Cost of raising a child in Thailand

[sawadee1947]

Definetely NO. 

If you want to give your child a similar education as in your home country, try another job where you double your income. 

[khunPer]

19 hours ago, sidjameson said:

So for that type of lifestyle how much extra does a child cost on average a month?

"Cost of raising a child in Thailand" you ask in the headline, the short answer is: 5 million baht.

 

However, that question is like a rubber band, and relative to life-style, and what you can afford.

 

Presume your child is Thai national, when asking the question in this forum. Based on my own experience – my child, a Luk khrueng daughter now 13 years old – and my calculations...

• When baby and child under 10 year, count 4,000 to 5,000 baht a month; i.e. circa 50,000 baht a year in 10-years, equaling 500,000 baht
• Nursery when the child is small, for example two years of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 baht a month, i.e. 40,000 baht a year in 2-years, equaling 80,000 baht
• Kindergarten, K1 to K3 in a bilingual or English program school, around 120,000 baht a year plus extras – uniform, books, school bus etc. – in three years 400,000 baht
• Primary school, 130,000 baht a year plus extra – uniform, books, school bus etc. – in six years 900,000 baht
• When pre-teen, from 11th year, and teen count 8,000 to 10,000 baht a month in expenses; i.e. 100,000 in 10-years, equaling 1 million baht
• M1 to M6 in a better private Thai school or changing to a fair priced international school will cost you from 250,000 baht a year, i.e. not less than 1.5 million baht

That's almost 4.4 million baht, and with some excursions, travelling (part of education), extras, further education, you'll end up with my short answer 5 million baht, or in average 250,000 baht a year, and around 20,000 baht a month in long term average.

 

However, here comes the rubber band. Thais can raise a child for (a lot) less, using public schools, and live a different life-style than a foreigner; but Thais can also spend a lot more, using the "right" expensive private schools, or international schools – that can be priced from 400,000 baht to over 1 million baht a year plus extras – and sending the child abroad for further education.

 

50,000 baht in monthly budget might be a lot, compared to neighboring Thai families, or it might be a lot less – my next-door-neighbor thai-family has a monthly budget, and income, 4-5 times mine, and can choose (much) more expensive schools than I can afford, even in my dreams – so it's simply a question of what you can afford.

 

In my opinion, the family is much more important for the child than money, but enough money helps...????

 

 

[1FinickyOne]

5 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Most western kids just seem to ignore their parents, maybe one or two visits a year.

Then when you get ill or infirm, off to a care home with you.

 

Thai kids tend to look after and live with their parents.

Back in the 1960s/70s western children also looked after their ageing parents, something was lost from our culture in the 1980s/90s. Probably feminism is the cause, an ideology created around selfishness and the destruction of the family unit.

Well, I wouldn't put it off to just feminism... there are many factors, I am sure -- one of which, at least my parents gave me an education and taught me to be independent... I think in many cases that independence has led to a break-up in the family structure... kids moving back - in w/parents and vice versa is an imposition... but not so here, at least not with my family. 

[DJ54]

Sorry took me a while scrolling back to the beginning to remember 

what the topic was.... Ding Ding..“Cost or raising a child in Thailand” 

 

Reading posts that go off into tangents... sometimes funny to read. I’ve wandered of topic many times.... but let’s not cross the line. 

 

Its not COOL to basically call a person a “Cheap Charlie” for what they choose to do in life school etc...

 

The costs for an International school in China. These are real numbers from providers website.

 

2018-2019 Tuition per year 

Pre School = $16,900.00 USD

Kindergarten = $20,909.00 USD

Grade 6-12 = $23,900.00

 

To choke down costs wouldn’t be easy. 

 

No matter what you decide for your children make sure their life 

is balanced. Teach them all people are equal rich, poor whatever.

Make sure they’ve an education that’s affordable.

 

Support them with guidance and understanding and they’ll be ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Skallywag]

 

Zero experience raising a child. 

Always anxious that I have enough cash to support a family.

Can and do live outside Bangkok on 50k for everything for two people including rent, some trips and saving for big ticket items. Two people who are nonmateria!istic, drink very little and no vices. A car is the most expensive thing we do.

So for that type of lifestyle how much extra does a child cost on average a month?

