Firefan

Some of the previous posters problems: name of parents (written in Thai) as well as ones OWN name in Thai is solved by the buying/selling contract (and title deed for own name too) as it contains BOTH. For people renting that is naturally a bit harder.

Cheers!

I found a very old thread here somewhere that mentioned that being (a foreigner) in the yellow book entitled one to a 30 Baht health care card? Anybody knows anything about that?

I am gonna pursue the yellow book tomorrow or monday and will bring (w. copies):

Passport/visa (non-em

Buy/selling contract

(above is the 2 only things my condo staff were told I needed but.....TIT...so:)

Also bringing:

Letter from embassy certifying my residence (1 wk old letter)

2 pictures (you never know..)

title deed

In addition my charming smile and polite (but limited) Thai language!

Wish me luck!

Cheers!

Bad news. I went to MEA (electric company - at Klongtoy) and they told me that they do NO LONGER have the TOU deal. It would probably have saved me B 1000/mth so I asked them multiple times (and different people).

If anybody hear anything else please let me knw.

I changed the name for electricity - had to pay a new 4000 B deposit but will be refunded should I move. All they wanted was title deed and passport (they took the copies). Was easy - and lots of giggly girls in the office to help out.

Cheers!

There is a service named TOU where you subscribe with a payment of approx Baht 800 and then the unit prices on off hours and holidays are reduced. This also helps during peak times to reduce the unit price.

It brought my bills down about Baht 1,000 / mth . Seems to be good. I must discuss with details with my wife , but the program is 'TOU".

More to come.

Clean air-con fliters , new ones are needed after a yr. I pay baht 150 per room filter. Reduce the fridge temp.. Adding stock to the unit will certainly keep the thermo from kicking on so much.

Unplug things you arre not using, change light bulbs, clean fans and other appliances.

Try to buy a name brand electrical product so uses less energy.

Foreigners tend to use more electricity than locals for air, gadgets and comfort. The prices are reasonable , but savings is always good. Budgets for paint, house hold maintenance, travel, cold beer , etc....

Bambina has it right! And I also said: "I THINK that happy hour start 1600 and ends 2000 so if that is true a meeting time around 1900 will still give us 1 hour of pure happiness!"

So there you have it! 17th Sept. 1900 (but come before if the happy hour time is really that good!) at Larrys Dive Suk 22. You are free to wear a sticker with your login name!

Cheers!

Yes as long as enough members show their interest in this thread - not a party though - more like a get together I would imagine. We already have 4-5 people saying they will be there - and with a whole month to go, and this being Bangkok (where most plans are made via SMS the same eve) that is a pretty good start!

After meeting the TV football guys (and girls!) I am sure there are even more candidates signing up here!

Cheers!

He,he - yeah that is the problem in the current market! Everything seems expensive or at least VERY fairly priced which is unusual in most of financial history.

Some clever heads do state that value and small caps (be it US/EU or elsewhere) have had a good run, and it is time to look at growth/large caps, but in my humble opinion they still seems rather expensive on a historical basis, using almost ANY metric...

Gold/precious metals stocks might be an exception currently - and personally I have allocated 10% to same, a good diversifier (as part of a further diversified portfolio) to hold no matter what.

Cheers!

Considering historical prices what is cheap at the moment. Is it:

US$ Blue Chip

Technology Funds

Japanese Fund

Latin America Funds

Korean Funds

Energy Funds

or what?

I got the 3 month multiple entry non-em b and paid the full price of $150 (auch). I should be added that I had some foreign embassy contacts that handed in the papers on my behalf so might have "helped" - not sure though.

Cheers!

Casual pants and a dress shirt + normal shoes almost anywhere for me. I have spend so many years in Asia that I have gone "local" I guess. Cheers!

Cathouse (NEP) happy hour update:

They had some disbutes as to who actually OWNED the bar - but stickmanbangkok.com knows much more about that, than I do.

Anyway; hours are the same but now all you can drink is:

Archa: B 100

Chang: B 150

Tiger/Singha: B 200

Heineken: B 300

Cheers!

I thought it should be YELLOW for foreigners? (unless condo bought via a Thai company of course).

Fire was a beer I had in Africa and also stands for Financial Independance/Retire Early I think. Cheers!

More competition for the current cheap (non-supported!) vendors doing an honest business and still making a profit, they will have to give up their biz, leaving only the gov supported, artificially low priced vendors in that range.

This will be followed by gov stopping the program after some months (realising it costs them too much), thereby having whiped out most meals below 20 Baht. Cheers!

Somebody must have messed with my typing board!

I THINK that happy hour start 1600 and ends 2000 so if that is true a meeting time around 1900 will still give us 1 hour of pure happiness!

Cheers!

I believe that Chownah has the real life situation pat down, but I think that of one stays more than 6 months (per year) here, one becomes taxable.

One is however only taxable on foreign income earned the same income year as one brings in the money... slightly confusing - especially for pension income I could imagine?

Cheers!

I agree with Livinloss; please confirm that your timestamp in above post matches a POSSIBLE short trade at the NYMEX (or whereever you do it). Cheers!

