Expats living on 20000baht per month

[Gary 4,066]

My friends up here tell me that I give my wife way too much money. Maybe that's true but with 20,000 baht a month she pays all the bills and has money left over to put in her savings account.

 

I can assure you that we DO have toilet paper and toothpaste. I even have new razor blades.

 

I VERY seldom drink at home but I do go up to a friend's coffee shop on the mountain two or three times a week and drink beer. I buy the beer from another little shop there for 45 baht a big bottle. Usually I try to drink no more than three big bottles but it normally ends up at four bottles. I have taken cases of Archa beer up there for my friend to keep in his refrigerator but I feel guilty if I don't buy beer from the ladies shop next door. She always waits on us and brings snacks for us to eat. She is a nice lady. Her beer supplier doesn't have Archa so she can't stock it for me.

 

I should add that my wife refuses to pay my bar bills. She does buy my cigarettes. My uniform of the day is shorts, T shirt and sandals. My wife pays for the diesel for her Toyota and I pay for the diesel for my Nissan. My wife is a great cook so I really don't like to go out to eat. Every couple of weeks we do go to a big fish pond and eat fresh fish and shrimp while sitting on one of their rafts. My wife pays for that too. Other than me buying myself new toys, I don't know how I could spend any more money. A visit to the doctor or dentist doesn't cost any more than 200 baht and it is VERY seldom that either of us has to go. My hair cuts cost 25 baht. A pack of cigarettes, a big bottle of beer and a haircut for 100 baht really doesn't damage my wallet very much.

 

The rent I collect from my condo pays bar bills and my occasional trip to Jomtien. A good friend of mine always INSISTS that I stay at his apartment when I go down. He stays with his girlfriend while I am there. His girlfriend has a bar and the asshole won't even let me pay for my beer when I drink in that bar.

 

Food up here is very cheap at the local fresh markets. As cheap as the food is my wife grows some vegetables in her garden and often goes mushroom hunting. We eat a lot of delicious fresh mushrooms.

 

I guess I could go to Pattaya once in a while and rings the bells in the bars.

[BigDUSA 71]

I agree 100% with Gabor. For the guys who don't know where all the money goes buy a pocket notebook and write down everything you purchase. You'd be surprised at the crap we all buy.

[Guest anto1]

Hi Gary ,

Noted your hair cut costs 25 baht.I have my own cost of living index.Some people go by the cost of a big mac,i go by the cost of a haircut.At 25 baht you live in a very cheap area.

In Ireland my haircut costs 12 euro or 575 baht.In pattaya where i live 4 months of the year my haircut costs 100 baht ( but you can get cheaper there if you shop around ). Interesting

[winner 0]

Hi Gary ,

Noted your hair cut costs 25 baht.I have my own cost of living index.Some people go by the cost of a big mac,i go by the cost of a haircut.At 25 baht you live in a very cheap area.

In Ireland my haircut costs 12 euro or 575 baht.In pattaya where i live 4 months of the year my haircut costs 100 baht ( but you can get cheaper there if you shop around ). Interesting

I like your index. In Bangkok, I pay 60 baht.

[garymac 0]

Fcuk, i got ripped, 200 baht in Pattaya!!

[aqua4 2]

You can live on 20K per month. By "LIVE" I mean, you can pay your visa, apartment and eat for a month. Anything more than that would be out of budget. If you dont drink and you dont need a bar fine, you should be able to manage it.

[Gary 4,066]

You can live on 20K per month. By "LIVE" I mean, you can pay your visa, apartment and eat for a month. Anything more than that would be out of budget. If you dont drink and you dont need a bar fine, you should be able to manage it.

It all depends on HOW you want to live. If you don't have a live in girlfriend and want to have a bed partner several times a week 20,000 a month isn't going to get it. You also have to own your own place to avoid paying rent. Obviously you can't get drunk every night. If you did stay in holiday mode all the time you really wouldn't need to have much saved up becaue you wouldn't live long enough to spend much. Having a holiday here and living here are two different things. Unfortunately most of us learned the hard way the being in holiday mode every day is hazardous to your health.

[Chivas 0]

It all depends on HOW you want to live. If you don't have a live in girlfriend and want to have a bed partner several times a week 20,000 a month isn't going to get it. You also have to own your own place to avoid paying rent. Obviously you can't get drunk every night. If you did stay in holiday mode all the time you really wouldn't need to have much saved up becaue you wouldn't live long enough to spend much. Having a holiday here and living here are two different things. Unfortunately most of us learned the hard way the being in holiday mode every day is hazardous to your health.

I still cant see how you can have a "live in" on an operating budget of 20k.

[aqua4 2]

I still cant see how you can have a "live in" on an operating budget of 20k.

 

 

Your live in works?

