6% offered to you? Guess whose pocket the difference between 10% and 6% is going in? Right, Mr. Posh Insurance Executive's). But there I go again. This point is moot. You're required to buy a UK gov't approved annuity. So let's have a look at some math. Let's say you beat the smokers' odds and last to 78. This is not laughable and I hope you do, sir, and let's give medical science a nod that they may have a cure by the time you need it. But anyway, that's 20 years. Let's also assume your Gordon Brown is a genius and all the extra money getting printed around the world (and London) doesn't translate into anything more than 5% inflation per year. Here's how you crunch that number. 1.05 ^ 20. Simply that. 5% compounded 20 years will render your 7000 pounds per annum to be 7000/2.6 = 2638 pounds in 2009 pounds equivalents that you'll be funding life with at age 78. That isn't good. Don't be deluded by the bigger number on the annuity that is not inflation indexed. Inflation is lethal in a world running out of oil. I refuse to try anymore to persuade you Brits about your damn houses. You guys will cling to those things and try to get them buried with you. If you can't sell it at the moment, it's worth ZERO. Repeat, something that you CANNOT SELL is worth ZERO. Now, I know you meant that you would have to reduce the price to sell it. Well, there we have it sports fans, it's worth whatever price you have to reduce it to for sale. Done. Oh, and put me in the utip column of encouraging you to tell them you are are a race car driver that smokes and skydives 3X a week while taking insulin for diabetes and reporting for the BBC from the Gaza Strip. Good luck, guy.

No reason to destroy your post. You have offered superb input for this topic and it's a topic that can be valuable for the guys on this board. I try to keep in mind on this board that there are many UK folks reading, so this topic can be examined in a non-US centric way. I also think in terms of many BMs having spent their lives supporting a family by welding or doing machine tooling or other blue collar work that did not require them to do sums in their brains every day. They could be reading this. These guys didn't sit on their asses on the dole their whole lives. They went out and worked. There's no reason they should not have a chance at a retirement. So here's the thing, broadly. It's not good news. A huge proportion of BMs would like desperately to find a way to put their money somewhere, get a good return that will fund their TGs and themselves for the rest of their lives and not have to ever look at that money or worry about it. They would love a hands-off vehicle that is lucrative forever on autopilot. It doesn't exist. It never has. It never will. Annuity salesmen will sell their product with that teaser, but it's a lie. For the ex-welders reading . . . an annuity is sold and described and has to some extent the nature of a pension. In effect, you buy your pension. You hand YYYYYYY dollars of money to the annuity company and they promise to pay you XXXX pounds sterling or dollars per month for the rest of your life. The amount of XXXX depends on how much YYYYYYY you give them. That's how they compute their scam. XXXX vs YYYYYYY will derive from market rates as they are, predicted market rates as the annuity company predicts them, inflation as the annuity company predicts it, and your life expectancy as the annuity company predicts it. They pay you for the rest of your life. If you die early, they keep what's "remaining". If you die late, they lose money (which they take from those guys that died early and lose nothing on balance). So it's one of very few places in society that if you tell them you're a smoker, you get more money paid out. You can also get XXXX pounds or dollars per month indexed to inflation by adjusting severely how much YYYYYYYY you give them up front. This is another maneuver available to them to increase their own profit (and bonuses). utip above correctly points out that the pooling of all the annuity buyers enables them to pay the guys who die late. The later mortals don't "run out of money". The annuity company covers the ongoing payments with the money left over from those who died early. That's the basis of the whole scheme. The risk? The company uses a prediction of market rates and inflation rates for computing payouts (and their own profits). If they are wrong, they go bankrupt. If they go bankrupt, technically they take your money with them and it's gone. In practice there is risk management by that company having what we'll call bankruptcy insurance or better yet . . . the US or UK governments willing to step in and cover losses. But . . . . sometimes, that loss coverage is not total. In the US (and probably in the UK) there are annuity protection laws that step in and take over in such a situation -- but they don't cover your monthly payment 100%, and if you had inflation protection it will be gone. Also from utip: >> These mortality credits along with the insurance companies ability to invest this money allow someone purchasing a lump sum immediate annuity to recieve a higher lifetime income stream than using a sustainable withdrawl rate from an investment account even after the annuity costs. >> I disagree. The definition of sustainable withdrawl rate (the magical 4% number) has average life expectancy built into it for a 30 year withdrawl period at 95% confidence. Lumping of early death and late death guys together doesn't affect how much that company can pay in an annuity. Early and late death factors balance. The annuity company can increase their payout with a simple wave of the hand at their internal predicted market rate numbers. If they increase those, they can say they can pay out more. Or the markets of today could have an uptick and provide them illusory mathematical justification to do the same thing (and presumably grab customers from their competitors). The basic point is they do nothing you can't do yourself, and they pay themselves an enormous amount of profit in their XXXXX to YYYYYYYYY ratio. Every penny of that comes off your XXXXXX. If you do it yourself, you keep that profit -- or your heirs do. utip suggested the mechanism for "doing it yourself". Mix together short term bonds, total stock market index funds (what's the UK equivalent name?) and money market funds. And hope the world doesn't end. Because . . . guys . . . if the world unravels, it will be very hard to find a place to hide. Gilts, US Treasuries . . . shrug. The worst case scenario is guns and farmland as the only assets of value. Let's hope we don't get to that stage.

