Owen`

The younger guys wanting to move to Pattaya have to embrace the idea that their experience base is pretty sparse. They may not have vacationed other places before. If not, rest assured that it's pretty common after a vacation anywhere to imagine living there, girls or no girls. Also, younger guys wanting to move to Pattaya need to rethink their phrasing. It ain't retirement. It's relocation. You will still work, unless you're a trust fund baby. Working in Thailand is at Thai wages 95% of the time and the remaining 5% of guys who have their western companies pay them to be there at their usual salary . . . well, that 5% is getting smaller all the time as the companies catch on. There's not usually a short cut. Work, save money, don't lose it in a divorce, and then in your mid 30's look at the numbers and what is possible.

Doable and doable fairly easy, but I say this because that was the result of my own research on this question about 6 mos ago -- not because I've personally sold and successfully extracted the money. Here is the website some kind BM gave me at the time. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50053

Everything is almost always a money issue. There's a great cynical piece of advice I got 20 years ago from a one of those self made millionaires who lived in a modest house, drove a modest car and owned 5 hardware stores across the city. It was simple. "Do not ever invest anything with anyone who contacts you first. By following this rule, you will miss out on a chance to earn millions 1 time out of 15,000,000,000. You will also miss out on being scammed 3 out of 4 times." The guys on this board are sharp and cynical. Wait for stuff to be built before buying it.

Sounds fair. Paul/Jan (BM LostinSpace) has a thread about his wife's service and Mr. Toom did start this one. Threads are easy to start if someone has other services to recommend.

Ran into a phraseology issue a few months ago on a question like this. You can't buy a "house" in Thailand because farangs can't own property outside a corporation. You can buy a condo. There is a difference. Others will provide other answers, one of which is the Search button. A lot of guys ask this kind of thing.

Guys, this is touched on now and again on the board and I will hit it once more because it is so very important and only a couple of years of error would screw you for life. A poster above suggested the guy with the 2 million could get 8% on his money. That Doesn't Matter. This is about two things. Crashes and Inflation. The 4% number comes from a study of all 30 yr periods of time from 1890 onward. During those periods the stock markets declined in some years and rose in others. That guy with the 2 million, spending maybe 120K/yr (only 6%), is likely going to run out of money long before he dies. A sequence of 3 years like 2000-2002 would reduce him to 1.4 million (from the 30% decline) minus 120K (living expenses) X 3 (even with no inflationary bump the 2nd and 3rd years) or 1.4 million - .36 million = 1.04 million. Think about what you'd be feeling in 2003 if you were him. You started at 2 million, intending to last 30 yrs with it. Just three years later you're almost cut in half. You think he's gonna take 120K out again in 2003? Now I amplified things to make the point, but properly he would have only had 1/2 his money in stocks and the rest in bonds. But . . . there are periods of history a lot longer than 3 years when stocks did poorly. The study is clear. If you pull more than 4-5% out in year one, your odds plummet of dying before your money does. End of babble. Soi7 and Alan are retired there. There is more to this than money. You have to fill your time. It's an interest and a concern. Are you guys still feeling out the situation or are the hobbies (like lawn bowling) becoming serious.

FYI I did a search on the keyword Shipping and for posts older than 30 days. There are a few old threads about this. They look good for background information, but since the rules change reading old posts isn't enough. Looks like no shortcuts. Do the research.

Weird that there is not more talk of what goals guys commit themselves to during the day. Yes, the women are a big reason people retire or semi retire in Thailand, but there is surely more.

I have no special information on this, but I do have a personal observation. I was in Pattaya a few months ago and there was a new complex advertising itself with scale models and high pressure salespeople in the Royal Garden Mall or whatever it is called. The scale models were excellent, the brochures professional and the sales staff spoke English. And every single thing they were selling had not yet been built. In the US (or presumably the UK too) one can downplay a bit of that risk, one supposes, but in Thailand it seems very dicey to me to park $150,000 on deposit with some firm, waiting for them to finish something that may never finish.

Vaguely familiar with that guy's situation. I believe he likes to fly. Flying is pricey. The rule of thumb is 4% extraction from nest egg for it to last 30 yrs. That's $80K/yr in the first year on 2 million dollars with a 3% (inflation) increase each year thereafter. Take any more than that and your odds of running out of money grow. That assumes a 50/50 mix of equities and bonds for the 2 million, btw. The equities are needed to fight inflation, but they also subject him to crash risk. The real problem he faces is he needs to last more than 30 yrs. This will drop him under 4%. This is a very difficult psychological barrier to get thru. A man with $2 million to his name thinks he is rich, and he is, but that doesn't mean he will have a mansion and domestic staff and limos to all the Broadway plays for the rest of his life. If he wants to stretch that money 45 yrs and live to 82, he probably should not be yanking more than 3.5% in year 1 before inflationary bumps. That's a 70K/yr lifestyle for a guy with $2 million. That's a tough concept to accept.

A heads up that is a tad obvious, but can be forgotten. What you don't ship has to be dealt with. I think long term storage in the US is going to run < $100/month for me, but it is region dependent. I doubt it is viable to put a lot of stuff with a relative. Think back to when someone had you store something in your garage . . . . . forever. How nice was that? Anyway, ship or store. Hi Fi? Gotta be cheap ones available in Singapore of probably much better quality than what you have. Donate it and try for a tax deduction.

