Making Money In Thailand ?

[onethailand]

Anybody think this was a good deal for 16000 per month ? ( its already rented now )

http://www.thailand-property-guide.com/ind...;PropID=0003369

I thought it was a REAL good deal! showed it to my Thai wife and she just laughed. She said she can get the same house for about 5K baht per month.......She says anything on the net is geared to farangs...

That's a superb deal - but tell your wife I will pay her 100K commission if she can get me 4 at 5000 baht apiece...

[Rionoir]

I am curious what some of you consider an acceptable lifestyle. I find it funny that in the teacher forum you can live the high life with 100k baht a month... and I hear some people here that sound single that are saying they can barely get by on that. LoL 100k baht a month is even a decent salary in the US if you don't have a huge apartment in a major city... I can't imagine it being inadequate in Thailand?

[N47HAN]

I am curious what some of you consider an acceptable lifestyle. I find it funny that in the teacher forum you can live the high life with 100k baht a month... and I hear some people here that sound single that are saying they can barely get by on that. LoL 100k baht a month is even a decent salary in the US if you don't have a huge apartment in a major city... I can't imagine it being inadequate in Thailand?

3000 $ a month is a good salary in the US?

Maybe just me but it dont sound alot ?

I am from the uk though and working on that would only be 400 quid a week ?

Christ the minimum must be near 250 gbp by now .

But agree 100,000 Baht could be classed as comfortable as long as your not living month to month on it.

Would imagine there would be a few teachers out there that would hold the mother of all parties if their salary went up to that

[kdvsn]

I am curious what some of you consider an acceptable lifestyle. I find it funny that in the teacher forum you can live the high life with 100k baht a month... and I hear some people here that sound single that are saying they can barely get by on that. LoL 100k baht a month is even a decent salary in the US if you don't have a huge apartment in a major city... I can't imagine it being inadequate in Thailand?

3000 $ a month is a good salary in the US?

Maybe just me but it dont sound alot ?

I am from the uk though and working on that would only be 400 quid a week ?

Christ the minimum must be near 250 gbp by now .

But agree 100,000 Baht could be classed as comfortable as long as your not living month to month on it.

Would imagine there would be a few teachers out there that would hold the mother of all parties if their salary went up to that

The median household income in the US is about US$47,000 per year. If the above mentioned $3000 per month refers to after-tax money, then that's probably more than what the median household in the US would be living off of. Whether that's a "decent salary" or not depends on one's perspective, but if it's somewhere near the median in the US one would think that one wouldn't be living the life of a pauper if they had that amount in Thailand.

[pipmart]

Ive been married to my Thai wife 3 years, she has lived with me in England for over 4 years.

I am fed up with the weather here and am hoping to move out to Bangkok in the next year.

Ive thought about renting out my house in the UK and renting in Bkk but what I will get in rent for my house after paying a % to an agent and paying buildings insurance etc just will not be worth the hassle.

I think the best idea is to sell it. In doing this I will be able to bank £150000 and at the moment it is possible to get 6.25% interest in an intant access internet account this would give me about £781 ( 52000 baht ) per month. I am looking to rent a cheap house on the outskirts of Bkk in areas such as Nonthaburi / Taliang Chan / Bang Na (open to ideas)

I am quite a good business minded person so I would be looking for other ways to make some extra cash without using all my capital. I may consider buying a couple of condos to renovate and rent out. Ive looked on some of the Thai bank website's at some of the repossed condos and there seems some cheap deals. I wouldnt be rushing into this though. In England I sell lots of things on Ebay so I would be bringing my laptop along and hoping to find some products to sell from Thailand.

Am I been unrealistic to think we can live on this ?

There must be people that have made it in Thailand with far less than £150000 and 52000 baht per month in interest.

Anybody got any ideas as to what sort of business I could get involved with some (not all) of my hard earned money.

PS: im not a stupid farang, im not interested in owning a bar or guest house, please dont try and sell me yours

[Rionoir]

I'm not saying $35K in the US is a ton of money... but you can live just fine off of it without feeling like you are poor. Now if you were supporting a family or trying to have the best of everything, it wouldn't work so well... but for one person like I said, unless you really can't control your urge to buy everything you want and have to have it right NOW, then I'm saying it works just fine... and translated to Thailand, I've got to imagine you can have a very nice life for that amount based on what I've heard. But some people are making it sound like that's bare minimum just for them living by themself... and I can only imagine how nice their living quarters must be, and that they are somewhat spoiled now and don't realize how well they are living.