I disagree. Annuities are a hugely profitable product sold by insurers. Think Very Carefully About That Sentence. Anything hugely profitable for whomever is selling it to you is pricing it far more than its . . . let's grab the adjective "intrinsic" (and not define it) value to you. In other words, you are getting screwed. Reality is that insurance companies are not doing anything with your annuity money that you could not do yourself. They are just paying themselves a hefty profit as an additional cost to you in performing the same portfolio management you could perform in your own accounts. It's not rocket science, either. 50/50 stocks to bonds ratio. Or whatever other ratio you want. Hell, you can probably call the insurance company and ask them what ratio they have picked and they'll tell you. Oh wait, that guarantee? They guarantee your money? They insure themselves with someone else? Well, yes they do. We learned in the last few months that they use the US government as their insurer of last resort. Well, you can, too. You can buy treasuries for your bond holdings and you can buy insurance company stocks for your stock holdings. The government thereby insures you if it insures them. (If it doesn't insure them and kills you, then all those annuity holders are also dead (though some states do have insurance pools to spread risk (which you can do yourself and not pay that huge profit)). I am no Oracle. I am a guy posting on an internet board. I'm nobody. I type mostly to kill time and to keep guys out of trouble. I have tried really hard over the years to recommend to the guys on this and the Secrets board that they buy . . . nothing specific. As much as I would hate being wrong for myself, I'd hate it even more if guys went and bought something I pimped and got smashed because of it. So I try not to recommend anything. For this particular question . . . is it different this time or will the world return to what it was . . . let me offer thoughts. Was it "different this time" in 1929? Was it different this time in 1990 Japan? Answer: Yes. It very very likely is different every time. Anyone who has been paying attention the last few weeks has watched as US banks report results and those reports are horrific lies, filled with obfuscation and exercising of latitude within brand new accounting rules. Goldman Sachs reported quarterly earnings that traversed four months, not three. They essentially excluded December's numbers. They did this by changing their fiscal calendar year. It is an obvious scam. But the world is terrified, the market is rising and no way in hell they will be prosecuted for it. The thing is . . . this is not different. Each time the world looked like it was about to end in the past, governments changed rules to enable things to look better. Governments will do anything to keep rioters out of the street. Herbert Hoover announced "glimmerings of hope" and there was talk of green shoots in 1930. Hoover's administration did not stand pat and do nothing. Desperate measures were taken by Hoover, and then by Roosevelt subsequently and all those measures by both presidents failed. I suppose my point here is the end of the world scenario doesn't require it being "different this time." The world ended in 1929. It ended again in the early 1970's. In Japan, it ended in 1990. A young man entering his career in 1990 Japan is now 42 yrs old and he has seen only real losses in his savings. For 20 years. That's a true disaster. What was he saving for these 20 years? To fund losses? The opposing perspective is that the markets were down 55% from Oct 12, 2007 and the recent surge of 25% has cut that to -45%. The whole world has created money to pump into industries and all that stimulus is in the pipeline worldwide. When it arrives at its destination, there will be a major increase in growth. Yes, it is money created from thin air, but that suggests an inflation explosion and it's very hard to increase prices on anything when there is no demand for it. When the demand appears, the central banks can ramp up rates rapidly and choke inflation before it is a risk.