Thank you, sir. You are superior to any FAQ.

The 3800 baht for multiple re-entry . . . is that an annual expense and is it unlimited re-entries? And is the 3800 in addition to the retirement visa's 1900? And is that 1900 also annual? I should spend more time on the FAQ, but text tends to get glib and general.

Eneukman, good data. BTW my recall is you're renting a better than average condo for 20K baht/month. I've forgotten your longer term plan. Continue to rent or use that as a base of operations for investigating a condo buy? How did that murder in VT sit with other occupants?

bvthunder: Way up higher in the thread I passed along similar sentiments, but felt uncomfortable in that we've all seen all the scams that might exist, including bogus testimonials. These comments ain't bogus. This is a good service and worth all of the extra few dollars it costs. If you are scraping by on a vacation, you take what risks you choose to with unknown, unrecommended service. If you actually have a few dollars or pounds to your name, this is a place they would be well spent.

English speaking?

You may have specific reasons for this, but I'll offer the thought that Thai medicine is pretty much first class. If you have an emergency it may be just as safe having it dealt with locally than enduring a 48ish hr evacuation process to get to a US hospital, that may or may not find you in better shape for treatment than two days prior.

My ongoing investigations say this is the way to go. Do not move to Thailand directly from a high state income tax state. Do it in two steps. If you move directly, then you have to contact the state revenue people who have zero interest in telling you that you don't owe money that helps pay their salary. You will get a run around, and even if you don't, you can't trust what you're told. It's a lot easier to come from a zero tax state. Your former high tax state will receive maybe a partial year income tax return from you with an address in Nevada or Floridat or Texas or whatever and this will convey to them that you moved. Period. Full stop. It should be the last you ever hear of them. Your federal tax return will list the new FL or Nevada address each year and if your former state ever bothers to cross reference your federal return, it will say you live in Florida and the book gets closed. That's my read. Don't bother trying to explain something they don't want to hear. Just move for a few months and be done with the old place.

I'll venture into this UK thread with a few US relevant comments that may apply. Linkage: There is a risk of linking what we call ATM debit cards to other accounts you may have. Yes, you want some kind of overdraft protection, but you also don't want to have a hacker be able to steal more than just some limited quantity in the first account. A Form of Protection: A way US banks limit that danger from ATMs is to provide a limit to you, on your request, of X number of dollars per day that can be withdrawn. For me I've specified $350. (That's on my ATM (debit) card, not a credit card limit.) This shields a linked account from theft thru your ATM card -- but you'll need other protection from someone trying wire transfers.

Amazing that H&R Block stay in business. There must be enough people still floating about who simply can't use a computer or the net.

Interesting idea. I'm no expert on this business. I've been looking into such place in the US on the presumption that there will be some array of a lifetime of stuff that will fall in the gray area of 1) I don't need it in LOS 2) I don't want to toss it. What I see is advertised as "enough volume to store 2 full rooms of stuff" is about $50/month. The big deal with them is, however, and this addresses your idea -- that they have some climate control and they are behind a layer of security. A small cheap room probably is okay climate wise, but zero security, yes? Maybe that's too glib. Maybe there are cheap rooms in hotels with more pricey rooms that do have full security.

Thanks, Bill. It now occurs to me that there would be a market for this service, but it involves buying raw land so a Westerner probably can't do it without a corporation. OTOH, he needs it to be a corporation anyway so . . . .

Dead on topic, Alan. I suspect no one makes the move without numerous investigation trips first. Those investigation trips can save one a lot of shipping money by bringing an extra bag of luggage each trip. Given the duty points Alan makes above, it may be wise to pack that extra bag with thought given to this so that if you are stopped for a random tourist screening check, it's not filled with 100 CDs and you are stuck trying to explain that you plan to spend your whole vacation listening to music. BTW, there is no reason to ship CDs. They should be ripped to mp3 and it's trivially easy to do so. If you want them on CD later, reburn in LOS from the mp3 files. Books . . . probably no dodging that. Pack them incrementally or ship them. Other things you can pack are certainly pictures, phones, stereos are very small now so probably those, obviously lots of clothing, vital documents you think you can't store in the home country. Self storage in the US is pretty cheap in some locales. I expect to pay $50/month for enough volume to store everything from 30 yrs of adult life that I think I want to keep. If you look around your place and exclude furniture, which is always replaceable, I think you'll discover that there's really not that much to store. What was the conclusion of the meeting, Alan. Is the Norwegian going to get away with his 2nd shipment -- meaning the rule has changed -- or will he be nailed with some duty or fine?

I travel a ton and have a tidbit to add to Sa-teef's comment. The internet has changed the hotel business in a profound way. The ability to trash a hotel online in a review terrifies management everywhere I've ever been. In the past, they wanted to make things right for guests because it's the right thing to do and because anyone working that job doesn't want to do it badly -- much like anyone working any job. But now the motivation has broadened. In the past, if you angered a guest he would not come back and a handful of his pals might be told of it and they would not show up either. So a hotel was insulated from transitory, single events. They had to screw up for months and months before occupancy would start to slip. But now, one review to a travel website and their occupancy is hammered for a very long time. In addition to noble motivations to do things right and keep domestics from stealing, now they are also motivated by fear.

Thanks, redwood. I don't scope Thaivisa's site anywhere near often enough. But yeah, this is data that would be useful to know for many, so I hope a thread unfolds here for the Search button to find.