SamSpade

Most policies do not cover existing conditions so there is no point in buying one to cover for future problems caused by things that have already been diagnosed. I do think medical insurance is useful (and have it myself), but you do need to ensure it covers what you need it to. I've found this site https://checkdi.com/th/health/main?lg=en to be a great way of comparing Insurance products. I did a search for a 69 year old https://checkdi.com/th/health/plans?gender=Male&age=69&ipd=1&opdf=0&nump=1&q=&lg=en&leadid=709635 and you can get the Pacific Cross Maxima plan with 5Million inpatients coved for approx 76K THB with 100K deductible but again, this won't cover anything that they say has come about because of an existing condition so you wouldn't be covered for anything to do with your heart. NB at 69 You will be required to do a check-up for this (and other) polices I'm looking to switch my PC policy to another one and at 60 would not need to do a check-up, I would guess 65 is the cut-off point.

Revolut is also awesome to use, I keep a THB balance and top it up when the exchange rate is favourable then spend it either online or using the card. I pay £80 for 12 months "Premium" account (normally £8 per month) which has already paid for itself when using the card in Maldives & Malaysia. No fees (on their side) and an exchange rate as good as I can get from the banks so I even use it for payments as small as 15 MYR (£2.83). I can also draw up to the equivalent of £400 with no fees (on their side) in a rolling 30 day period from anywhere, again the exchange rate is as good as if not better than you'd get from another Bank & I don't get stunk with the 2.99% that I get charged with my Barclays debit card (BBL & KBank charge 100THB + 2.5%).

Do you have to go to your "Home" Branch to renew your Kasikorn ATM Card [I know you do with BBL]. I also like to keep the ATM card (for KBank & BBL) as all of the ATMs near my Condo are Krungsri so they're handy when I need cash but don't want a 20 minute walk to get it.

Curious as to whether you & others have tried getting an NT tax code to not pay tax on your UK Pensions. I contacted my accountant in Jan & they said it should be possible for me to get an NT code but they were extremely busy doing last minute Tax returns so to contact them again in Feb. Plan on emailing them next week to ask if they could look into it for me now things have quietend down.

He used an Agent (hence the 6K cost) and I don't recall the Agent asking me for proof of address when I did my conversion (I always have my TM30 tucked into my Passport holder so they could have used that). Agent completed all of the paperwork and just handed me what I needed to handover to the relevant stops along the process. I appreciate DLT wouldn't have accepted a TM30 from me doing it myself, hence I was curious as to whether/what he needed to show by way of Proof of Address to his agent. Edit: And no need to watch the online videos/take the tests when using an Agent just the Reaction/Colour Blind test at the center.

Did you need any proof of address and if so what did you use?

Technically there is nothing stopping you from renewing your DL on visa exempt BUT you will probably have problems getting a Certificate of Residence (I believe Bangkok wont issue you one). You may be able to use a Pink ID card or a Yellow House Book (assuming your name is on it), as usual it depends on which Immigration office & which DLT center you're dealing with. This may be a case where Agents do offer genuine value (somebody posted on Page 1 that it cost them 6K for Car & Bike renewal). I was chatting with a couple of guys who had come to Pattaya from Phuket to do their renewals so even if you were in Bangkok you could might be able to arrange everything over email with the Agent and meet them at the Bangkok DLC (We went to the one near Punnawithi BTS station).

I'm putting together a spreadsheet that follows the Floor, Flex, Final methodology which I plan on updating each year to factor in a return to the UK in a moving 5 year time frame (I chose 7 years in the example below as that's when I'll recieve UK State Pension so easier to give an example of what the numbers might look like)... E.g. This year it might look like (NB numbers aren't real they're just to make the maths easier)... Age 60 till my 67th Birthday (7 Years) Base Needs £2,000 pm (Covered by my Private Pension), Discretionary spends £2,000 pm (1/2 covered from rental income) = £1,000 x 7 years = £84,000 needed in "Pot A". Forced to return to the UK at 67 & need an extra £1,000 pm on top of my "Base Needs" up to my 75 birthday (9 years) BUT get the state pension which covers this so again I need an extra £1,000 pm x 9 years = £108,000 pm in "Pot B"... 75-85 I find myself needing less discretionary spends, say it halves to £1,000 pm so that's all covered by Pensions & rental income = 0 in "Pot C" 85-90 I find myself needing to go fulltime into Care so let's say thats £8,000 pm all-in = £4,000 pm needed x 5 years = £240,000 Total pot needed = £84,000 + £108,000 + £240,000 = need a pot size of £432,000, this ignores Inflation as income from the "Pots" should more than cover this. I don't need/spend the numbers I've quoted so having done a rough draft of this using more realistic figures, it does looks like if I did nothing, I would end up with more money when I died than I have today + the house. Re: the point about the difficulty in moving from an "Accumulating" mindset to a "Decumulating" one, I found this video quite interesting...

at 03:14 in it talks about the "Floor & Flex" plan which seems to becoming a popular alternative to the 4% rule... 03:14 – Step 3: The Floor + Flex + Finish Line Retirement Framework

As I mentioned in a later post, I was converting a UK "Green" (None Photo) Driving Licence which (technically) you cannot convert so I was paying for the convenience of not having to start from scratch.

