NorthernRyland

And by the way that would mean per capita income (which is the same meaning as average I think) in Thailand is closer to 300 USD/month, which I think is too low. Annual GDP per capital is $7182 so 7182/12/2=299

One more. Yeah What Google is spewing at the top of the page is total garbage. I'm quite confident the average salary in Chiang Mai is 20-25k/month.

I seriously doubt Thailand has reliable labor data . In other countries you can see the average income of the city you're in and that would make it easy to know what it costs to live there like the average person. In Thailand it's all over the place. People point to the minimum wage of 350 baht per day and others say "I know this guy earning 150k and there's more rich people in Thailand than you think" etc... and it goes round and round.

yeah so it's actually what they call the "medium family income" which is just GDP per capita x2. Does anyone trust these numbers? I guess Bangkok could be skewing the whole average by having a high median? 89,000/month is extraordinary for Chiang Mai but that's the only city I'm familiar with. I'm a software engineer so I thought I would check. from https://th.jobsdb.com. So a software engineers earns less than the median monthly salary in the whole country? Did they include some billionaires in the numbers to juice them up? From Glassdoor. Sadly low again. Does anyone know a persona who makes 90k/year, what do they do? I know a couple people who are near retirement in an old school company which gives mandatory raises but that's all.

This is another factor which causes endless debate. People can't decide if medical care is included in cost of living or not. Personally I don't include it because it's too confounding. Some people get it free back home, some people are too young and blow it off, some people have millions THB in savings and will pay out of pocket, insurance varies widely by age anyways... etc... etc...

maybe I'm old fashioned but I don't like the idea of a Pakistani being mayor of London. Imagine if the mayor of Bangkok was some Farang born in Thailand. Doesn't sit well with me.

what accounts for the wild swing? Rent is probably close to 20k alone but maybe you own a property.

Here's another question what is the average monthly wage in Thailand? I hear this 29,000 baht number quoted often but I don't think it's correct. GPD per capital is 7000 USD year which is 583 USD/month and currently 19,500 baht per month which sounds right to me. I did a little research and GPD per capita is pretty closely tied to average wage as I understand it. I think that's tight but I know many Thai people live in generational homes and may not have rents or built homes on family land which is a one item purchase.

I would ignore it. After all Thailand has not able to properly process traffic tickets. They simply have no infrastructure and the authorities don't care enough. Everyone knows this and nothing is ever done. Unless immigration gets involved personally it's a non-issue. If it becomes an issue you'll know about it by no uncertain means.

If it makes you feel any better when I got my marriage extension a couple years so I told where my money comes (because they asked) and I said I earned money online. There was a tense moment when the IO told me it was illegal to work in Thailand and I thought I was screwed. Maybe he was just trying to intimidate me but he finally said just don't work in outside your house (which I don't do anyways) and granted the extension.

Ouch. Well, you requested a TIN and got yourself into their system. Other people who have done the same may be getting similar letters. Best thing for now is to continue doing nothing and hang tight.

for comparison look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/. Happy travelers sharing positive stories and light hearted musings. It's the diametrical opposite of this forum. This forum is admittedly mostly bickering and doom and gloom. Serves me just fine but 99% of people would find this a turn off.

they're saying nationality is tied to race. This has become the most grievous form of hate speech in the current times. To the mods credit they let most of it slide but if you start digging too deep they'll get upset.

