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Yup. No question. Tht $50K from the millionaire will likely have some tax on it. That tax can be considered an addition to your cost of living. Social Security gets special tax treatment and that would be one of the personal revenue streams about which to know the details. I don't know how it would be taxed if overseas and with only passive income. On my list of things to investigate. Another issue for Americans is medicare will kick in at age 65 and subsidize your medical costs, but as of now medicare won't send money outside the US. Another thread addresses another issue if y

Not gonna do dueling credentials. Here's a website where the Trinity Study is referenced. It first appeared from Trinity University at AAII about 8 yrs ago as I recall. AAII has, of course, moved it to their membership area. You may be able to find the raw study somewhere online. I didn't look very long. It is so widely referenced that the variations on it tend to be more focused upon than the original. I don't know if the AAII site requires any money to register, but if not and you do register, you can find it there. www.zunna.com I don't know who Zunna.com is, but most folk

Sam, thanks for your input and I did note your credentials at the end of your post, but I think you've neglected an issue here. Namely, the years when you don't earn 4 or 5% on your money. Some years you lose money, be it in stocks or government bonds. LT government bonds fluctuate in price just like stocks. The annuities you mention are computed by Prudential or JP Morgan to address the realities of the Trinity Study. They aren't the pure drawdown you are describing. That having been said, your paragraph above should inform BMs of the mechanism. Your lump sum supplies (on average, s

Let me start out by saying . . . Eneukman is The Man. He posts superb cost of living data and he understands the idea of over/under budgeted amounts. Note from his data the following (and Eneukman, clarify if I get this wrong): 1) I see 27000 baht spent last month at bars for beer and women. That is the predominant expenditure of his life. He seperates the beer and women in his description, and maybe that makes sense if he drinks some nights he doesn't barfine. That may not be the norm for other guys. I don't know. But combined . . . bars are the predominant expenditure for

The 4% rule is statistical. What was done was 130 years of data were gathered and broken up into 30 yr periods. An assumption of 50/50 asset mix was made of stocks shares and bonds. It was found that if someone yanked 4% of their assets out in year 1 of retirement, with each successive year having an inflationary "pay raise" applied, then 100% of the 30 year periods did not run out of money. If 5% was yanked out, about 90% of the 30 yr periods did not run out of money. This means a millionaire only gets to spend $50K per year. The determining factor in a successful 30 yr peri

Maybe. OTOH, the problem is not Pattaya's alone. Lots of folks everywhere are trying to figure out what lifestyle they want in retirement. The world's demographics is making this a very popular concern right now. Meaning . . . it's a two step process. Figuring out what lifestyle you want and then stumbling onto what someone else who is living that lifestyle in Pattaya is spending to achieve it. This sort of gets in the way of pricing out individual parts of the lifestyle. Some part that is more expensive than expected can be easily jettisoned if the lifestyle choice wasn't certai

Worth noting here that condo price, however hard it is for you to raise the money, is not money "spent". The money doesn't disappear. You're not drinking $30,000 and it is gone down the toilet. It is just a translation of form. The money stops being numbers in your bank account and starts being walls and floors. Whenever you want, with some hassle and commission (friction) in the process, you can always convert the money back into numbers in your bank account. The goal, in addition to picking a place comfortable, is to pick a place that increases those numbers such that commiss

They are beneficial, but now it's been done. Here's my want-to-have. I want to know what people in various age groups and levels of . . . life spend to achieve those different levels of lifestyle. We all have our own desired lifestyle. Each person that posts what they spent does indeed fill in a piece of the jigsaw puzzle, but what is now happening is a lot of guys are filling in the same piece already filled. I recall being curious about how much travel guys were doing in their quoted budget. I was thinking in terms of 3 day weekends to Singapore or Hong Kong. When I asked what

Well, maybe you guys are right and we are adding some tidbits to the body of board knowledge with each thread. Which would explain why we talk about searching for other threads but still hang out on each new one.

The theory is any infection would be new and the viral load of HIV would be light in your system. Taking the drug cocktail at that point could kill it all. It would be a true cure. You might never become HIV+ because the viral total could be erased and antibodies to the virus (it is the presence of these antibodies that is tested for and defines "HIV+") might never appear. The problem with the recommendation not being a slam dunk obvious thing is that the odds of infection are low to begin with and the drugs have some possible side effects. It is not clear that the statistics balance c

There is just something about this topic that refuses to stop. Somehow there has to be some kind of consolidation. But referring to Eneukman's quote above . . . I'm coming to believe that this defines a lot about why this topic keeps arising. We really REALLY need to define categories of retirement. I'll offer 3: 1) The desire for available women has led men to Pattaya. The prices are low. They are willing to sacrifice various things in life to be in Pattaya. They will live an absolute barebones existance just to be in Pattaya. This category of existance . . . for 20 years pe

My 2 cents worth. Upper respiratory infections are usually viral. Strep is worrisome, but the majority are viral. The question of transmission vector has been debated forever. Two classic studies yielded slightly different results, but the truth evolved from both. In one study a person with a cold was put in a room with 10 other people and they stayed there talking for 1.5 hrs. The person with the cold was coughing and sneezing. Of the 10, two got a cold within the next 2 weeks. In another study, a person with a cold was put in a room with 10 other people. They stayed t

