ProThaiExpat

Allowing for incredible differences in people and the great number of years since I was in my twenties dating girls and allowing for the generation gap, any girl I knew who was college educated, and most of them were, would have concluded this guy was gay or had a serious testosterone problem after a week and chalked him off as a good friend, certainly not dating material

My vote is troll.

I will PM warriors if he doesn't respond in this thread regarding New Zeland bank interest

Newbies often use incorrect terms in describing what they want to know. From the sound of your second post, you may want to know what your visa and extention options are, not "residency", which is an entirely different than comming to

Thailand to live with a Thai national wife and working here.

Since "residency" permit requires a three year continuous stay before you can even apply, I think you need to focus on "long stay", ie. a year at a time, until you have the three years in.

That being the case, at your age, married and supporting a Thai wife sounds to me like the way for you to go, as you are only required to have 400K in the bank in Thailand.

If the foregoing sounds like it is closer to what you want to do, let us know and members with experience in that area will be happy to respond to your pointed question regarding "various visas and extention options for a 27 year old alien married to a Thai who wants to work in Thailand".

Thanks for the reminder lopburi3 of we gladly left behind.

What about the senior with the blue or pink hair driving her old Caddilac into the middle of the street during a turn and then stopping, awaiting oncoming traffic to clear so she can continue her turn, meanwhile blocking traffic for blocks on a busy street. Perhaps some of that here without the hair coloring.

What about the restaurant host that tries out the worst table in the house on you to see if you will fall for it and thereby remove a problem for him.

Reminders as to how well off we are good tonics.

gads, why wouldn't everyone like more choices as long as once you select your choice, it remains locked in.

Any format that allows complete reading of the complete original thread allows decision making since many subject lines of original threads are misleading.

The poor saps I decry are those who don't know how to use the ATM or are unhappy with what they are told and just play with them ad nauseum.

Our use of the ATM, no one waiting, took only the time it takes to enter 8 sets of numbers.

I am very conscious of Asians who are completely oblivious of anyone around them when they cause traffic jams, conduct conversations at the bottom of an escalator without getting on, or standing in front of ATM machines without using them. Noticed farangs doing exactly the same thing in front of a ATM the other day, so much for generalities.

In addition to the original post, I would sure like to hear from some group tour professionals about what they do for Thais and other Asians who go on group tours to the U.S. and U.K.

Perhaps, an escourted tour gets different consideration as the tourist is supervised all of the time, the return fare is guaranteed and perhaps the tour guides report to immigration the minute a member of their tour goes missing???

When the worm your speaking about was crawling around that first weekend, I was in a panic and learned that XP has its own firwall. Nonetheless, I contacted Computer Associates online and downloaded their product that automatically updates itself.

It was at the top of the list recommended by mirocsoft. What IT professionals think is another story.

I also made sure I had downloaded all patches available from Microsoft.

Used my new elctronic debit card on my monthly expense account at SCB and what a joy to hand a sheaf of bills to my Thai with the electronic card and watch while the bills were paid by the ATM machine. My Thai, whose eyes are a lot better than mine in reading the small account and invoice numbers and entering in the machine, accomplished the whole process in less than five minutes and included TOT long distance, AIS cell phones and UBC. My only bills, as eclectic comes out automatically.

It takes a while to really have it easy here in Thailand, but with time and patience, it happens. Wood worms are next. My farang neighbor with a lot more money to throw around than I , had his whole house and garden drilled full of holes, including the tile floors, and had the holes filled with "killer juice". 18k for one years protection service, perhaps its less in the second year now that his house and yard have been "swiss cheezed".

Fortunately, the only wood in my house is the door mouldings I installed myself and only three so far have been "invaded" Off thread, sorry.!!

warriors: Please help us. The best bank rate I have found is First Internet Bank in Indiana at 1.75 money market.

Please link us or give us a bank with a website in New Zealand, I would be a very happy camper to get bank interest at 5%.

Also, currency restrictions, if any, conversion information, etc.

I am excited!