Where should one put one's money for safety? These are bad times. They are times that somewhat probably render all of our experience nearly worthless. 1) "Things will get better. They always have after a bad time in the past." 2) "It's different this time. There are things happening that have never happened before." True believers of 1) will pull out pages of historical graphs showing squiggly lines and how today matches them and they are therefore predictive. They will say that in ALL panics governments have stepped up and broken rules and broken laws and done whatever they could, regardless of who got hurt, in order to save the system. True believers of 2) will push those graphs into the trash can and talk about how the planet's population has never before been this large and it has outstripped resources of all kinds -- not "merely" oil. They will also say that countries have never been like this before, with non native immigration that changes the nature of each country's populace. Here's the really bad news: The truth is NOT somewhere in the middle. The truth is going to be one of those 2 items. So, if you think everything will eventually right itself, then the sophisticated UK board members here who can tell you how to park your money in pounds sterling (or whatever) and the isle of this or isle of that banks are the guys to chat with. The pound and the USD will reassert their places at the top of the food chain. If you think that a world without oil looks like the year 1890, but with net access and cable TV, then you have different thinking to do. Arab banks are NOT the answer, because if oil is running out, so is their cash influx. More likely the countries who have learned how to be neutral in all matters (Switzerland) may be a nice safe place to park.

As I type this the US markets staged an explosive rally off of -36% high-to-low (last October to last Friday). The markets (plural) were up 11% today. No one knows what happens next, but there are a great many people paid to tell you what happens next. It's very hard to ignore them all, but you should. Especially if you're the one they want to pay them. Here's a list of information that reaches no conclusion: 1. If the US had created $1 trillion (1,000 billion) dollars with the wave of a hand and pumped it into its economy, the dollar would crash versus other currencies and there would be an extra trillion dollars in the world, backed by nothing whatsoever. Dollars would have no value at all. 2) But that's not all of what happened. Various European and Asian countries created their own trillions of dollars in Pounds or Euros or whatever to throw into the world economy. So the dollar can't sink against the Euro or pound because those currencies are equivalently "destroyed". 3) I do not know what this means specifically. In general one should rationally presume that this can't be right. If money means something, representing ounces of gold or quantity of products or services, then capriciously creating that extra money has to mean something relative to something. So if dollars won't sink vs Euros, and Euros won't sink vs pounds, then the currencies sink relative to what? 4) I don't know. Gold? Hasn't moved, particularly. Oil? Seems to be headed up, but with the end of the word destroying demand this may not be the immediate yardstick of money. Food? I think so. I don't know how, but yeah, I think food is going to be the yardstick and currencies will fall relative to it. Shrug.

The Las Vegas idea is good, but do not presume that you have successfully established residency in Nevada (which has no state income tax) just because you got an address there -- ESPECIALLY if you are "moving" from a high tax state. They have seen this before. You're not the first. To do this safely you have to jump through many more hoops. Get a drivers' license there. One subtle and really powerful thing is to have a resident's hunting or fishing license there (this would mean a Nevada state agency recognized you as a resident -- which is powerful stuff if your previous state claims you're not). There are other things you should do, too, but in general the way to make this happen is to MOVE there for 6 months and do it correctly, own nothing and rent nothing in the previous state and make sure every magazine subscription, Social Security, EVERYTHING has your "new address", and then leave for Thailand.