Guys, There just has to be a better way to do this. Here's a suggestion: Forget Pattaya specifics. Add up the things you want to spend on that are not subject to variability depending on what lifestyle you want in Pattaya. Start with healthcare expense. There are threads on this. BUPA is widely talked of. Pick a plan and that's your health care number. Now increase that number by about 9%/yr. That's right, this exercise in "what does it cost to live in Pattaya" should be a 5 yr estimate, minimum. Not one or two months. If it were one or two months you would use the wor

Added tidbit about US to BKK via SIN. I've done this twice now, once on SQ and once on NWA. Both flights arrive at SIN at 12 midnight local. There are BMs who quote different schedules that arrive in the daytime, but this is what I've experienced twice. Heads up. If you're doing this, and taking an Asian LCC north to BKK from SIN, use the Transit Hotel at Changi Airport. It is excellent. After 20 hrs in the air, you can get a shower and about 5 hrs sleep before getting up for your LCC flight north. $35 US. Great deal.

JohnnyK is right. I'm not a multi year board member, but despite the brevity of my membership I've seen perhaps 3 good threads on this subject. None of them seem to answer the question. What you will see on the threads is lots of talk about what it cost each individual poster to live in Pattaya. Soi7 has a good quote on this . . . something to the effect that "one can live on (insert small number here), but that's not the question. The question is can YOU live on that small amount." That's what I have a hard time deducing from the threads. No one person is likely to want to live y

FYI tetanus is interesting. For a time the UK and US did not have equivalent immunization schedules for tetanus. The reason for this is it is not 100% clear that a sequence at childhood with a final booster at 18 is not good for a lifetime. I think the UK took that position and the US wanted 10 yr boosters. There is a study of nursing home residents who got tetanus vs those who had vulnerable wounds and did not. Those who did not get it had a common denominator of having been in the military. Military folks get a mandatory booster. They'd left the military in after one term in t

Good input, guys. Thanx. Well, if there are a lot of empty condos, this is not encouraging at first glance. At second glance it can be. We all got our opinions, and mine is going to be less qualified than the guys already living there, but I do have some semi macroeconomic thoughts that are in play as part of the choice. 1) The new airport. 2) The aging of the population in the West. 3) Divorce prevalence. 4) 2&3 combine to create lots of single, middle aged men. 5) China's oil infrastructure has created a bottle neck. This will hit the news in about

Interesting. But of course this means demand remains unchanged but supply cannot increase because nothing can be built with water in it. This would make current existing condos even more in demand because new ones can't be built. I heard there were water problems there that were resolved by weather I guess. This problem, btw, would limit all growth of the city itself. Hard to see how the real estate industry allows it to persist.

Well, that sux. I'll offer up an inadequate tidbit of advice, and I stress inadequate. I've spent a career of business trips accumulating about a million frequent flyer miles and acquainting my back with every hotel bed style known to man. I learned one Road Warrior trick a long time ago. You can effectively add a "virtual" $75/night to the price of a hotel room by investing $1.25 in a pair of foam rubber ear plugs. The suckers do work. They will take all noise down about 25 db and you will sleep just fine when you didn't think it was possible. I suspect your issues are not at

Interesting. You're not the first to say it, either. I don't have cast iron plans. My net worth is just about to the substantial level where I may choose to early retire. I can envision Pattaya/Jomtien as one of 2 or 3 residences around the world -- perhaps seasonal. I am interested in your comment about the noise. I would not expect that as far south as Jomtien but I don't spend the time there that expats do so I would not know. I do believe condos and real estate near the beach in that area are destined for growth, and given that owning a residence there, in that context, costs

Not sure. They were marketing it as ocean view this and ocean view that. And I thnk they are building in Jomtien. Is that the place? When I was in Pattaya in late Nov the presentation was elaborate in the RG mall. It may still be there. Dunno. I sensed white collar very upscale scam -- meaning not that they steal your money but that they take your deposit, hold it, wait to accumulate more and build the place eventually, but possibly 5 yrs late or something like that -- all while refusing to refund your money. I'm sort of dismissing them and preferring a place already built a

Stayed at the Sawasdee Sea View about 3 weeks ago. No joiner fee. Not a lot of noise, but if you're on a floor with high occupancy, there will be sounds now and then. No pool. No in-room safe. The tailor on site provided me with shirts at a good price with a very fast turnaround. He seems to accidentally project an impression of scam artist, but he's honest. There are a handful of small beer bars within about 100 feet of the entrance. Also, next to them, there is a convenience store that has the Bangkok Post every morning. Beach Road is about 100 feet from the entran

I'm quoting myself on this matter because I've done some additional research to pass along to the board. The strategy of pursuing a condo for an investment is pretty conventional just about everywhere. What not has my attention, and concern, is the value of the money obtained. Meaning, if one buys a condo and holds it for a few years, the new airport goes in, real estate/condos in Pattaya spike in price and lots of buyers want to buy mine and give me a nice profit -- so what? So I make a profit? What value does this have if I can't access the money? I am not talking about the fac

Well, I don't do currency trading on a daily basis, but I take my laptop with me and work a little bit every day when I'm on vacation. I have to be online about an hour for email each day as part of that. Then there is portfolio management in addition to work. And also just chatting online with friends. The 'net is a requirement of life, not just work. It's a lot more interesting than television and takes less time. WiFi is a plus for anyplace that has it.

You can email him. He's listed on the "calendar" and clicking his name gets to his profile and a way to email him. Though by now he is probably enroute. Worth a try in case he checks email at an intermediate stop?