Requirements to retire for Millionaire?

[xylophone]

11 minutes ago, Suradit69 said:

You think $500,000 is a million? 

 

Hopefully you also have a pension of some sort and medical coverage. Even if your $500,000 is safely invested, it cannot be expected to churn out 7% every year during your retirement and if something like the 2007/2008 market crash occurs (and the next one could be worse) you'll be living here on Mama noodles and spend your days cadging handouts.

It could be managed if the OP was able to access pension funds to top up his interest earned..........also have to question his investment nous if he has only been able to get a 7% return in this bull market?

 

 

[YoungBrit]

Thai Elite would be the way I go.

 

[khunPer]

6 hours ago, 50soon said:

Actually I have around 500k$ and scored a 7,5% in 2017 which is well above the 800k baht deposit for a retirement visa.

Soon  I will be 50 and want to retire in Thailand. Can I avoid to deposit 800k bahts on a thai account?.

To my knowledge "no" – you'll need either a 800k baht bank deposit – which can be in a fixed account paying around 1.5% annual interest before 15% withholding tax – or showing proof, legalized or verified by one's embassy, of 65k baht monthly income, or a combination of both.

 

FYI, I had more money than you, and an average of 6% annual paid out profit, when I settled here based on retirement in my mid 50'ies, but I still needed to make an 800k baht deposit. At that time we could use a so-called "Fund Book", mutual funds in bonds handles by a Thai bank, with slightly better "score" than a bank account, but as it's speculation with a risk, the Immigration changed policy and now only accept Thai bank accounts.

 

Well off people has the option of buying a 10-year or 20-year Thailand Elite Club-card, including elimination of annual queue at an Immigration Office applying for extension of stay. And as another poster mention, when one has in excess of equivalent to 15 million baht, 800k is only about 5 percent deposited at a lower gain rate; however probably also at lower risk...

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, darrendsd said:

Cost of a TE for 5 years, 500K

 

Cost of retirement extensions, 1900 Baht a year is it? Please correct me if i'm wrong on that,  so less than 10k for the same 5 years

 

I would think that paying 490K more than what you need to would be a no brainer for most people

 

I doubt all the benefits the TE offers add up to 490K worth

Rich people don't mind paying to avoid queue up in an Immigration Office...

[Suradit69]

49 minutes ago, xylophone said:

also have to question his investment nous if he has only been able to get a 7% return in this bull market?

You're right of course. For some reason I was thinking, probably incorrectly, that he meant he was getting distributions/income of 7% rather than a total return of 7%.

Edited March 1, 2018 by Suradit69

[abrahamzvi]

5 hours ago, glegolo said:

So what regards Elite-VISA.. didn´t you forget to mention how expensive that REALLY is.....

 

glegolo

Is it really expensive for a US$ millionaire? „Expensive“ is a relative word. What is expensive for one is not necessarily so for the other.....

[garyk]

I am 66 now, I retired at 55 with less money than you by quite a bit. I have never had one problem here and in other countries.  Very doable, and I highly recommend it while you are in good health and able to enjoy it to the fullest.

Enjoy!

[Just Weird]

"Actually I have around 500k$ and scored a 7,5% in 2017 which is well above the 800k baht deposit for a retirement visa."

 

Are your stocks the type that are guaranteed never to fall in value and be impervious to market forces/collapses and are you prepared to lock them away untouched for months as Immigration requires (not that they would ever be acceptable anyway)?

[ThaiFelix]

Notice these kind of posts are always the first????

[natway09]

All you miserable people will try & wriggle around the simple act of having a Thai bank with 

Bht 800,000 (yes, small change) in it... Why if you are so distrustful of your adopted country 

bother being here at all. 

[Oxx]

4 minutes ago, natway09 said:

All you miserable people will try & wriggle around the simple act of having a Thai bank with 

Bht 800,000 (yes, small change) in it... Why if you are so distrustful of your adopted country 

bother being here at all. 

 

I don't think it's anything to do with distrust of the country (or its banks), but rather

 

(a) it's irrational.  If I have, say 20 million baht's worth of investments (here or elsewhere), why should I be forced to hold cash? I have plenty of wealth to support myself in Thailand.

 

(b) it's bad investment.  Returns on cash are nugatory.  I can do far better with other investments.  Yes, the total difference in return is small, but as they say, look after the satangs and the bahts look after themselves.