Thanks

I was over 65 when I came to Thailand and there was only one international carrier that would insure me for 12k baht a month.

With the cost of medical care so reasonable, I have already saved 360k Baht in premiums and building.

There was one post of a heart bypass suregery costing 188k Baht.

In ten years I will have saved more than a million baht in my health account, one of the advantages of self insurance.

KevinN: I really like the example regarding lining up the druggies and alkies and I could not disagree with the outcome of the experiment. I submit, the example proves that different chemicals have different degrees of addiction. Hard core drugs are certainly more addictive than less addictive drugs and alcohol, like nicotine, are less addictive than hard drugs.

If you choose to use the addictive nature of a chemical as the definition of what is a drug or what is not, then alcohol is not a drug by that definition when compared to heroin, crack and the like.

On the other hand, if you define a drug as "any mind altering chemical", alcohol is a drug.

Lets let "reasonable men disagree" on this subject, shall we?

Perhaps I was to investment oriented back home as I always found the most expensive house I could afford that was the cheapest house in that neighborhood. I really enjoyed the manicured lawns maintained at others expense. Wide steets, kept clean by massive property taxes paid for by these wealthy neighbors trying to keep up with themselves. I do miss that in Thailand.

Otherwise, a Wednesday newspaper from back home with the supermarket ads is a great spirit lifter, or obvious respect shown to me because of my gray hair as opposed to being treated as if I didn't exist back home by sales staff, or living in my custom home with an incredible view that cost what a single wide trailer costs back home or buying pretty much anything I want because I can afford it here while I would actually shop ramen shops back home to find the cheapest bowl of noodles I could find ($5.95)(and that was three years ago), or not going anywhere in the city as parking fees cost more than a high priced dinner, or etc.

Thank you very much Huski and George for your update.

The desired objective of "bloking" posts of certain members by other individuals, I am assuming, is a filter in the Thaivisa feature that forwards posts in designated threads to be sent to our e-mail.

Is there any other way undesireable posts could be kept from an individuals viewing when they merely just login and read a threadand the posts displayed thereby. ie, a filter that would affect the log-in process of an individual member???

Up2U:

  800k being transferred in annually

I know you didn't mean to say that!!

I just changed banks and opened two accounts, one for the majority of my money in Thailand and another into which is transferred automatically every month my monthly budgeted living expense money.

The main account is accessable via ATM, (and only I know the password) and the spending money account with a debit card ( with other half knowing the password) for the other. I am comfortable turning over the debit card for their shopping needs. as the limit is only one month expenses, lest family pressure is so great a "loan" is made, as has occured in the past.

It is my "take" on immigrations reluctance to re-issue anything until just before it becoming due to their effort to reduce work, as accelerating of dates just increases work and perhaps there is a tickler system in place we don't know about. With computers, that should be a dead issue.

There are pluses and minuses in evey country, so the reason for moving to Thailand is at the heart of the matter. I don't think some farang can go back for financial reasons.

For me the weather is a negative in Thailand, as I moved here from Hawaii. On the other hand, the cost of living is a very big plus.

Additionally, I fell in love in Thailand and remain so.

Thai people, generally, respect or look up to farang deserving of it, while I encountered a great deal of prejudice and jealousy, almost a love-hate attitude from locals in Hawaii.

Otherwise, the plusses and minuses balance out.

With no responsess for four days, one would conclude that the answer to your question in contained within the question, ie. a rhetorical question.

Going past that, I would prepare a detailed itinerary on a day to day basis with expenses expected and any and all tickets, reservation confirmations, and any other document supporting the itinerary.

The make sure there is sufficient money to cover all of the anticipated and documented expenses, including a paid round trip ticket, plus at least the baht equivalent of 5kUSD or more for immergency hospitalizations. An internation coverage health or accident plan would help alot.

You post wording suggest you might be talking about Australia, if so convert the foregoing to AUD.

If you are paying for everything, you should provide your financial resume in a like manner.

