smccolley

I have a similar situation.

I have been living here and working regionally for 7 years or so with a Non-O marriage visa. Last year my company was purchased and I was transferred to the Thailand division, meaning I had to get a work permit. I kept my Non-O (switching to a Non-B could mean I have to leave if I quit) and using that I got my work permit. I was then able to extend my Non-O using the pay slips from my new job. I did not have that much money in the bank either.

I have never done a border run, I have a multiple entry and if I were here for 90 consecutive days I would only have to do the 90 day report same as the retirement visa holders. Of course I have never stayed that long before, my longest stay at home has been 45 days...

I have been using Mr. Boon and Friends service for the last 8 years, to/from the airport or to/from Bangkok, either driving my car or using his own (easier). Not sure about the price but 2500 seems in the ballpark. He has 5 drivers and is always available. They know Bangkok very well.

His number is 0819039176. Tell him Scott sent you.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mr-Boon-and-Friends-Taxi-Service-24hrsvancar-service-in-pattaya/128215993896666?ref=br_tf

I am running 2 Dell U3014's (30 inch, 2560x1600) and I love them. They were a bit spendy at 45k baht each but worth every penny. I did get a bit dizzy when I first plugged them in but in no time they grew on me. not sure I could go back to smaller monitors any more.

This has to be a troll - it is too easy!

5 years is what most "experts" suggest as the useful life of the tire. That is 5 years after manufacture. You can determine the date of manufacture from this:

It depends how many miles you drive. Your tires can be useless after 2 years,

In my youth, I had been known to wear out tires in a couple months!

But considering "age" alone, 5 years is often the reference. Exposure to UV, heat and other conditions can also play into the longevity.

The sun really plays havoc on the tires as well, I only had 20k km on my 5 year old tires and they looked brand new, but the entire sidewall blew out on the highway one day. The tire that blew out was the one that got the most sun in my carport... I replaced them all to be safe.

As my wife is from P-lok I have had the pleasure of being there many times. Wat Chinnerat is nice once, after that it is just swatting mosquitoes. Bring lots of bug spray, they are different from south Thailand.

One interesting way to spend a day is to go in search of a farang restaurant outside the hotels (and the new Central). I have heard there is one but never found it.

I have to go back next month, so if anyone else knows where the mythical farang restaurant is I'd sure be interested.

The Lenova thinkpad models have seriously buggy BIOSs that can ruin a hard drive - stay away!

Avoid any Intel SSD drive, they are plagued with serious data corruption issues as well.

When I first met my wife (then GF) in Thailand she would spend every penny I gave her as if it was just a drop in the bucket. As a working man, I am not made of money, but she did not get it.

I decided to be completely open and instead let her handle the finances. She has the ATM cards to all of my accounts in Thailand and pays all the bills, all I ask is that I have enough for a new computer every year and beer money at the end of the month.

Since then there have been no issue or shortages (except when the IRS came after me) and we live a comfortable life. I have assets (that she bought), insurance and beer money every month. What more can a guy ask for?

What happens when or if you lose your job or income ? First i was thinking that you must be a Troll .Then i remember a documentary i saw on Youtube about an English man who did the same as you .As somebody already said try and find your balls ,before it is too late .

I guess I don't see it that way. If I lose my job I will have to get a new one, how does who has ATM cards matter then?

She is a fine money manager, I travel 3-4 weeks a month and come home on the weekends, all I want to do is relax not worry about bills. They are all paid and there is money left. She has access to my 3 accounts in Thailand, but I still have US accounts and a broker in the US. She could take it all and next month I wouldn't notice it... For 7 years however she has accounted for all the money she has spent however and I can't find fault in that.

I think "getting a set of balls" is not really a valid statement, if I happen to have found a money manager that is my wife, how is that a bad thing?

Thats different as you have a/cs in he US that she can not get her hands on .The English man i saw in the youtube video ,did not work and had all his savings in Thailand .His Thai wife took the lot as he let her have access to his a/c and put the house and farm in her name .

Yeah, I make decent money now, since I arrived with 2k USD in 2006 we bought a house (her name), a truck and 2 bikes (my name), had 2 kids that are starting school and don't lack for anything, all with her managing the money. The fact is the money train can leave the station any time and I won't be any worse for wear. The most she can get out of me is the house and a half million baht or so. I'll be fine in a month.

