newnative

There have been numerous threads on this--likely some by you. Can you live on ________ amount in Thailand? Fill in various amounts, including the latest, yours, of 40k. If you have read any of those numerous past threads, you'll recall a lot of different answers. But, basically, it pretty much boils down to two. You have the posters who say, no way could they live on _______ amount. And, you have the posters who say they could easily live on _________ amount, with some posting that they could live on even less. A responsible person will make whatever amount they are working with meet their needs. And, especially if that amount is small, they will do that by adjusting their needs according to the amount they have. When my spouse and I first moved to Thailand in 2010, our income dropped quite a bit and we were living on just a pension of around 65,000 baht a month, about what Immigration requires. I would turn 59 that year and Social Security would not kick in until I turned 62. 65,000 baht is not a lot, especially for two, but it's more than some receive and we made it work by making adjustments. That meant buying a small condo to save on rent. That meant buying a small condo we could afford and not a large house we couldn't afford--living within our means--which many have never learned to do. Could we live in a small, one-room studio with only one bathroom and not kill each other? Yes, we could--and we did. A studio was all that was within our means at that time, so we made it work. That's really all there is to it, whatever your income--living within your means. Being realistic and making it work. There used to be a popular expression, years ago when I was growing up, "Keeping up with the Joneses". If you're not a Jones, don't try to keep up with them. Keep up with yourself, instead. Just as an aside, by buying, not renting, we put to work for us the largest chunk of money we had each month to do anything with to better ourselves--our housing money to keep a roof over our heads. Instead of paying a landlord rent, we paid ourselves. We used what we would have spent on rent to fix up the condo we bought and then we sold it--at a profit. Then, rinsed and repeated.

Buh bye bye

Lock her up.

Thanks!

I think the BKK governor is great--but he has to deal with examples like this. Thai spouse told me he wanted to put some sort of new technology earthquake warning systems on public buildings--starting with hospitals--but that was also turned down when he asked for it to be funded by some council that, apparently, oversees the BKK budget.

It's been much the same with my Bangkok highrise project. The building has been inspected twice and passed both times. Owners have been posting photos of their condos and most are like mine--minor cracks, wallpaper damage, etc. There are some double-floor units with 2-story living rooms and these units perhaps had more damage than some others, from the photos posted. Like you, my project will submit a claim and the condos will, hopefully, be repaired--owners have until April 12 to submit photos and owner information to the condo management. We talked to the handyman who will likely be repairing our condo and he was in a number of units looking at the work to be done. Purely un-scientific, but in our building he thought that there was slightly more damage to units in the middle of the 42-story building rather than the lower or upper floors. We are on floor 37 and I think what surprised me most was that we have huge floor to ceiling mirror panels in the dining room area and the master bedroom. I thought they would likely all be severely cracked but only one of them has a horizontal crack about 6 or 7 inches long right at the top of the panel--we might be able to hide that with molding or spouse says the crack maybe can be fixed.

Year after year, same old lame excuses. Incompetence and indifference from the top down.

True, but he would be alive today if Thailand did not allow unlicensed tourists inexperienced with both motorcycles and Thailand's roads to rent motorcycles. Add another needless tourist motorcycle death to the list of dead and severely injured.

Might be worth noting that Chadchart became governor in 2022. The building that collapsed began construction in 2020, on another governor's watch. I'm not sure how much say the Bangkok governor would have had in a federal office building--likely not much, if any at all. He's been educated at the University of Illinois and MIT, one of the most prestigious universities in America. In my opinion, he's one of the good guys--and Bangkok's lucky to have him at the helm at a time like this.

Agree. Pattaya needs a dedicated crew of city workers focused solely on parking enforcement. We used to call them 'meter maids'--in the days when flight attendants were still called 'stewardesses'. Whatever the name, the fines collected should easily pay their salaries while improving things both for walkers and those in vehicles.

You would think, wouldn't you--but almost every time I mention Asean Now, and, before AN, Thai Visa, none of the expats I know or meet has ever heard of it, or just vaguely know about it. I'm still waiting to meet someone who actually reads it.

I like to keep busy. Spouse and I are working on the plans for a house we will be building, likely starting sometime this summer on land near Lake Mabprachan. For relaxation, I like to read mystery and suspense novels, watch movies and tv, swim and exercise, and travel. We will be going on a cruise in November, leaving from Barcelona, with six of my USA family members. Should be fun. Life is good.