 

(c) it's inconvenient remembering having to cash in investments prior to the 3 month seasoning period, and doubly inconvenient if one forgets.

[darrendsd]

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

Rich people don't mind paying to avoid queue up in an Immigration Office...

Unless you live in one of the designated areas where the TE offer to do your 90 day reports for you and there are not many you will be standing in line at Immigration just like everyone else, no matter how rich you are

 

I would rather stand in line at Immigration and wait 10 minutes than pay a extra 490K for something that is not needed and that's just on a calculation on 5 years

 

By the way people who boast about how rich they are usually aren't, we have all met that sort before

[DILLIGAD]

Unless you live in one of the designated areas where the TE offer to do your 90 day reports for you and there are not many you will be standing in line at Immigration just like everyone else, no matter how rich you are
 
I would rather stand in line at Immigration and wait 10 minutes than pay a extra 490K for something that is not needed and that's just on a calculation on 5 years
 
By the way people who boast about how rich they are usually aren't, we have all met that sort before

Agree. I started with nothing and I’ve still got most of it left.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lacessit]

Simplest way is to employ an agent, and use the statutory declaration of 65,000 baht/month.

I would caution, however, that $500K is not going to be enough with a starting age of 50. That's on average another 30 years of life expectancy, with rising costs and the occasional market crash to put a dent in those savings. I've yet to meet an infallible investor.

[khunPer]

22 minutes ago, darrendsd said:

Unless you live in one of the designated areas where the TE offer to do your 90 day reports for you and there are not many you will be standing in line at Immigration just like everyone else, no matter how rich you are

 

I would rather stand in line at Immigration and wait 10 minutes than pay a extra 490K for something that is not needed and that's just on a calculation on 5 years

 

By the way people who boast about how rich they are usually aren't, we have all met that sort before

You can pay someone to do your 90-day report for you. If you mind spending 490k for making lift a little bit easier, you're not rich – same if you mind placing 800k bath in a bank deposit – you probably misunderstood my point...
–And by the way, I mind spending 490k baht for something that is not that important, so I gladly queue up at Immigration...

[buick]

4 hours ago, SpokaneAl said:

investment professionals tend to recommend no more than a 4% annual withdrawal from retirement funds if one hopes to have a reasonable chance of not outliving one’s investments. That would provide you with $20 thousand to live on. 

i agree on the 4% and am just about to start withdrawals, probably at 2.5%/yr for a couple years as a start.  the big question/dilemma i have is when is it appropriate to up the withdrawal amounts (and your spending) such that you don't die before you've spent at least 50% of the 'nest egg'.  i imagine the answer is different for certain people (single, only the wife, wife plus children, etc...).  Thankfully, i have a long time before i have to figure out the answer (i hope).  but it is a tough one.

 

some people do survive on 20k (usd) a year here.  i couldn't do it but others do. 

 

as for the original poster, i recommend you go with the non imm O-A visa obtained in USA using the money in your USA bank as evidence of the required funds.  i do not recommend getting the thai elite visa, you don't really need that at this point.

 

edit - i'm assuming you are from USA as you used 'dollars' in your post.

Edited March 1, 2018 by buick

[xylophone]

 

Some simple calculations below which are easy to access on the Internet and I inputted a return of 4% per annum and inflation of 1.5% per annum to get the figures below, and these show that he could retire here with his current funds.

Even better if he has a pension to draw on at the age of 65 or thereabouts, or even a private pension he can access earlier.

To protect his capital he would have to take a more conservative approach so that he doesn't get wiped out by a stock market crash, conversely if he can find some shares which pay high dividend (I currently get 6%) then these would be worth exploring. As regards a conservative approach, some corporate bonds with high ratings may well fit the bill.

The reason I have inputted inflation at 1.5% is because I firmly believe that here in Thailand one has the option to be able to adjust one's lifestyle accordingly. As an example, if I wanted to save a fair bit of money, I could cook Thai food more often or even eat out at cheap Thai restaurants (and god forbid, switch to the best "fruit wine" that money can buy!!).

 

Furthermore as if to highlight the inflation aspect, I can now buy many household appliances some 20% cheaper than they were 10 years ago.

IMO it is very doable and should he be able to access other income, then he will be home and hosed!

 

Balance at the retirement age of 50: $500,000

 

The amount you can withdraw monthly from 50 to 85: $2,192

 

 

[TGIR]

$2,192 X 12 = $26,304 X 35 = $920,640   No taxes in this calculation.  No provision for inflation, health care, abode, transportation, insurance, entertainment, telephones, clothing  savings etal.  Keep this in mind as your read on.