 

I am reminded of the phrase - "if you have to ask, you cant afford it" Also - am wondering since you are a "senior member" does that mean you are over 65?  I would think age may be a factor here - IMHO

 

[4MyEgo]

50k baht per month and your out of BKK, ok you mention you rent and you have a car, so would be saying you have about 30k baht per month left which is just doable, but "just" I would say.

 

To start, milk powder and nappies are going to be your big ticket items, if she doesn't breastfeed, mothers milk is best, for your pocket also, if your wife is a good housekeeper you can buy those washable nappies which will save you a fortune in the beginning too.

 

I have 4 monkey's ranging from 4 to 15 and I budget on 60,000 baht per month and living in a village, no debts, have car and motor scooter, and kids go to a semi-private Catholic school, so as I mentioned above, what you have after rent and car should be "just" doable, but expect the increases as the kid/s start to grow, because then they want toys, mobiles, game stations, movies at the cinemas etc etc 

 

What I do is jot down on my laptop what I spend everyday in every month and tally it up at the end of the 12 months and then highlight the unnecessary items, trying to make sure I don't buy them the following year.

[manchega]

 

From what I've observed ..........

The more you spend on your kids, the less they like you and the lazier and more worthless they become.

Spend your time with them, not your money.

quoted Britmantoo above

not sure I mentioned anything about time spent with children, do you think I should add the cost of my hourly fees to that? then we are talking super expensive, funny preconceptions people have here,

perhaps more representative of you?perhaps you are another of the english teachers here that discover how disposable they are and how liitle is on offfer?

no the extra 100 k a month is about what it costs to send them to an international school, I need to check the actual price, but yeah 

that is before we have other things we do together such as holidays , books, etc.

The school fees will go up as they get older, luckily family does help when paying for the big holidays on long flights etc. you are looking at 3-4 k GBP for flights nowadays for 4 people ( assuming you have no wish to stop on the way to destination).

[BritManToo]

 

perhaps you are another of the english teachers here that discover how disposable they are and how liitle is on offfer?

3

No, I'm retired, been retired for 17 years.

When my boy's finished school, I collect him, then I'm home with him.

 

Always interesting to read when people that have to work to survive think they are wealthy.

Wealthy, is when you no longer have to work.

[Rugon]

On 12/3/2018 at 9:45 AM, todlad said:

No idea where outside of Bangkok you are and I am not being critical of this post since it's clearly within his experience.

In Surin, the school/nursery our daughter goes to is much less than 200K a year, divide that by three and that is for English medium (Filipina) teaching with Thai and Chinese thrown in!

Clothing here is almost free from markets and shops and if you drive over to Chong Chom market on the Cambodian border, you are quids in!

 

In terms of education, I have met farang men here who cannot speak to their own children because the men do not speak Thai and he has not taught them any English. Talk to your child in your own language every minute you are with them, from birth. Mother will do the same in Thai. The child is born smart and will learn both languages very easily and will have no idea she is speaking two of them. She will also learn naturally to talk to you in English and mother in Thai. A win win situation. 

Wit til your daughter goes to a good school!

Wait til she wants a new iphoneX!

Wait til she asks to study abroad!

 

Farang men not learning Thai is aweful, esp. after 10/20 years.

[Rugon]

On 12/4/2018 at 9:32 AM, BritManToo said:

No, I'm retired, been retired for 17 years.

When my boy's finished school, I collect him, then I'm home with him.

 

Always interesting to read when people that have to work to survive think they are wealthy.

Wealthy, is when you no longer have to work.

Some of us like to work

[Rugon]

On 12/3/2018 at 10:20 AM, soistalker said:

The real question is how much will it cost to raise your child and raise your in laws?

Not for me.

[BritManToo]

6 minutes ago, Rugon said:

Farang men not learning Thai is aweful, esp. after 10/20 years.

1

Glad to see you managed 'farang', that was a lot of effort.

[Rugon]

14 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Glad to see you managed 'farang', that was a lot of effort.

What do you mean? If yo mean my Thai ability, I passed the P6 exam.

[Rc2702]

Our lads 2 years old in March. 

 

We spend 25k a month on all household stuffs rents cars petrol excursions and save 20k a month.

 

Insurances and long term plans are not accounted for in expenditure or above savings.

 

We eat well but we cook at home mon-Thursday.  3 days of cooking various meals and 4th day is a mash up of the last 3 days. Friday to Sunday we eat out but we skip restaurants and opt for parks and picnics and relaxed markets as child much more child friendly. Never gets boring for us. Park on a Sunday afternoon is my favourite time.