[JimsKnight]

Yeah, when people bandy about the average weekly income, some people don't realise that it's off breadwinners in the household bringing money in.

I could mention about how nowadays it sucks how families (in the UK) have to work a lot longer so that their kids have a decent life.

However, in Thailand anyone who is single and cannot make it through the month on 100k baht needs to seriously re-evaluate their priorities and spending habits. Cause I 'made it' on a tropical island where everything is imported from the mainland on a paltry 20K baht per month and managed a decent social life.

Up in CM I was living very comfortably on 30k baht per month, was going out 5 days out of 7 and had a healthy lifestyle.

7 time out of 10 the reason for lack of money is spending it on the drink, this is something almost all expats do, some more than others. Cut your drinking down and believe me you'll see money last a whole lot longer. Thats the secret to making your money last boys and girls.

[Heng]

On that note, another thing that I advise my foreign friends of from time to time is to cut down on the number of inlaws they are supporting.

[Nongwahyay]

I would like to be selling something through the internet. I like selling on Ebay, its just one massive world wide shop and if you find the right products at the right buying price you can make a lot of money.

The thing is the people living in thailand and making a lot of money from Ebay are not going to post a list on here of what they buy, where they buy it from and how much profit they make.

I would not neither.

Its a case of doing your homework and finding something new, and keep finding something new as others are always following and you cant have the whole of the internet to yourself.

PS: if anyone does have a list of things that do sell and make a good profit please PM it to me along with an address of where I can buy from, how much they cost and the person I need to ask for to do the best price

PPS: I would like to do the same.................please PM me the same list.................. I´ll then do you a return PM and tell you how to REALLY make money with the same list..........................................

[englishoak]

Cut your drinking down and believe me you'll see money last a whole lot longer. Thats the secret to making your money last boys and girls

On that note, another thing that I advise my foreign friends of from time to time is to cut down on the number of inlaws they are supporting

amen

[anaorak]

Sainsburys Internet Saver pays 6% on all balances from £1 up, and this will increase to 6.25% on 1 August 2007.

http://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/savings/sa...PAGISAVMAIN0002

Northern Rock's Silver Savings Online account offers 6.1% from £1 if you are over 50. The interst rate is guaranteed to be no lower than the UK Bank Base Rate until 31 Jan 2010 and there are no restrictions on withdrawing your money but you can only manage the account online.

http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savings/silver-savings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/

Icesave* pays 5.95% currently (scheduled to increase to 6.2% on 13 July 2007), and is guaranteeing to beat the base rate by at least 0.25% until October 2009, making it a top guaranteed account.

http://www.icesave.co.uk/

This website below is great.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/s...s-best-interest

There are also some monthly saver accounts that pay up to 8%

http://www.lloydstsb.com/savings/monthly_saver.asp

This is very useful, well done, more posts like this please with links!!!!

[anaorak]

Ive been married to my Thai wife 3 years, she has lived with me in England for over 4 years.

I am fed up with the weather here and am hoping to move out to Bangkok in the next year.

Ive thought about renting out my house in the UK and renting in Bkk but what I will get in rent for my house after paying a % to an agent and paying buildings insurance etc just will not be worth the hassle.

I think the best idea is to sell it. In doing this I will be able to bank £150000 and at the moment it is possible to get 6.25% interest in an intant access internet account this would give me about £781 ( 52000 baht ) per month. I am looking to rent a cheap house on the outskirts of Bkk in areas such as Nonthaburi / Taliang Chan / Bang Na (open to ideas)

I am quite a good business minded person so I would be looking for other ways to make some extra cash without using all my capital. I may consider buying a couple of condos to renovate and rent out. Ive looked on some of the Thai bank website's at some of the repossed condos and there seems some cheap deals. I wouldnt be rushing into this though. In England I sell lots of things on Ebay so I would be bringing my laptop along and hoping to find some products to sell from Thailand.