 

My wife and I play golf about three times a week, eat at home nearly all the time and watch TV for entertainment.  Including all costs mentioned above except medical care we spend on average about $2,100 U.S. per month which eats up your $2,192 not including some kind of income or VAT taxes and savings.  I expect we'll have to quit playing golf in a few years and my wife will begin drawing her own Social Security income of about $1,400 a month in two years, which should help pay for our future medical expenses.

 

Sounds great until you add in a place to live as the above doesn't include the cost of that, medical care which has averaged about $6,000 a year for only me the past twelve years, transportation which should be an automobile, not a motorcycle, travel back and forth on occasion to wherever you came from, furniture, new appliances every 7 to ten years, a replacement of the car mentioned above at least once every ten years, clothing, shoes, TV and phone bills every month,.......oh and food and drink every day of every year.

 

These figures don't include everything as one cannot ever be that good at these calculations but clearly paint a picture you should be able to see.

 

We retired here in August 2006 with over $900,000 in our bank accounts.  That is not a boast, it was cashing in everything we owned plus a $500,000 company pension which took me forty five years to earn.

 

We bought a house for approximately $,180,000 and a car for $35,000, shipped our household goods and furniture over here, and settled down for the first six years of our retirement.  This was in August 2006.  I'm thinking you are old enough to have experienced 2006-2008 and what it did to everyone's net worth so I'll skip the details until later.  In 2007 we sold the house we had bought as it was built by a guy from England who it turns out knew crap about building......got about $115,000 down and carried a first mortgage which gave us an additional Baht 40,000 to live on until the purchasers went broke and couldn't pay for two years......the house is now rented at baht 45,000 a month and for sale.   Maint. costs and mgmt fees are approx Baht 15,000 a month.  We got really lucky and found a big seaside condo for about $190.000 in 2007 which we still live in.  Oh, our savings have always been in a variety of mutual funds selected by my employer's Stock Broker who has become a good friend over the years.

 

In late 2012 I got an offer from my former employer to come and help him put the admin part of his business back together after suffering the above mentioned financial meltdown.....which was a blessing because our savings were down to about $75,000 plus the approximately $2,200 a month I get from U.S. Social Security, and until the past two years the Baht 40,000 a month from the house sale.

 

Taking the job cost me about $35,000 in moving costs, buying the wife a car etc.  We left our condo as it was because I didn't want renters ruining it, and for the next three years came back for an annual one month vacation.

We were very lucky to be paid well and managed to save just about an even $200,000 in the three years we were back in the States. Without that opportunity we would by now be living in the sticks  and probably not playing golf or having much of a life.....because since I think about 2009 I've had five major surgeries that cost, on average about $12,000.

 

Currently we still have our two homes, a two year old car and about $250,000 in cash and investments.  I am now 74 years old and the wife is 60......so surely we'll have more medical expenses to deal with.  At this point one can only cross their fingers and hope it will be enough.  We will continue to earn our Social Security as well until death.  If you don't have something like that to fall back on you had better forget about retiring or living in Thailand!

 

I didn't start this to be so open about our finances but I know how hard it is to find out how much life might really cost you after retirement and none of you know who we are anyway.  

 

If you aren't retired yet print this out and save it somewhere.  The figures are real and not over or understated.  

 

p.s. -   Bitcoin will make some of you rich and some poor.......as you make your decision remember you are buying blue sky.......nothing physical.  Be careful and good luck again.

[xylophone]

1 hour ago, TGIR said:

2,192 X 12 = $26,304 X 35 = $920,640   No taxes in this calculation.  No provision for inflation

It sounds like you had a bad run of things judging by your post, however IMO that is not the norm, because for a start I would not advise anyone to buy a house here, but to rent a condo for a while and perhaps pick one up cheaply if they considered staying here for good. That way they can decide where they want to live and not be tied down for the first few years whilst they experience the various areas of Thailand.

If he doesn't want to buy, then he won't have the hassle of condo maintenance fees and so on, nor will he need to have a mortgage, and probably not have to spend a lot of money.

According to your post your savings went from $900,000 to $75,000 in just six years and that is one huge loss, so probably not typical of the everyday expat who retires here.