Looking at this issue from immigrations point of view, being policemen charged with enforcing the law and having a "law enforcement" mentality, immigration officers have stated publicly that review of a bank book provided by a farang seeking a permit extention is done to determine if the farang is working illegally in Thailand and whether farang has sufficient assests to live in Thailand for a year, absent a work permit.l

Thus, the funds must be obtained from overseas, not from Thailand and routine withdrawals of living expenses throughout the year should appear.

This was a big issue when I got my first one year extention, but subsequently, they don't seem to pay that much attention, although I brought a lot more than required when I first came here and have yet to transfer additional funds from abroad.

I am sure individual policemen enforce the law differently and pursue the issue with varying degrees of effort. Thus if one farang "got away with it one time", only the foolhardy would rely on this nformation to make their decisions, especially if it flies in the face of a clear cut regulation.

When a Thai regulation says "3 million BAHT" investment for long stay visa, I would not count on a policeman, charged in enforcing the law, (immigration personnel are policemen) to interpret the word "BAHT" to be USD, etc.

Many expats in this forum have lengthy complaints about Thai regulations being the way they are and often argue, always at great length, that if the regulation was the way the farang wanted it to be, how much more sense it would make for Thailand's benefit.

I think Thais are more than capable of making their regulations to benefit Thailand as Thais see that benefit. Trying to understand the purpose or reason for a regulation works wonders in understanding it.

I am no expert on balance of payments, foreign reserves or the like, but if Thais want more BAHT on deposit in Thailand on invested in the Thai economy, rather than USD or other western currency, they would make visa financial responsibility regulations specify that BAHT are required to qualify.

They have done so. Hope springs eternal but reality is reality!

Well it has been more than a month since the "improvements" have been "comming".

Hopefully, George hasn't forgotten this very worthy suggestion for forum improvement.

A supporting a thai, marriage visa, seems to be just the thing for you. Your 10kUSD is just right for the 400KBaht needed to meet the financial responsibility requirement for that visa.

Going the retirement route would give you a more independent visa status, however, you need another 10KUSD to meet the 800K Baht minimum for this classification.

wowpow: What a wonderful post!!! The information seems very accurate and intelligently offered.

Please keep posting, we need guys like you.

stroll: Actually. NA was not around in Bill W's day, so when he referred to alcoholics not being able to help druggies, it is generally believed that he was only relying on his experience that AA works because alcoholics are helping alcoholics and that alcoholics were of little help in trying to help drug addicts. He didn't say narcotic addicts couldn't help narcotic addicts, which is the foundational principle of NA.

This is essentially what KevinN said in his post:

Bill W. said that we can not really help the addict,and I know that they are different and we can not really help them.I have tried.

Of course the "we can not really help the addict" means alcoholics can't help the addict as there is no common experience, an essential of AA's success.

After lopburi3's heads up about debit cards, I have accomplished the following.

Two different accounts at two different branches of SCB, because sub-branch can't open account accessable by ATM card. Monthly automatic transfer of living expense budget amount from large fund holding account with ATM access to monthly buget maximum account with debit card access. ATM and debit with different passwords.

This approach also provides for my love interest to get me some cash, if I am not going out, and they would hardly be tempted to break my trust for less than 50k.

Most assets held in home country and now available by wire transfer. Hawaii bank says 45USD for under 5k USD and 60 for 5-10K USD. A bit expensive for my taste.

Charles Schwab has a 25USD wire fee without dollar limit from funds you have on deposit in one of their money market or liquid bond funds. They also have a money link between my bank and my account with them so I can tranfer money from the bank where my income is deposited to Charles Schwab with a key stroke.

Many thanks to all for your help. I feel quite secure now that I have the foregoing flexibility and safety.

For those reading this thread who would like other imput on whether alcohol is a drug, other than KevinN's or mine, just go to google and search under "alcohol as a drug". I had over a million hits and copied one of the first threads on the first page directed at Teens and list it below:

"ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUG INFORMATION FOR TEENS. ... drugs and alcohol?

(alcohol is definitely a drug, too...just like nicotine is!). "