It was very possibly why they went broke. Suggest insurance evaluation not be done by premium and various published coverages. The industry survives by assessing odds and playing them. Then if the odds go against them, they try to dodge. Personally, I would suggest paying more than the minimum for this category expenditure if you can get some information of the relevant company's history of honest reimbursement and their strength of solvency. The Expat Club there may be a good place to inquire. Group plans have several advantages, one of which is that someone in the room likely has made a claim and his experience in doing so may be a good thing to hear about.

Look, guy, you're 67. You're going to live XX more years. A good working hypothesis is 13. Sell the house. It doesn't matter if you can get 30K more for it by waiting a year. The year is more important than the 30K. It also is not a source of "income" for you if sold. Stop thinking like that. You sell the house, you get XXX K dollars. Forget what you earn in interest on it. SPEND THE PRINCIPAL. You're 67. Divide it by 13 and spend it. The interest you'll earn is frosting on the cake. Want to leave some for your son? Then take XXX K dollars and subtract son's XX K dollars and put it away. Then Divide The Rest By 13 And Spend It. The typical conversation on this board about this matter is from guys at age 55. That's a different matter. They have 25 yrs to fund. You don't. What happens if you live longer than 80? Then you live longer than 80. You won't need as much money (80 year olds don't do a lot of world touring) and you'll have your pensions. Sell The House and Spend The Money.

1) At age 67 (which you mention later in the thread) I suppose the presumption is that the $1500/month (NET OF BILLS, apparently) is from Social Security and whatever private pension you have. The bills in question . . . are hard to identify here. 2) One of those bills might be your Medicare premiums. You have to look deeply into this because Medicare will NOT send money overseas for medical treatment. If not, then you need to chat with them about ceasing that premium payment and use the money for med insurance in Thailand. 3) Your son wants you to rent the house. Your son may not be aware that your expectation is he will be the one to shovel snow, cut grass and do maintenance as your tenants generate wear and tear. Assuming there are tenants. Rented property doesn't always fill up. Remember too, even if a house is "fully paid for" (no mortgage) you will always have property tax and house insurance to pay. So . . . the asset is worth what it is worth. The glib waving of a hand and presumption that "if I wait until next year or the year after I can sell at a higher price" is pure guesswork. People saying that in 2005 are where right now? The asset is worth what it is worth. If you sell it and invest the cash, you will maybe get 5% for that cash. That MAY exceed rent - maintenance - property tax - insurance. 4) If you are not there, and your son is not there or doesn't want to be bothered with it, that house can degrade quickly. It's very hard to insure an empty house, too. 5) You are 67. You want to go. Just how long do you think you have to wait? Look carefully about selling everything, putting the cash into 5% CDs, and have no further burdens at home. Cash is forever. You can always come back. If you want a house when you get back, that's what cash is for.

Just shuffled its position on the screen.

1) You do get more from SS for having military service in that time frame. http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10017.html From 1957 through 1977, you are credited with $300 in additional earnings for each calendar quarter in which you received active duty basic pay. So when you plug numbers into this next link (your lifetime of earnings that show up on that form they send you each year) Be Sure To Add Your Military Addition, because I have two different sources, including a phone call to SS, that say the military addition is NOT on the form they send you each year, but will be added when you file for benefits. http://ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html <-- be sure you make it clear age 65 is when benefits start. 2) SS is inflation indexed. Check into New Mexico's pension. 3) The VA is not something to hate. They are not They. It's different people dealing with whatever every year as people move on or move around. They have a written process that they follow. If that process requires you to file paperwork and answer lots of questions, then file it and answer them. The process is there to be sure who deserves a benefit gets it and ALSO to be sure who does not deserve it does not get it. The paperwork is for both purposes and not pointed at you.

One additional item. Your SS amount. Most of the estimators ss.gov provides quote what you can expect to receive at age 62. If you delay to age 65, it will be more. It is what it is. I'm just making sure you haven't forgotten something to the upside. As for not changing to Medicare, I don't know anything about this, but recommend you look into the "automatic premium payment taken from your SS check". I don't know if you're allowed to opt out of that or not.