The question I was responding to is - how much do I give her a month. I give her the paycheck. She makes sure I have beer, computers and clothes for work, and takes care of the rest. Most of my bonuses are paid into my US accounts. So simple.

You've got it tough. I live in a moo baan in Jomtien. The "camp mother" is related to Hitler and takes all complaints from residents seriously so she shuts all these things down before they become a problem. She even has the security guards follow the rubbish collection truck around on a pushbike to make sure they pick up anything they drop from the truck.

Had some Russians making too much noise so after a few tellings off she padlocked them INSIDE their 6 foot high fence/gate. They soon got the message.

She sounds great, seriously.

Yeah - I'd like to rent her services for a month in my neighborhood. I would have nothing left to complain about.

When I first met my wife (then GF) in Thailand she would spend every penny I gave her as if it was just a drop in the bucket. As a working man, I am not made of money, but she did not get it.

I decided to be completely open and instead let her handle the finances. She has the ATM cards to all of my accounts in Thailand and pays all the bills, all I ask is that I have enough for a new computer every year and beer money at the end of the month.

Since then there have been no issue or shortages (except when the IRS came after me) and we live a comfortable life. I have assets (that she bought), insurance and beer money every month. What more can a guy ask for?

What happens when or if you lose your job or income ? First i was thinking that you must be a Troll .Then i remember a documentary i saw on Youtube about an English man who did the same as you .As somebody already said try and find your balls ,before it is too late .

I guess I don't see it that way. If I lose my job I will have to get a new one, how does who has ATM cards matter then?

She is a fine money manager, I travel 3-4 weeks a month and come home on the weekends, all I want to do is relax not worry about bills. They are all paid and there is money left. She has access to my 3 accounts in Thailand, but I still have US accounts and a broker in the US. She could take it all and next month I wouldn't notice it... For 7 years however she has accounted for all the money she has spent however and I can't find fault in that.

I think "getting a set of balls" is not really a valid statement, if I happen to have found a money manager that is my wife, how is that a bad thing?

Wire it!

Anything else is crazy. They charge you 500-1000 baht and it gets there the next business day. I have used Bangkok Bank for amounts over 1m baht and use Thanachart or Bangkok bank every month for 30-40k baht. It is foolproof.

Soi Naklua 12 residents are infuriated by the lack of road work! The Zign hotel with all its buses and constant construction on the street have torn it to shreds. It is pretty dangerous for motorcycles now, but I guess that does keep the speeds down...

I am "tone death" and cannot hear how to pronounce the words correctly. Just ask a Thai to translate this into Thai and you will instantly see what I mean: New wood doesn't burn does it? The only thing that I hear is mai.

That is my favorite saying (from Money Number One). I occasionally ask my wife to say that to her Thai friends and it inevitably sparks a 15 minute conversation - even Thais struggle with it.

When I first met my wife (then GF) in Thailand she would spend every penny I gave her as if it was just a drop in the bucket. As a working man, I am not made of money, but she did not get it.

I decided to be completely open and instead let her handle the finances. She has the ATM cards to all of my accounts in Thailand and pays all the bills, all I ask is that I have enough for a new computer every year and beer money at the end of the month.

Since then there have been no issue or shortages (except when the IRS came after me) and we live a comfortable life. I have assets (that she bought), insurance and beer money every month. What more can a guy ask for?

You chose where you want to live. I came from a decent place in the US and I live in a decent place in Thailand. You live where you can afford...

If you treat your accommodations well and make the best of what you can afford - is that a slum? I think not. Slums are where dead end people with dead end attitudes go to die. This is a choice. You can live in a mansion or a small apartment and make it anything you want it to be. I have known too many mansion owners who are just waiting to die and apartment owners who view their life as great.

I have always thought that treating where you live with respect and cleanliness as more important than what you paid for it...

My wife just told me there was a significant fire happening now on Walking Street - anyone heard of this? I don't have the time to run down there and see myself.

I hate to be on topic here, but wasn't there some initiative a couple years back to reclaim the beach from the ocean using dredges? That and some well designed seawalls could really increase the size and quality of the beach.

Plus I would really love to see that kind of massive equipment that they use to perform that kind of work, who cares if they have to redo it in 3-5 years...

Here's my experience with chairs which may or may not be useful to you or others. I've had 3 desk chairs here in Thailand. The first a local brand for a few thousand Baht which felt good at the store but after a few weeks gave me a really bad back ache.