[Rex7777 0]

I like these Cheap Charlie threads not because I'm going to try to live on 20,000 baht per month, but because I'm curious as to how people economize. It might come in handy for a person trying to save up some money.

 

When I get there I'm going to budget 100,000 baht per month. But rather than try to spend that much each and every month, I might try a strategy of taking it easy every so often for a month or two, followed by a month in which I go nuts. For example, I might want to fly off to some other destination once in a while and have fun without worrying about money. Hong Kong, Singapore, Phillippines, Australia, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, etc. Make sense?

 

Rex

[wannabeexpat 0]

I like these Cheap Charlie threads not because I'm going to try to live on 20,000 baht per month, but because I'm curious as to how people economize. It might come in handy for a person trying to save up some money.

I agree. I will only have 70,000 baht a month top line unless I take a part time job teaching.But I would like to only spend 40,000 so I can go side trips and "splash out" when I feel like it.If you can live on 20,000 a month with "no fun", then another 20,000 will get you 10 nights out. Which is more than I get in the UK.

I think most expats spending 20,000 can afford a lot more. They just dont need to spend it.

[Gary 4,066]

I DON'T live on a budget. Having to watch how much I spend would make me nervous and I don't like to be nervous. I have two pickup trucks, one a four wheel drive and the other a two wheel drive. My wife has a 125 Suzuki motorcycle that she uses most of the time. I'd much rather drive one of my pickup trucks than a car. That's how I was in the US and that hasn't changed here. I have a condo in Jomtien and live in my wife's house in Loei province. I live exactly how I want to live and I really don't know how I would spend any more money without just throwing it away.

 

I DON'T like to travel. I had to travel for most of my working life and have no desire to travel now unless I have no choice. I burned out on the Go Go bars long ago and my wife is smart enough to keep me weak enough that I have no desire to wander. Unfortunately I have to make a trip to Jomtien and Bangkok this week and I am NOT looking forward to it. It's a long drive and I could fly but that is more of a pain in the ass than driving. I don't like to be without my own transportation either. This fall I have to make the obligatory trip to the US to see my parents. They are both 86 years old. I'd rather take a beating than to take that long boring flight.

 

Money is only important if you don't have any.

[winner 0]

I still cant see how you can have a "live in" on an operating budget of 20k.

Actually, it makes it easier. I don't live on 20000bt per month, but I could. The live-in saves me a lot of money. Before she moved in, I paid 800bt a month for a house cleaner, 1300bt per month for laundry and ate 99% of my meals in restaurants. I also spent too much time in bars and paid for a lot of pussy. She has lived with me for over three years now. She is 25 years old and very good looking (71/2-8) She does the cleaning, the laundry and ironing, and cooks 95% of our meals. I don't pay her anything (she didn't come from the bars) except normal living expenses.The main thing is the additional food for two instead of one. If she spends 500bt in a month on makeup etc, that is a lot. Except for an occasional trip to Pattaya, I get all I need at home. In Bangkok, I have a beer every month or so and don't spend too much time in the bars. I don't keep good track of expenditures but I would estimate that she has halved my monthly expenses. In your quote above, you are referring to a stay-for-pay deal that some of the guys have. Different than a live in girlfriend.

[Gary 4,066]

It always amused me that the Thai government decided that two can live cheaper than one. A retirement visa for single guy requires 800,000 baht in the bank. The visa when you have a Thai wife requires 400,000 baht in the bank.

 

Sounds stupid but I learned that they are correct.

[Eneukman 1]

When I was planning my move out here, I worked out a budget based on spending on average 80,000 baht per month on routine expenditure (i.e. excluding escaping from Pattaya during Songkran, side trips in Thailand etc and the one-off expenditure we all incur from time to time, though hopefully this will decrease the longer I live here.

 

I've kept a track of my expenditure since November of last year and my routine expenditure is averaging out at close to 75,000 baht though this was helped by April's expenditure of 63,000 baht when I was in Malaysia for 10 days or so and by a low 65,000 odd baht in January when I had an eye infection and was recovering from a rib injury.

 

On top of that, my "one-off expenditure" is coming in at close to 10,000 baht per month. However, part of that is taken up by the purchase of a video camera for 28,000 baht plus I've given a couple of girls 5,000 baht or so each to help them out with various difficulties. Treatment for an eye infection set me back some 5,000 baht as well. Installing a telephone line and obtaining a broadband modem set me back a bit over 3,000 baht plus the cost of a couple of MP3 players added to the cost. On top of that, I also bought a 60 Gb external hard drive as well as a crappy portable CD player. I think therefore (hope) that this will come down in the coming months.

 

Holiday costs paid in Thailand at present average out at about 4,600 baht per month though this doesn't include general expenditure when I was in Udon Thani recently. It does, however, include the cost of the flights, hotel and taxis to and from Bangkok Airport.