As for the taxes and inflation, well that calculation only includes the amount he has in savings, plus an after-tax return, and the fact that he would be dipping into those, any extra earnings would be a bonus, even if they were taxed. Then of course anything he has coming from private or company pensions would only add to his comfort level here.

 

There was provision for inflation if you read my post and anyone that says they cannot live here on 920,000 baht a year is certainly way off course – – thousands of expats do it, and do it very well I may add.

Of course that covers all of the living expenses and at his age he should be able to get a pretty full health insurance policy for around 40,000 baht a year.

As I said before, this is perfectly doable, provided he plans accordingly and doesn't rush into anything like marriage to a bar girl, or buying a house or condo before he has really seen a lot of Thailand.

His hidden saviour, if one could call it that, because I believe he can exist here on that which he stated, could well be any other source of income he gets from pensions etc, but then he hasn't mentioned those so they have not been included in my calculations.



 

 

 

[saakura]

Our millionaire OP seems to have disappeared after posting his question. Maybe he is already on a long haul flight to Thailand.

[garyk]

Holy mole TGIR, I cannot fathom chewing threw 900,000 dollars in that short of a time in Thailand? 

You must of been living the life of a rock star... :)

Enjoy

[ExpatOilWorker]

33 minutes ago, garyk said:

Holy mole TGIR, I cannot fathom chewing threw 900,000 dollars in that short of a time in Thailand? 

You must of been living the life of a rock star... :)

Enjoy

This part  "I'm thinking you are old enough to have experienced 2006-2008 and what it did to everyone's net worth so I'll skip the details until later." plus locking $180K in a house probably did most of the work.

[gk10002000]

I too am a millionaire and my portfolio generates about $58,000 a year in dividends and interest.   If you have 1 million in an investment portfolio, unless you are holding stocks or other investments that pay like, no dividends, it is hard for me to imagine you not getting at least 65,000 baht/month which is about $2,000/month or $24,000/year which would be a bout 2.4%.  When you go to the US Embassy and affirm that you have 65,000 baht monthly income from sources, on the rare chance they ask, you show them an income statement from your brokerage.  I have my Etrade Income Estimator if needed.   If your investments aren't paying out that much, in dividends or interest, well, maybe you are just sitting on 1 Million in cash which I suggest is not a good use of your monies 

[gk10002000]

10 hours ago, natway09 said:

All you miserable people will try & wriggle around the simple act of having a Thai bank with 

Bht 800,000 (yes, small change) in it... Why if you are so distrustful of your adopted country 

bother being here at all. 

It brings up other issues, especially if a US citizen.  that much money in an overseas account would require a person to file some forms with the US government, that some people just want to deal with.  And on Schedule B of the 1040, it even asks a question about overseas accounts.   Me, I would go the income method, as I easily meet those requirements.  People have personal choices.

[MyFriend You]

21 hours ago, ExpatDraco said:

If you are a USD millionaire, why would you be bothered about parking 800k THB for 3 months on an account?

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
 

In fact, if I was a USD Millionaire, I can think of plenty of places I'd rather park my butt than Thailand, despite being in and out of the Kingdom for over 40 years.  I keep coming here because I am not a USD Millionaire  I would be considering Spain, Portugal, Fiji, Samoa or even Latin America.

[jacko45k]

18 hours ago, Langsuan Man said:

But 50% short of being a millionaire or am I missing something here !

Currency that is based on?

[Maestro]

On 01/03/2018 at 4:59 AM, 50soon said:

Soon  I will be 50 and want to retire in Thailand. Can I avoid to deposit 800k bahts on a thai account?.

Is a letter from a farangistan bank enough stating I have money (can be notarized by my embassy)?  

 

1. Yes

2. No

[garyk]

3 hours ago, TunnelRat69 said:

In fact, if I was a USD Millionaire, I can think of plenty of places I'd rather park my butt than Thailand, despite being in and out of the Kingdom for over 40 years.  I keep coming here because I am not a USD Millionaire  I would be considering Spain, Portugal, Fiji, Samoa or even Latin America.

I travel to Mexico and South America some, if anything like me you would still be coming back to Thailand.  

Some of the perks here are extremely hard to replicate elsewhere... Haha  

But, I am far from being a Millionaire.  :)

[norrska]

5 hours ago, TunnelRat69 said:

In fact, if I was a USD Millionaire, I can think of plenty of places I'd rather park my butt than Thailand, despite being in and out of the Kingdom for over 40 years.  I keep coming here because I am not a USD Millionaire  I would be considering Spain, Portugal, Fiji, Samoa or even Latin America.