Often when you have a catastrophe, such as two planes colliding, or, in this case, a building collapse, it will be later found that a number of factors came together in a 'perfect storm' to cause the catastrophe. I would guess that will be the case here. Likely the 'perfect storm' here was some combination of inferior building materials, architectural design and engineering flaws, improper or poor inspection and supervision, and construction errors.

Glad at least the police want to know what happened to him. Suspicious the family could care less.

Scary. It's all scary these days. How could anyone object to having a biography of Jackie Robinson in a library? Or the autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

"Maybe over half voted for him..." Trump wishes. In 3 presidential elections, Trump failed all three times in reaching even 50% of the vote. A large number of those who voted for him are now being royally screwed by him. I don't know why any of them are surprised--the one truth he told in the election--somewhat hidden in his thousands of lies--was that he didn't care about them at all--he just wanted their vote. I'm almost--almost--feeling sorry for those poor Republican congressmen/women who have to go back to their districts and face the wrath of the voters. I think they've been told to cancel any public meetings as they have been so embarrassing to the Republican party and the president. The mid-term elections next year should be interesting--if Americans are still allowed to vote, that is. America's decline began with the Kennedy assassination, in my opinion. The 20th century may have been the American Century; the 21st will be the Asian Century. America has become so fractured, it's hard to see it being a United States again. But, perhaps Trump will be so bad that he will inadvertently be the catalyst to unite Americans--against him and his mostly illegal actions and policies. When the earthquake hit I posted a short note on Facebook that my spouse and I were ok. One of my American sisters responded that she had not even been aware of the earthquake--the news is so bad in America she has stopped watching any news altogether. Sad that's the state of things--and we're only just starting month 4 of the second term of the worst president in US history.

Throw the book at him. Fine should be 10 times that and then deportation, after he cleans up his mess.

He says he goes to Festival or T21 about every day. If he's in Pattaya already, in a condo like Grand Avenue, VT6, Centric, etc., he just needs to deal with Pattaya traffic, and he's not far from either Festival or T21. From some of the condos he can walk to one or the other. If he's in Jomtien, he has to deal with Jomtien traffic, then Pratumnak traffic, and then Pattaya traffic. If he has his own transportation, a Wongamat condo would be an easier drive to T21 and Festival than any condo in Jomtien.

We received word from the condo management that the engineer from the municipality inspected the condo building and deemed it safe. Residents have posted photos and the damage seems to be similar to ours--vertical cracks and some horizontal cracks where the walls meet the ceiling--we have some of those, too. We also discovered that one of our floor to ceiling wall mirrors has a small, horizontal crack right at the top. We might be able to hide that with molding. It looks like we will need to re-wallpaper a number of areas--we saw that, as well, in photos posted by other owners with wallpaper.

The Darkside is a huge area with hundreds of housing projects--and more housing projects starting every day. Probably needs another name as these days it's not so dark. Lots of the new houses being built are in the 10 million baht to 30 million baht range--with some houses in projects like Siam Royal View going for 150 million baht or more--so perhaps not exactly 'cheaper'. One of the great things about Pattaya is the wide variety of housing available--all types at all price points. If your lifestyle shifts, Pattaya has the housing to meet your new wants and needs. Spouse and I enjoyed our beach condos but when covid hit we decided we wanted more space and our own pool and gym. We are liking this shift--and also like that we can still be at T21 or Festival in about 15 minutes--probably faster than when we lived in south Jomtien.

We are in Pattaya now but an engineer at our Bangkok condo went into our condo and took some photos of our damage and sent them to us. As you said, just 'superficial harm'. There were a couple of small, vertical cracks by the bedroom window and that was all he found. The room is wallpapered and the cracks messed up the wallpaper a bit so that area will likely need to be re-wallpapered after the cracks are repaired. We thought it would be a lot worse.

Pattaya--see other threads as to why it is a good place to live long-term.

Rubbish.

BTS and MRT are both good but very crowded. Both need extra train cars added to handle the many more riders these days.

The education system is awful--as is always pointed out by survey after survey that ranks Thailand low--even among other ASEAN countries. And, as always, some talk and perhaps even some hand-wringing but then back to the status quo.