siesasi

5 hours ago, gk10002000 said:

Sure. I understand,  But how do you intend to fund your lifestyle?  Marriage plans?  family plans?  Retirement plans?  "Let's live tonight like we're gonna die young" is fun, but you are likely to get hammered later on with real world issues.  Medical insurance?  Travel accident insurance?  Live long with no retirement at all?  I get the live and work and die and never have done anything or gone anywhere argument.  All very good points.  Just be aware of how you may be pigeon holing yourself, and limiting yourself.  You are not, have not, and will not be the only person who has fallen in love with Thailand.  I sure did after my first trip in 2004.  I planned then to be able to retire there, and now I can.  But had I punched out earlier, I would have vastly less resources than I do now, I might easily have struggled and lost a lot of money trying to do business(es) in Thailand.  I would now be stuck with constantly changing for the worst immigration issues, insurance issues, etc.  Things change.  Sure I would have had more fun.  But my engineering jobs have been OK. I do enjoy engineering since that is what I educated and trained for.   Now, well, I am probably going to really semi-retire after doshing up on cash and experiencing a New Jersey winter for a few months.  I already know I won't stay here.  But at $130/hour, and part of that is tax free per diem, well, at some point you have to make hay while the sun is shining as they say. 

 

  If you plan to live a very modest lifestyle, that's great.  but it still costs money.  On and off work then play probably is not the best way to balance things.  I recommend a better RMS path be found.  You will have less stress and worries and will have resources.  It is hard to help others if you yourself are not in a good living and financial position.

gk10002000,

Thanks for the response. I am going to reevaluate my path; your words are resonating with me.

Getting a job as an engineer and stick with it for a long time is what probably I need. If I get good enough and I am lucky, doors will open and maybe I can punch out at a reasonable age.
 

My actual position is not optimal, since I don’t want to deal with immigration issues and burning my cash on a daily basis isn’t great either.

1 hour ago, gk10002000 said:

Sounds like you spent all your money, then worked a bit, saved and then are about to spend all your money again.  That is NOT the way to save and invest for retirement.  You still have plenty of time to make plans and get stuff done, but just jetting off to Thailand for long periods of time with little to no income is likely to be a poor plan or more accurately a plan to be poor.  Not willing to stay in home country, take a steady job, visit Thailand for just 30 or 60 days a year if the company allows it?  Well, you need to think outside the box.  Are you good at your job?  I am an engineer BSME and MS Math, and contracted for 16 years and made enough to punch out.  I had to work in many different USA States, but I made sure I stuck to my plan and saved and invested and have been to Thailand 14 times now.  I just took a contract job because they threw a ridiculously high hourly rate my way and I will stick with that until I am bored with it.  Won't be more than a few months I think.   Many software jobs can be done online.  Still a bit of a sticky wicket when doing that in Thailand, but there are companies in Thailand that do hire expats.  Gosh there are huge manufacturing plants from many foreign companies, banks, etc.  I don't know what type of software engineer you are.  If online consulting or contracting, well maybe consider Cambodia next door and just visit Thailand a lot.  But you current work, travel, work scheme should be re-evaluated as you are approaching some prime earning years

Yes, you are right. That’s my approach so far and perhaps, as you are pointing out, I am doing it wrong. I don’t know, but it won’t matter in 100 years.

After graduating, I worked as a consultant in a S&P 500 company. I got bored to work for a bank and my idea back then was to launch my own software to support myself. Since I was very young and I didn’t have anything to loss, I decided to fly to SEA and give it a try there (first time I travelled outside Europe).

After messing around in SEA, I fell in love with Thailand but, as I said, couldn’t stay for long. I promised myself to be steady for a while, go back Barcelona, find a job as engineer (not as a consultant), try to save money and give a second try if I still had the idea of LOS in mind.

The truth is, after 2 years, I still wanted to go back to LOS.

Without a regular income, I am working in things that I consider important to me (maximising time as I want to spend it). I am not all day sipping cocktails in Koh Chang. I am most part of the day programming on my computer and that’s what I want to do.

I don’t go out at night, I don’t like parties, I don’t drink, smoke, etc. I like little things: like going to the gym or swimming for 1 hour every single day. Wearing light clothes, eating pad kra pao, drinking moo latte caramel from Dairy Queen... 
 

My dad has worked all his life. Never travelled outside the country, he always has been in a financially good position, but he always liked to spend  his money in other things. It’s ok for me, everyone is different. When he came to visit me to Thailand, he told me that he needed to do that before. You needed to see him, driving a motorbike in Phuket after more than 20 years without doing it. It was fantastic.

As someone wrote in the thread, there are two approaches in life: save until retirement and spend after that, or spend as you go responsibly if you have enough to spend.

First approach means I could work more years and save more money but that wouldn’t change what I enjoy to do. I would still do the things I am doing right now.

I love to spend my time as I want. It’s the only thing that makes me feel rich.

2 hours ago, EricTh said:

Siesasi....

 

Thanks for reporting your experience here because yours is the first such case I have read here.

 

Yes, immigration officers have been getting tougher on people staying long-term abusing their tourist visa starting from last year when I have seen many rejected cases reported in this forum.

 

I have also seen many people switching to education visa just to stay in Thailand but yours is the first case that was rejected. Maybe the Kuala Lumpur office was stricter, did you get back your application fees etc, and school fees from Bangkok?

 

What other long-term stayers did was to enter via other ports that is less strict (not Don Meung or Bangkok).

 

 

The thing that I find shocking is that I opted to switch to an Education Visa as a recommendation from an Immigration Officer. In fact, if he suggested a minimum possibilty of refusal, I wouldn't have applied for it. 

Luckily I got back the application fees from the Thai Embassy in Malaysia (300 MYR). I am now in touch with the language school trying to get back the tuition fee. In the contract there is a condition though: Education Visa application has a non-refundable cost of 6500 THB. I paid 20000 THB before coming to Malaysia (and would have paid the rest 10000 THB on return).

In conclusion, I expect to get 13500 THB back. If at school were really nice, they would pay me back the total tuition fees. But I don't expect they do so. 

Lesson painfully learned.

I wish Thai Government published an official document with maximum stay days for foreigners. Something as simple as:

Max. days of stay per calendar year for tourists  = X days 

It would be really easy to apply and Thailand will avoid long term turists the same way they are refusing them nowadays. The benefit is that tourists would avoid these unpleasant experiences.