There are hundreds if not thousands of videos on YouTube alone covering the topic of what it costs to live in Thailand. Often heated debates happen in the comments and there's a general hostility towards how people are living their lives. Neither side to be willing to accept people live different kinds of lives. It really is incredible. I'm sure we've all seen it on this forum too and maybe received some yourself (I know I have). I've tried to make sense of it myself and here are some reasons I can think of: 1) Some expats only live in expat bubbles so they are incredulous over what happens in the rest of the country and often assume the worst, "oh you only spend X baht you must be living a miserable existence". 2) Some expats live in the major cities where costs vary widely from the rest of the country and look down on lesser known areas, think "nakon-nowhere". Same thing happens in their home countries too so this is nothing new. 3) Expats are adjusted to Thailand to various degrees. A new expat who has only lived in cities or tourist areas will not be well adjusted and live a sort of ghettoized life which doesn't reflect the rest of the country (a country with a GPD per capita of 7000 USD btw) per year so it skews their perspective on what the rest of the country is actually like. Overtime their spending goes down but they may not know this initially. 4) People who pay for entertainment don't understand people with hobbies and how they live. If you cut out of entertainment (including dining) costs will vary widely. 5) General class conflict between the rich and poor which expats bring over with them. People who spend little will say the high spenders are not doing Thailand "right" and high spenders will tell the lower spenders they're living like dogs. 6) Age and different stages of life. Expats span kids in their 20s to people in their 70s and beyond who will have an arch of spending over their lives. You probably don't know the age of the random person you arguing with on the internet and the tendency is to assume they're like you and so you wrongly compare them to yourself. 7) Families. Obviously people with a family have different needs than a single person but this often gets lost in the debate. For me personally I never went to bars and I rarely got to nice restaurants because they're hard to get to and it takes time. Don't really care enough basically. I don't want to live in a condo in a city or some housing project (barf). My hobbies are programming (my job too) and in the evenings I'm always cycling or I'll walk my dog somewhere. When it's dark I'm back home and that's the end of it. I'm not a picky eater so I eat what's easiest and that happens to be what local food is in the area and choices are very limited. Compare that to a person in Bangkok who likes bars and the wide variety of restaurants. If you like exercise like me you don't just go outside and ride out in the mountains, now you have a gym membership. In most cities you'll probably be using a car most of the time and using amounts of fuel in days my 110cc motorbike wouldn't use in months and paying for car parking at the condo. Public transport costs and taxis will be a part of your budget too now. None of this matters obviously because we're all living separate lives but it's kind of fascinating how much hostility it causes.

I think it's all sides. The liberal people I know from back home would be horrified at the sheer levels of racism here. Most notable anytime there's an incident and a non-native holder of some passport gets labeled by their passport. Won't take more than a few minutes before people point out the discrepancy. Personally I've been given multiple temporary bans for alleged racism. I think as expats and a racial minority in Thailand all these topics are on the table but mods think otherwise. If they had a way to delete your account I probably would have rage quit already. 😂

I think this forum is well known to have some of the most cynical expats possible and people tend to avoid it (especially younger people) so the members are dying off (literally even).

Japanese are known for eating raw fish but don't this problem. Is just that they're eating fish raised in filthy ponds? I've biked past some fish/shrimp farms which are just brown nasty dirt pits and the stench is pungent but that doesn't seem to stop people from buying their products.

Come on guys this isn't the gayborhood in San Francisco, it's Bangcock.

It's an insult to the readers. Makes you feel like a muppet reading such things about serious topics. I skip right to the comments and hear what real people have to say instead.

I've read enough of these to tell you they are not replacements for humans and will trash the quality of the news on this site. I'm already sick of it. It omits critical details that anyone would want to know and frustrates readers. Companies that rely on this for news will lose readership I'm sure of it. It doesn't help they'll delete comments and give bans when people point this out. It's fair criticism and the readers are the customers so I fail to see how this is a good policy long term.

His viewers are his friends too it seems. He gets a lot of support in the comments too which probably helps him feel better.Maybe doesn't have any family. Who knows but I'd rather do that then just sit around and die of brain cancer.

The idea is supposed to be "look at this other farang in Thailand that needs your help. You're both farangs so you should support each other". Really? There's endless Thai people in dire straits in medical emergencies but I'll never hear about their stories here. Just don't sit well with me. Just my feelings.

I simply don't spend that much money in Thailand so I would either need to keep it there and collect dust or transfer it back out into some other bank. I was just curious if they see this as "cheating" or not.

Look at this one. Pack of cars go racing on the highway and crash. Thai people think this is all fun and games I guess. You see these drivers every day in the city but never once will the police ever consider stopping them before they crash and get someone killed.

Good advise. I never cross an intersection without looking all ways and slowing down, even with a green light. This guy was going about walking speed it looks but he didn't seem very aware either. It was a quiet street though, I think this may have been out of his hands.