I don't do this but the SIM seems to work again when I'm next in the UK, which is usually around 6 months later but a couple of times has been 12 months +/- a few days when family have visited me instead. Made a rookie mistake last time I was in UK, put £15 on the phone & it was gone in less than 2 days, realised my gaff (pun intended) & bought a Data package which lasted me the remaining 3 weeks. Back the UK next month for 7.5 weeks so hoping it's still working from my last visit in October (I'll be 3 days over the 6 months from the last time I was there), if not I'll just get a new one though I might try Smarty or Voxi next time as I've heard good things about them

Is there an option to get something from your Embassy confirming your old address?

To renew your driving licence in the UK you need to be considered "Normally Resident" there which means spending at least 185 days a year in-country... I'm not suggesting you don't, just pointing out the rules.

I use WizzTV, £65 pa (approx 3,000 THB) Lots of sports channels (I got it for the Premier League) plus PPV E.g. major Boxing events etc... Also have a Sub for Netflix as the GF loves the Thai soaps and we can get Thai subs when I'm watching my stuff.

Wanted to move money from my Fixed Deposit account to my normal savings account so have to do this at the counter (I can move money the other way via the mobile app). They wanted additional proof of address, wouldn't accept CoRs, TM30s or statements from my other Bank, but wanted my UK driving licence (which they then rejected) or the Condo Chanote, but my lease was with my Landlady and the Chanote is in her (British) Husband's name so they rejected that as well. I ended up having to get a new lease with him, a copy of his Passport/Chanote and they accepted this.

Mine was a tricky situation as I have the "Green" UK License (haven't lived in the UK for 19 years) which cannot be straight converted to a Thai license, so I ended up paying 21K. TBH I wanted the Driving license more for the ID after recent problems with BBL wanting more Thai Address ID so although it's a lot of money it was worth it to me for the the peace of mind of being covered the next time that I want to move money from one of my BBL accounts to the other BBL account.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and six pence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery" Money can't guarantee happiness but a critical lack of it (i.e. not enough to live on) will guarantee misery.

I'm in this situation and as somebody who was heavily in debt in his 20s, then became an avid saver/invester in his 30s (approx 1/2 my take home pay + 1/2 of any bonuses) I'm really struggling to get into the decumilation mindset now I've (just) hit 60. I'll get my 1st pension payment in a couple of weeks & already have more than enough money coming in from passive income (Rent, Dividends, Gilt interest) for my budget so I don't know what I'm going to do with it except to invest and generate more income (Which is a very nice problem to have). If the worse really did come to the worse and I needed to go back to the UK, I would use 1/2 the rental income from my UK house to pay for rent on a nice flat and the remainder + my other passive income + my pension should more than cover my budget needs. No heirs to leave anything to so having got my Thai partner covered (She'll inherit the Condo + whatever is in my Thai Bank accounts & get 1/2 my UK pension), I do need to take a long hard look at a drawdown strategy, even if I don't need the money right now.

As mentioned in another thread, I used One Stop Visa on Soi 6 to do my conversion from UK licence (Car Only) and there were several guys there renewing licenses, a mixture of conversions, renew car, renew bike, renew both so I'm sure they can help you https://www.onestopservicepattaya.com/ Mark (the owner) explained to me when I was 1st enquiring about it that Rayong was very busy at the moment so they layed on a minibus to Bangkok (Bang Chak). Only tests we needed to do were the Colour & Reaction time (No Practical/Theory) so if you haven't ridden your bike for sometime you'll be fine. I was doing a conversion so my costs will be very different than yours, might be an idea to contact them for a quote, they responded well to emails/calls & overall I was very pleased with the service.

Not only is it a criminal offence to use somebody else's address to renew a license, it's also an offence to drive on a licence that is not registered to your permenant UK address (Cannot have a registered address outside of the UK on a UK licence). Far easier to drive on your Thai licence, though this doesn't help with the original challange of proving UK address.

The number of entries flashes up on the IO screen when they scan your passport.

Most (if not all) standard insurance policies only insure you up to 125CC (lots of rented scooters are over this), want to ride something bigger you need a specific insurance policy covering it.

I can sort of see the logic in filing a null return to show TRD that you haven't omitted to file a return but have no tax to report and would have thought that there should be somewhere on the form where you can indicate you are an LTR holder. I don't recall seeing anything when filing this year's return so am assuming the 10K is for them to review your LTR status, ensure no remitted income was earned before you got the Visa and file an appropriate statement with your return to confirm this. NB. I'm not suggesting it's worth spending the 10K to have them do this, just supposing what the 10K might be for. Curious to hear how any LTR holders who have filed a Tax Return (E.g. somebody who has Rental Income within Thailand and needs to file for Domestic Income or somebody reclaiming withheld interest) have handled the remitted income, Did they declare it with a statement that they were exempt or simply not put the income on the return because it is exempt.

Sorry, my post was poorly worded... I meant to say that they wanted to see a Driving License or a Chanote. Things like CoR, TM30s, Bank Statements from other banks etc... we not acceptable. In my case, they wouldn't accept my lease as it was with my landlady but the Condo is in her (British) husband's name so I ended up having to get a new lease with him + a copy of his Passport/Chanote and they accepted this.

In January, whilst trying to move some money from my FD account to my normal account, they told me I had to provide additional proof (Driving License or Chanote, CoR/TM30 Bank statement from another Bank etc... were not acceptible) of my Thai address or close the FD account to get the money. I wasn't asked about proof of UK address, is this what I can look forward to the next time I need to do something with the account :(