I then replaced it with a Korean chair purchased from Modernform, very comfortable and fully adjustable, however it started breaking and falling apart after about 2 years. I had it fixed with original parts from the manufacturer and it's still being used now by my wife, getting to about 5-6 years without issues.

While the Korean chair was being fixed I got a Herman Miller Aeron, definitely pricey but excellent ergonomics. This chair too started showing it's age after about 3 years with some parts failing, but.. it comes with 12 years full service warranty on every single part. I had very good experience having it fixed, they come to your home for free and quite promptly.

So in my opinion it all depends on how much time you spend in your chair (I spend a ton of time sitting) and whether your back is "picky" or not.

Here did you get your Herman Miller? I am in deperate need of a new chair...

I'm not clear on what's the best advice here:

Re the Airport Cards, I agree that the sole reference to filling in a VISA number can be very misleading, especially for many folks who have a years-old and no longer valid visa stamp, followed by many many annual extension of stay stamps.

But it's always been my understanding, for folks like that and myself too, that what we ought to be filling in on the airport card is the number from our latest extension of stay stamp for the current year -- more than the number associated with one's re-entry permit.

In my past experience, that seems to be what the Immigration Officers are looking for... when it comes to someone arriving back on a still valid extension of stay.

I always write my reentry number there, nothing else, and I have yet to have a problem. I am in the airport most every week for the last 7 years and they always figure it out. With an american passport I can keep getting more pages, so mine is usually 100 to 150 pages thick. I put a colored tab on the most recent reentry permit and they always seem to find it after a few minutes.

I've had a Samsung RV418 for the past couple of years and it's been great. i3 processor, 4gb RAM and 500 gb hard drive. I would certainly buy another and i see them new now in Tukcom for 13,000 baht.

I've had good luck with the Samsungs, I have a netbook, two R478 (i5 processor) and an RC528 (i7 processor) running 24/7 at my house. Since changing companies I have been forced to use a Thinkpad which has lost 4 hard drives in 8 months. The only thing is the faster Samsungs tend to run hot, so stick them on a laptop cooler. The netbook on the other hand had just been running flawlessly for years with no cooler.

I found I get the best bang for my buck with a Samsung...

I never liked it back home. I might get a little excited at Thai priced Dr. Pepper.

It is a start though, first the Dew, then DP, and then the long slide down to Taco Hell,, err Taco Bell.

I can't wait!

Today I saw some school kids walking out of 7-11 in Pattaya with Mt Dew! I was so excited I ran in and bought the rest. It is 15 baht a small bottle, which is better than 60 a can at Villa Market. It has been about 7 years since I really had any, so I can't tell if it tastes the same, but is sure was good!

Anyone else seen it? I was surpised how fast it was selling, it was the only empty shelf in the fridge...

Does anyone know about flight delays right now? I have to leave for the airport soon and don't want to sit around for hours.

The airline says everything is normal...

Haha, thanks.

To be honest I'd rather a poor job of real grass than artificial. It's partly for helping my daughter appreciate nature and playing on a 'grass' garden.

I appreciate that, but she'll end up playing on an ant infested patch of bald earth with bits of grass growing here and there.

Tiling is cheap.

Get rid of it, plant the grass properly and re-tile in later years.

Or you might be tempted to grow some fruit trees or flowering plants.

I agree - you can get a worker in to remove the tile and anything under it for a pittance, and put it back better than new when you are done. The issue will be that unless you have a deep bed the grass will burn in the sun and in a deep bed the tile will be stained beyond recognition.

I don't think so. I think the import duties would kill them. Their business model is to buy in huge volume, have a lot of their products branded under their store name (Kirkland) and sell larger packages of brand name items. I don't see them adapting to Thai products in lower volume.

They will also dump a supplier who doesn't suit them. You can get used to buying a product there over a long period of time, and then it just disappears never to return. In Thailand, many markets are controlled. Costco doesn't play that game.

In short, Costco is so big that it makes all the rules with suppliers. I don't see that happening in Thailand.

I believe the real issue is the volume purchasing. It seems that Thais in general do not buy in volume for their households in general. My wife must go to the store 3 times a day for food, and when I buy canned veges she looks at me in shock.

Since everything is available in a JIT (Just In Time) methodology here I don't believe Thais would as readily take to stockpiling goods as they do in North America.

Am I wrong?