Am I been unrealistic to think we can live on this ?

There must be people that have made it in Thailand with far less than £150000 and 52000 baht per month in interest.

Anybody got any ideas as to what sort of business I could get involved with some (not all) of my hard earned money.

PS: im not a stupid farang, im not interested in owning a bar or guest house, please dont try and sell me yours

I read somewhere, "how to make a small fortune in Thailand...

.... Start with a large fortune!!!

[JimsKnight]

OT. You're half-way on the right track by investing £150k and living off the interest. You've essentially made your fortune and can walk away if anything goes wrong. For me that would be the minimum amount, potentially its better if you can bang some more money away to the tune of £175k to £200k.

You need to remember (in a worse case situation) that you'll be supporting 2 people not 1 and that the £ may lose value against the baht, thus cutting your income down. Also in the event of marital breakdown your wife may be able to claim divorce money off you (especially if you have kids).

Also (and this is something few people are aware of) if you nominate to have your interest added monthly and not yearly to your account, you will get a lower interest rate than what they advertise (this is what happens with Icesave and many of the others).

Finally you'll need to be a computer literate to operate internet banking and ensure that (each month) money is transfered to your <insert current account of your choice> for withdrawal from an ATM in Thailand. Nationwide comes in handy for this.

Good luck!

[Maxi101]

So, johnson36, do you have kids (if so how old are they?) and how old are you?

Will 150,000 pounds be your total assets if you sell your home?

What line of work are you in?

I think more info will help with responses.

Im 36 yrs old. My wife is 25 yrs. I dont have any kids yet and im not planning to have any in the next 5 years or so. Yes 150k would be my only asset at the moment ! Which is why I would want to invest it to get maximum interest with no risk. 6.61% or 6.56% monthly interest 1 or 2 year bonds sound good for most of the money, probably 120k and the rest in a instant access internet account with around 6.3% interest.

By the way am only looking to rent a very modest house / bungalow with 1 or 2 bedrooms and 30 minutes or so out of town.

I am not looking to rent a millionares pad like most of you probably own.

By the way some of you talk unless someone has several properties rented out + 1 million £'s / 2 million US dollars in the bank and a monthly income in the hundreds of 1000's bahts then its not possible to live anywhere else in the world other than the place you were born.

If you are really planning on kids in five years, don't dare to move here. They change everything.

[Maxi101]

OT. You're half-way on the right track by investing £150k and living off the interest. You've essentially made your fortune and can walk away if anything goes wrong. For me that would be the minimum amount, potentially its better if you can bang some more money away to the tune of £175k to £200k.

You need to remember (in a worse case situation) that you'll be supporting 2 people not 1 and that the £ may lose value against the baht, thus cutting your income down. Also in the event of marital breakdown your wife may be able to claim divorce money off you (especially if you have kids).

Also (and this is something few people are aware of) if you nominate to have your interest added monthly and not yearly to your account, you will get a lower interest rate than what they advertise (this is what happens with Icesave and many of the others).

Finally you'll need to be a computer literate to operate internet banking and ensure that (each month) money is transfered to your <insert current account of your choice> for withdrawal from an ATM in Thailand. Nationwide comes in handy for this.

Good luck!

Does the Missus has family here ?!

[Maxi101]

If you succeed you will feel great, and if you fail you will remember all the warnings you 've got.

Don't understand me and the other "negatives" wrong, they easily care and don't want another farrang fail. In the end you have to decide.

Another warning, in my opinion if aware or not, newcommoers have to deal with the culture shock and I tell you the ones who say they don't are worse off because they aren't aware of it.

Many do things here they won't have done at home with cool air around their brain.

[cantona_777]

I think most of you guys are way out of line. I'm planning as well to come to LOS next year with my wife and child. Investing about 200 gbp at roughly 8-12% usual market deviations pending. We are also planning to build a house with money saved on top of investments. Currently in the UK we get by on 1000 GBP (70K bht) a month. If we can get by easily on this sort of money in the UK how come you can't do it on 100K in Thailand? I think it comes down to lifestyle, if you're messing around with girls and blowing 2-3K a day then yes it is not enough. I'm more concerned about a stable life with my family.