 

Clothes for the lad are sent from uk family but we also search Robinson for good promotions.  Babystone brand of cotton clothes 75% off for example. 

 

We save every 20 and 50 baht for the lad it adds up to about 5k a month.

 

Kindergarten in 15 months. 2500 baht a month it's 25 metres from the house. It's a lovely place. All the injections from what I can see is about 12k a year for the first 2 years and unless I'm mistaken much lower thereafter.

 

Shop around for nappies you can save 30 baht a pack of buying  in bulk from a off the beaten track type of retailer. Sentosa is one near us who sells nappies 20-30 baht less than the well known shops. Milk too at 4 baht saving per 4 pack. Lad drinks 4 a day. 

 

Eating in is great for us the big C sells all the sauces for kaoi soi and many other thai dishes and 2kg of chicken is just 150 baht so we're completely sold on this now. It sounds very boring and it is but it's thoroughly enjoyable.

 

 

[metisdead]

A crude, offensive post has been removed. 

[Rugon]

I used to think that 40k a month was plenty when my kids were under 5. Over 15, I'm looking at 150k a month. I don't want to eat sticky rice and send them to the temple school.

[Hanaguma]

A number of people have made comments about how to raise your child as bilingual in this thread, let me add my two baht worth:

 

As a teacher and a parent, I have seen the OPOL (One Parent One Language) system fail more often than it works to promote bilingualism in children.  It often seems to work, at least in the beginning when the kids are young. However, as time goes by, problems often start appearing. Since exposure to the two languages is rarely equal, especially when the child starts interacting with the outside world, the language with less input, often the minority language, suffers. If, in addition, the parent who speaks it is bilingual, then the child may well start responding in the other, stronger, language. In the end, the child may only retain receptive skills in the weaker language.

 

It also ignores the observed language- that is, the language the parents speak to each other. If the parents use the majority language, this is a big message to the kids that they don't really NEED the minority tongue at all. Plus, if there are siblings their play language often defaults to the majority language. 

 

If possible,, try for MLAH- Minority Language at Home. Use English all the time when together as a family in Thailand. The kids will get plenty of exposure to Thai at school, with friends, with family, etc.  This seems to work a lot better.

[todlad]

7 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

A number of people have made comments about how to raise your child as bilingual in this thread, let me add my two baht worth:

 

As a teacher and a parent, I have seen the OPOL (One Parent One Language) system fail more often than it works to promote bilingualism in children.  It often seems to work, at least in the beginning when the kids are young. However, as time goes by, problems often start appearing. Since exposure to the two languages is rarely equal, especially when the child starts interacting with the outside world, the language with less input, often the minority language, suffers. If, in addition, the parent who speaks it is bilingual, then the child may well start responding in the other, stronger, language. In the end, the child may only retain receptive skills in the weaker language.

 

It also ignores the observed language- that is, the language the parents speak to each other. If the parents use the majority language, this is a big message to the kids that they don't really NEED the minority tongue at all. Plus, if there are siblings their play language often defaults to the majority language. 

 

If possible,, try for MLAH- Minority Language at Home. Use English all the time when together as a family in Thailand. The kids will get plenty of exposure to Thai at school, with friends, with family, etc.  This seems to work a lot better.

As i was thinking about my daughter's English and Thai skills I came across the substance of what you are saying. I also met people who told me to stick to one language because they get confused when learning two.

 

I ignored the second point as nonsense since our languages are spoken naturally at home: Thai and English by mother English by me. I have never talked to my daughter about speaking English. It is just the way I communicate. The nursery teacher, English speaking Filipina, does talk to her about Thai and English.

 

We moved away from living next door to the in laws because none of them speak English and I felt I was the minority by a long way so living away from them balances the two languages.

 

We also changed from a mainly Thai nursery to one where all leading teachers speak English. I felt the need to get more people than me speaking English to our child.

 

I work away and then can spend weeks at home, as now. Since I talk to my children a lot, I maintain a good influence on their language at home. Daughter follows tv programmes and songs in both languages and Peppa Pig is only in English as far as we are aware! The language in Peppa is pretty good for a tot.

 

I checked at nursery the other day on the language abilities of the other children there. Two other children speak some English, the rest speak Thai. I am not complaining here but if there were more English speakers I would be more content.

 

Overall, I am aware of what you say and we are doing our best and so far our daughter speaks both languages as well as any 3.5 year old.