Would not recommend Latin America.  As the OP likes to advertise his millionaire status with others, lots of countries like Mexico, Brazil etc could be downright dangerous (kidnap, express kidnap, robbery, etc)

[SpokaneAl]

$2,192 X 12 = $26,304 X 35 = $920,640   No taxes in this calculation.  No provision for inflation, health care, abode, transportation, insurance, entertainment, telephones, clothing  savings etal.  Keep this in mind as your read on.
 
My wife and I play golf about three times a week, eat at home nearly all the time and watch TV for entertainment.  Including all costs mentioned above except medical care we spend on average about $2,100 U.S. per month which eats up your $2,192 not including some kind of income or VAT taxes and savings.  I expect we'll have to quit playing golf in a few years and my wife will begin drawing her own Social Security income of about $1,400 a month in two years, which should help pay for our future medical expenses.
 
Sounds great until you add in a place to live as the above doesn't include the cost of that, medical care which has averaged about $6,000 a year for only me the past twelve years, transportation which should be an automobile, not a motorcycle, travel back and forth on occasion to wherever you came from, furniture, new appliances every 7 to ten years, a replacement of the car mentioned above at least once every ten years, clothing, shoes, TV and phone bills every month,.......oh and food and drink every day of every year.
 
These figures don't include everything as one cannot ever be that good at these calculations but clearly paint a picture you should be able to see.
 
We retired here in August 2006 with over $900,000 in our bank accounts.  That is not a boast, it was cashing in everything we owned plus a $500,000 company pension which took me forty five years to earn.
 
We bought a house for approximately $,180,000 and a car for $35,000, shipped our household goods and furniture over here, and settled down for the first six years of our retirement.  This was in August 2006.  I'm thinking you are old enough to have experienced 2006-2008 and what it did to everyone's net worth so I'll skip the details until later.  In 2007 we sold the house we had bought as it was built by a guy from England who it turns out knew crap about building......got about $115,000 down and carried a first mortgage which gave us an additional Baht 40,000 to live on until the purchasers went broke and couldn't pay for two years......the house is now rented at baht 45,000 a month and for sale.   Maint. costs and mgmt fees are approx Baht 15,000 a month.  We got really lucky and found a big seaside condo for about $190.000 in 2007 which we still live in.  Oh, our savings have always been in a variety of mutual funds selected by my employer's Stock Broker who has become a good friend over the years.
 
In late 2012 I got an offer from my former employer to come and help him put the admin part of his business back together after suffering the above mentioned financial meltdown.....which was a blessing because our savings were down to about $75,000 plus the approximately $2,200 a month I get from U.S. Social Security, and until the past two years the Baht 40,000 a month from the house sale.
 
Taking the job cost me about $35,000 in moving costs, buying the wife a car etc.  We left our condo as it was because I didn't want renters ruining it, and for the next three years came back for an annual one month vacation.
We were very lucky to be paid well and managed to save just about an even $200,000 in the three years we were back in the States. Without that opportunity we would by now be living in the sticks  and probably not playing golf or having much of a life.....because since I think about 2009 I've had five major surgeries that cost, on average about $12,000.
 
Currently we still have our two homes, a two year old car and about $250,000 in cash and investments.  I am now 74 years old and the wife is 60......so surely we'll have more medical expenses to deal with.  At this point one can only cross their fingers and hope it will be enough.  We will continue to earn our Social Security as well until death.  If you don't have something like that to fall back on you had better forget about retiring or living in Thailand!
 
I didn't start this to be so open about our finances but I know how hard it is to find out how much life might really cost you after retirement and none of you know who we are anyway.  
 
If you aren't retired yet print this out and save it somewhere.  The figures are real and not over or understated.  
 
p.s. -   Bitcoin will make some of you rich and some poor.......as you make your decision remember you are buying blue sky.......nothing physical.  Be careful and good luck again.

An investment drop from $900 thousand to $75 thousand is absolutely staggering. Many of us had and have a significant amount in the stock market, and during those declines just kept the faith and continued to invest. In light of the performance of the markets since that date our investments are substantially higher since even before that drop.

I am thinking that perhaps you sold everything at the bottom of the markets, and even then, with the markets dropping in double digits, cannot fathom how you incurred those losses.


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