 

On top of all the above, some holiday costs were paid for with my UK visa card. In addition, I have ongoing costs there - life assurance policies (negligible), voluntary NI contributions, subscription to an American magazine, birthday and Christmas presents and so on.

 

Taking all these into account, my TOTAL monthly expenditure seems to be averaging out at a bit under 100,000 baht per month. This may seem to be quite a bit higher than I had budgeted for, but I had deliberately set my budget for living here on the "low" side. 100,000 baht per month is comfortably within my total income and hopefully, the "one-off expenditure" will gradually reduce over the coming year or so.

 

So to all those of you thinking about retiring here, don't forget those extra costs that you cannot avoid incurring - such as buying a new PC or laptop when your existing one refuses to work any more. Like the one I'm using!!!

 

Alan

[dacah 0]

After living here for about 6 months I decided that rent would be my biggest variable. I looked long and hard to find a condo I liked. I refuse to live in a shoe box and at the very least wanted a separate bedroom. My friends told me that the condo I found was too expensive but that's what I wanted. It is 60 square meters in a very nice complex. I really didn't care if it appreciated or not since I bought it for my security. Since I have bought it, it has nearly doubled in value. I no longer live in the condo and rent it cheap enough that my renters won't find anything better for the price. I get a return of about 6.5 percent. I get a better return than that from my investments BUT that condo is like a security blanket for me. I get along very well with my Thai wife but things could turn to shit. It's not likely but I have been here too long to say it WON'T happen.

 

I lived in a pretty nice apartment that was a little smaller than my condo. I wanted to hang a clock in the kitchen and the landlord would not allow it. I wanted a vent in either the wall or the front door so I could get some air flow through the apartment off the balcony. Again a no go. I can do whatever I like to my OWN condo without having to ask anyone. That alone was worth a lot to me.

 

I think to live cheaply and comfortably you will have to spend some money to get started. I have the condo, two vehicles and a motorcycle. One pickup truck is in my name as well as the condo so if things would turn to shit I can pick up and leave within a day. She can have the other vehicle and the motorcycle. I remain a cynic and am too old to lose what I have. I CAN'T make it back. I believe that you should spend no more on your wife than you can afford to walk away from. My finances are my business and all she has to know is that the money comes in every month. I buy whatever toys I want and can easily afford them. I am spending about 25 percent of what I could afford to spend and live exactly as I choose to live.

 

Things were tight when I first came over because that was prior to my pensions starting. I was living off my savings so I was a little nervous about buying any big ticket items. After the dust settled and I knew for sure what my living costs would be, I was able to buy the condo and a new truck. You have to have a death wish to drive a motorcycle in Thailand. I did have a Kawasaki Boss and a couple close calls made me decide that I certainly didn't want to die on a Thai road and have my remains hauled off in the back of a pickup truck.

 

My Thai wife has a western style two bedroom house up country. I have westernized it further to suit the way I want to live. I have also built a two meter high wall around two rai of land and also built myself an eight by eight meter garage/workshop. The main thing I would have regrets about leaving is my Golden Retriever dog.

 

I am not a wealthy man by any means and would have to live like a pauper in the states BUT I can live VERY well here on a fraction of what I can afford to spend. My only problem at this point is that it looks like my kids in the US are going to inherit some money and that is NOT in my plans.

Gary you sound like my kinda guy...... know which side is buttered and have plan B.... same same regards the money issue...do not think it would I could really spend the monthly income I would retire on however SHIT HAPPENS and you need decent bail out money

 

Over end of Sept for just 10 days but again in Dec / Jan for 3 weeks....never been to Chaing Mei and look forward to going there then...love to meet up for a drink..my round

 

Many thanks for your experiences

 

Dacah

[9cisco999 107]

It is encouraging to read about the possibilities one has regarding a monthly budget. I guess I tend to fall in line with the original poster.

 

Although I tend to be reasonably thrifty due in part to a non-materialistic nature, I haven't even began to come close to the bugets mentioned by so many on my three trips to the PI. The first two trips came in at $10,000 each for 8 weeks while the last one was roughly $7500 for the same time frame. The difference with the last trip is that I spent every minute of the time with my GF.

 

Even though I tried to watch my money carefully and never paid more than $44. for a hotel room the costs just seemed to add up. (Admittedly for three out of the 8 weeks we brought along at least two relatives at my suggestion) We island hopped a bit but only went to a couple of bars in Manila for music entertainment.

 

But the costs add up. When I eventually live in SEA i hope I find the key to better money management.

Edited August 1, 2006 by 9cisco999

[touristman 1]

The calculations were done in baht. 5% of 400K baht is 20K baht per year, but that is now moot and wrong.

 

I suppose the example is very poor because no condo will cost that little.

lol Owen

 

My Condo cost substancially less than 400,000 baht.

 

It seems that a lot of your views may be based upon shaky foundations.