[Hanaguma]

Just now, todlad said:

As i was thinking about my daughter's English and Thai skills I came across the substance of what you are saying. I also met people who told me to stick to one language because they get confused when learning two.

Those people, simply, are wrong. There is no research evidence that proves this.  Children are amazingly flexible and sometimes 'play' with languages. This can come across as 'making mistakes' but in reality the children are just making connections anddeveloping their understanding of both languages.  

 

The key for bilingualism is input. The minority language needs constant support and input, as many hours as possible.  The situation where I am (Japan) is that most English speaking parents work long hours, and their kids are left with their Japanese speaking wives, who naturally speak Japanese all day to the kids. The kids only get English (if they are lucky) for an hour or two, plus maybe on weekends if dad isn't playing golf or busy.  

 

Stick with your system, with max English time, and it will probably work, especially when English is the minority language because in many countries English is seen as a "prestige" language.

[todlad]

18 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Those people, simply, are wrong. There is no research evidence that proves this.  Children are amazingly flexible and sometimes 'play' with languages. This can come across as 'making mistakes' but in reality the children are just making connections anddeveloping their understanding of both languages.  

 

The key for bilingualism is input. The minority language needs constant support and input, as many hours as possible.  The situation where I am (Japan) is that most English speaking parents work long hours, and their kids are left with their Japanese speaking wives, who naturally speak Japanese all day to the kids. The kids only get English (if they are lucky) for an hour or two, plus maybe on weekends if dad isn't playing golf or busy.  

 

Stick with your system, with max English time, and it will probably work, especially when English is the minority language because in many countries English is seen as a "prestige" language.

That is interesting since I did see in several places that children might drop one language in favour of another. I accept it was anecdotal evidence and I did not look into it any further. You saw that I dismissed the confusion idea as rubbish and I have been proven right, no surprise.

 

i agree with you, a child is a sponge and soaks up everything. 

 

Because I am stubborn and could not for a second imagine not being able to talk to my own children, I made my interactions as full and as strong as possible. I don’t speak Thai but I buy or acquire Thai materials as I do English materials and mother is a natural teacher. Mother’s English skills are around pre intermediate level with conversation better then written, again no surprise.

 

For anyone who worries about this, all I say is, starting talking to your children the moment they are born and don’t stop. Our son is eight weeks old yet this morning I read him a Mr Men story, played him some Italian military music that involved marching up and down and we talked about our Christmas tree and the lights. I know many people will consider me odd but I feel a sense of achievement when they start talking to me in English.

 

Our daughter is grappling with grammar now, exactly as you said. She gets much of it right and some of it wrong. But I don’t regret for a second what we are doing and I encourage people here who may be inheriting a child along with a girlfriend to talk to them even if their English at first is zero. I have a stepson whose first language was Russian but at nine years of age, from almost no English, he learned all the fundamentals of English in a year and his vocabulary was impressive. Again, his mother was bilingual, advanced skills this time. Meet him now and you could never guess he is not a native speaker.

[BritManToo]

39 minutes ago, todlad said:

For anyone who worries about this, all I say is, starting talking to your children the moment they are born and don’t stop. Our son is eight weeks old yet this morning I read him a Mr Men story, played him some Italian military music that involved marching up and down and we talked about our Christmas tree and the lights. I know many people will consider me odd but I feel a sense of achievement when they start talking to me in English.

We speak English at home, and my 7 year old watches English cartoons on youtube a lot. He often comes out with new English phrases we never used, 'Let's take a look' was his recent memorable sentence.

He also speaks his grandmothers strange Phetchabun village dialect quite easily with her, although I can't understand a word she says and I'm OK with Lanna and Central Thai.

 

It took me a while to convince him not to say, "I'm gonna kill you motherf%$#@r"

[manchega]

On 12/4/2018 at 9:32 AM, BritManToo said:

No, I'm retired, been retired for 17 years.

When my boy's finished school, I collect him, then I'm home with him.

 

Always interesting to read when people that have to work to survive think they are wealthy.

Wealthy, is when you no longer have to work.

nope far from wealthy, had I been more intelligent in my youth I would have realised money was more important, but alas left it too late for that.....

so working to provide/contribute and to have something worthwhile to do

did the corporate bit, probably could have retired with the wage after a bit but who needs to work 16 hour days?

work from home and take kids to school,

what would one do without a little bit of something to occupy the mind?