DogNo1

According to the NYT, there are plans by both Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump’s government to devalue the US dollar by about 30% over the next three years.  By my calculations, one US dollar would then be worth 21 - 22 baht.  If the Thai exchange rate does not accommodate the new value of the dollar, life for we American expats could become 30% more expensive.  What are the opinions of TV posters regarding this insidious danger?  The relevant article is in Today’s New York Times.  I’ll be happy to provide a link but it can just be Googled for in the Opinion Section under the title “A Radical Plan to Fix the Dollar.”

Paying a moderate price on Lazada usually gets you decent quality. Go too cheap and the earphones may some annoying defect.

Placebo Power!  It does work in many cases.

The date that you do your extension doesn't change your period of stay.  It remains the same.

The Fairholme Fund share price actually increased from the low 20’s in 2013 to over $40 in 2016.  The bottom fell out when the big capital gain was paid in November of 2016 (not 2017) and the share price is still about the same as the price that it fell to in 2016 - around $20.00.

I think that it needs to be shown that the money comes from outside of Thailand.  Unless your heart is set on a particular condo and you are young enough to extract the cost of years of residence that would equal the price of renting a similar place, perhaps it is better to rent.  I’m sure that many TV posters will correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think that anybody gets a very good resale price.  Personally, I rent and leave my funds invested in the US.  I make about 4.5%.  If you were to buy a condo for 6.5 million, that would be equal to about $209,000.  That money invested could bring in an income of about $9,000 per year.  Of course, one’s age is a big factor.  I am very old at 76.5 and I want to conserve money for my daughter’s inheritance.  If I were 12 years younger, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a reasonably-priced condo.

I just held until 2017.  It was my expectation that a mutual fund would go up and down so I didn't monitor the share price carefully.  I'll take a look at the share price record.  I was aware of Berkowitz' holdings and expected the share price to do OK over time.

Refer to spacedoc.com for exhaustive information on heart disease medicine.

Trading is very tricky.  You can lose money in ways that will shock you.  I had kept money for many years in Bruce Berkowitz’ Fairholme Fund.  It had a Morningstar five-star rating.  By 2017, my original $100,000 had grown to nearly $200,000.  In November of 2017, the fund paid out a capital gain of about $100,000.  Berkowitz was legally obligated to do this.  Shortly after the capital gain distribution, a huge number of savvy investors redeemed their shares.  The fund price fell by 50%.  Over the next year, I managed to gradually redeem my shares for about $100,000.  The price of the shares is not going to increase very much any time soon.  I had to pay capital gains tax on the $100,000 so for 12 years' investment, I lost $15,000 on the fund.

I write this to let you know that investing is not for the non-professional.  I have lost money in a lot for other ways too.  If you plan to invest, proceed with caution.

I think that the Thai Government should publish a list of fair prices for medical procedures and medicine.  Otherwise how can we know?

Do we know that the woman completing the purchase dropped the money?  If she didn’t then it was fair enough for him to pick up and keep the money.

For a retirement extension, as long as you transfer 65,000 K per month into your Thai bank account from a foreign source, you are OK.  There is no requirement that it be on a particular day.  The 65,000 can be withdrawn and spent immediately so there is no need to tie up a lot of money in country.  I keep only a small amount of money here.  I earn dividends, interest and capital gains in the USA.

Don’t know about your credit union but when I needed to wire money to my Bangkok Bank account in January, USAA required that I complete and fax to them a wire authorization form that I printed off of their website.  After verifying my signature and the information regarding my bank account in Bangkok, they allowed me to send wires based on my telephone request.  Will your credit union not allow that?  I know that some institutions are sticklers about your signature.  Fidelity requires a “Medallion Signature” which is not available outside of the US.  As a former service member, you are obviously entitled to open a USAA banking account.  You could telephone them and see if you can open one now.  It would be handy to have one so that, in the future, you will be able to authorize wire transfers more easily.  They will also FedEx replacement credit cards internationally.  They cater to service members present and retired.

At my age, approaching my dotage, I have three practical alternatives: Thailand, Japan or the USA (California.). So long as prices don’t increase too much, Thailand offers the best “bang for the buck.”  If Thailand were to become as expensive as California, then it would be back to the USA for me.  I suspect, though, that assisted living options will present themselves in Bangkok before long.  Actually, by renting a place large enough to have a maid’s room it is doable now.  The crucial factors will be the cost of medical care and medicine for me, I think.

JimGant: I file online using TurboTax but don’t know how to use the two-month extension.  How do you do that when filing electronically?

If you can't do it online then mail it in around 17 days before it is due.  The slip notifying you of your next report date will be waiting for you in the mail when you return.  You can then just ignore that date and report 90 days after you return.  Check the pinned topic for the 90 checklist.  Usually costs 43 baht for the registered letter and 3 baht for the return envelope.  It will take 30 minutes tops.  You can just mail it and forget it but keep copies of the old 90 notification, your TM-30 and registered mail receipt.

I suggest that you look into the features of your Schwab investors checking account.  At Fidelity, in conjunction with my investment account, I have what they call a cash management account.  It is a separate account into which I can easily transfer funds from my investment account.  The money in the cash management account is kept deposited in a bank of Fidelity’s choosing until I call on it.  The nice feature of this account is that I can wire money from it to my Bangkok Bank account for free.  If you are moving to Thailand and will need to transfer money to a Thai Bank account for an extension of stay, that is a nice feature to have.  I don’t keep much money in Thailand and transfer 65,000 K per month for my retirement extension.  This is a good time to plan ahead and arrange how you will transfer money if you extend your stay.  If you plan to extend, I recommend that you open an account at Bangkok Bank since they always code foreign transfers correctly (FTT) and charge you a maximum of 200 baht to transfer the money in. The coding of other transfer services is not reliable.  I suspect that Schwab may have similar benefits to Fidelity’s cash management account.  If so, it would be easy to transfer $7,000 or so into your investor checking account and then back out again.  That said, your USAA statements should suffice for your O-A.  Why not telephone the consulate that you plan to use and ask whether simple statements from USAA will suffice?

I thought the fine for not doing your 90-day report was 2,000 (?)

This horse is dead!

The 65K per month DID change.  It went from being proof of retirement income to 65K per month transferred into a Thai bank account from a foreign source.  I had consistently had proof of transfer of the retirement income into my American bank account as a backup to my embassy affidavit.  Starting in January of this year, I had to start transferring the 65K into my Bangkok Bank account on a monthly basis.

well, to prove that the investigation was based on the Steele Dossier and that the Dossier was convincingly discredited, the information to support those claims would have to be cherry-picked, wouldn't it?

Russia is certainly dangerous but China is much more Dangerous.  Watch Gen. Spalding's lecture.  He is sharp and lays it out clearly.

Thanks for your continued input, Deanna.  It sounds as though your mother is in a nice place.  You have done well by her.  If you had known early enough, there were techniques that you could have used to keep her In Thailand but it sounds as though things have actually worked out better this way.  I imagine that there may be more English speakers around in the PI.  Good luck to you and your mother.  My grandfather and mother both died with Alzheimer’s so I can sympathize with you.