Holy smoke! Had I known I would have started a 12 page thread about God knows what.....

Anyway; since I started it, I better take a bit of ownership:

LARRY's DIVE (soi 22)

17 th September

Casual (un-official) VT piss-up (there will be soft drinks too I am sure)

Do they have a happy hour time where makes sense meeting up?

As place is not large or crowded we should not worry too much about recognizing each other I guess - but one could wear a sticker with login name here if one wants too (how was that done at the last VT party - looked to me from pics that some had name tags).

Cheers!

I am also not a US national but I have a US online broker account which any foreigner can open and with $5 or 10 per trade ETFs will not get expensive in commissions for a buy and hold person.

I can even buy US funds Incl. Vanguard through the broker ($18/trade). Not all US brokers will allow foreigners to do that though - but ETFs would be fine.

I hold about 40% US market (Incl. microcaps/value Etc. as getting stuck on SP500 only is silly) and the rest international.

I also lost money in 2000-2002 - and learned some (expensive ) lessons there leading me to a globally and asset class wise well diversified low cost portfolio. I STILL have my trading money to ensure I do not do stupid things with the main portfolio.

Cheers!

>>>Buy the S&P 500 INDEX FUND thru Vanguard (very low expenses).<<<

H90 is not an American citizen nor does he live in the U.S.A, so he won't be able to buy a fund through Vanguard.  He could buy index ETFs (exchange traded funds) on one of the U.S. stock exchanges, but that would be his only option in America.  One problem with that is he would have to pay commissions, and he doesn't exactly have a huge lump sum to invest.

>>>Buy the S&P 500 INDEX FUND thru Vanguard (very low expenses).

You will own a basket of 500 diversified stocks.

Get a little exotic and put 20% in their International Index.<<<

H90 is from Europe, so I can't see this person, putting only 20% in international.  Most investors are home biased when it comes to investing.  If H90 can find  no-load, low cost index mutual funds somewhere in Europe, that would let him buy and sell in small amounts without penalty, then that's the route I would take.  This way the portfolio could be rebalanced, say on a yearly basis, without penalty.

Very good advise KPT!

Don't rush, read a few books, reduce costs and only gamble with money you can accept to lose.

Butterfly; nice call! (you lucky bastard! ) - only one thing; if you go short you will normally have to PAY the dividends - not receive them.

Cheers!

h90,

The markets are riskier than they look.  Beginners are often both too confident of their own abilities and too optimistic about markets.  You can identify the less sophisticated advice-givers because they are the ones who boast about high returns, rather than reduced risk.  In my opinion the best approach to take is to read widely on the subject and to develop experience and a strategy over time.  This is the course I am taking.  So far my insights amount to:

1.  Avoid management fees as much as possible.  Assset managers are not "professionals" from whose competence a minimum level of performance can reasonably be expected.  If they are good it is because of talent, not skill, and most aren't.  Fees may look small, but over time they compound viciously.

2.  All markets are cyclical, but this is not obvious when one first starts paying attention to them.  Figuring out where we are in the current cycle and whether now is a good time to enter, is usually crucial to making money.  During the 90's in the US, the strong uptrend in the stock market made this less true, but that market is different now. 

3.  If you can get a positive real rate of return without much risk, even if small, then it makes sense to park your money there for a while until you can determine which risks are worth taking.  Haste is never your friend.  In the US, Treasury Bills now return a real rate of return of about 1/2% and this is increasing.  Since they are short term and backed by the govt they don't have either credit or interest rate risk, although they do have currency risk, it must be said. 

Good luck,

Khun Pad Thai

Congrats!

I recently clicked on the Bangkok chat link/forum on this page and saw some hectic activity but really never understood what was going on...

Does any of you use the chat room, and besides insulting each other is there anything else one can do there?

Cheers!

Soft drinks will be available too - he he.

Cheers!

Butterfly; good comments - fully agree. It often amazes me how some really smart people do not care at all about how the fruit of their labour (savings/investments) are managed.

The closed end funds are some funny animals, and even really smart people have a hard time explaining why they suddenly sell at a premium or a discount. Things like "fashion trends" and similar arguments are being used.

I have been doing as you say; bought at high discount and sold at lower discount or maybe even at premium.

Alternative to funds, is to buy the stocks oneself. That saves management fees (but increases trading commissions) and with 10-20 stocks one would generally be able to copy the average fund (as most are top heavy in holdings).

Cheers!

Gym with weights, swimming and hopefylly some football again should that Thaivisa team get started training soon!

And I want to get into some Thai boxing too.

Cheers!

Thanks Axel. So it basically requires imprisonment - and even then it can be evaluated as a petty offense or negligence. Cheers!

I asked the same question in another thread, but it seems more appropriate here so forgive me for posting it here again: The "clean police report" in home country makes me think: will anything on the report automatically stop the process or will there be an evaluation of the actual incident? I can think up a lot of cases where one of us could end up with something on the report. Knocking down an attacker in self defense can even do that sometimes but could be many other cases.

Just wondering....

Cheers!