I'd suggest:

-Invest money offshore

-Mix cash and funds - you need to increase the value of your holdings. If you don't you will be losing up to 5% a year due to inflation and currency.

-Diversify in to different currencies and draw down as the rates are appropriate

-Create a list of monthly expenses and see how much you might be spending. If you need more then 50K then a:) work longer in the uk b:) invest smarter

Don't get discouraged by nay sayers stating you can't do it. Plan ahead and look for growth.

Good luck

[blizzard]

why you want to raise a child in thailand?

[cantona_777]

Uggr. It's a lot safer and saner than the UK. Btw, I'm not English.

A lot of farangs raise children in LOS. IF you can afford private education than you're a lot better of than doing it in the west. At least that's my two cents for you.

[AmericanGuy1066]

So, johnson36, do you have kids (if so how old are they?) and how old are you?

Will 150,000 pounds be your total assets if you sell your home?

What line of work are you in?

I think more info will help with responses.

Im 36 yrs old. My wife is 25 yrs. I dont have any kids yet and im not planning to have any in the next 5 years or so. Yes 150k would be my only asset at the moment ! Which is why I would want to invest it to get maximum interest with no risk. 6.61% or 6.56% monthly interest 1 or 2 year bonds sound good for most of the money, probably 120k and the rest in a instant access internet account with around 6.3% interest.

By the way am only looking to rent a very modest house / bungalow with 1 or 2 bedrooms and 30 minutes or so out of town.

I am not looking to rent a millionares pad like most of you probably own.

By the way some of you talk unless someone has several properties rented out + 1 million £'s / 2 million US dollars in the bank and a monthly income in the hundreds of 1000's bahts then its not possible to live anywhere else in the world other than the place you were born.

your taking the hump a bit mate - most are giving good advice - 150K simply aint anough and dont think your going to make

money here - you might and my cap of to you but for every 100 who try 50 scratch a living 49 fail and 1 makes it

up to you but dont think 150k is anywhere neough unless you can work here and your wife can as well in some form of

decent jobs earnign say 40k a month between you

sorry stop kidding yourself and listen a bit to those whove lived here for years and years

I am not in Thailand so I probably don't know anything......but I agree 150K GBP/308K USD is not enough unless you can be earning more somehow in Thailand.

That brings me to my question......How much is enough without earning more in Thailand?

How much is enough? that probably is a good question.

For me, enough is:

Capital 300,000 GBP invested to return 6% minimum, ie. £18,000 per year, or £1,500 per month (97,500 baht). However some funds have been doing 40-80% a year.

UK property holdings, 10 houses at a market value of £1,096,000 exposed to a UK housing market, historical trend since 1970 rising at 100% every 10 years, hopefully. ie long term capital appreciation to out pace inflation.

Monthly rental income, currently £4,550 per month (also rising at inflation) to cover a mortgage debt of £816,000 @ 6.25% ie. 4250 per month, leaving currently £300 per month, converted into baht is = 19,500 baht.

Total worth over the years will be

1. Long term capital appreciation on £1,096,000 @ 100% every 10 years

2. 117,000 bath per month.

So long as interest rates don't do anything silly. personally I expect them to go up another quarter to half percent then dip next year. hopefully inflation will report well by then.

Additionally, alas that is not enougth for me to come thailand and to let go completley of western ties. I will still continue my work, but only six months per year, with the other six months (winter months) in thailand. My work is contracting (temporary) in SAP (computer business software), and pays approx £140,000 (before overtime) per year ie. over six months can save £60,000.

Will keep this going for a few years, before making a decision to cut ties all-together and stay in thailand or return to the UK. Hopefully would know better by then.

I'm 36.

So currently approx 150,000 baht per month so long as I'm fairly safe over the longer term. But I don't know what do to with all that time!

So far the out and out winner of the "Look how clever I am " post. Also the leader in the "I'm considerably richer than you" stakes.

Well fantastic Loadsamoney! That has really helped the OP to know how clever and rich you are. The gratutitous flashing of your wealth was quite fashionable down our way in the late 80's but these things are cyclical so maybe its fashionable again.

Perhaps we can forget the OP and change this thread to a big swinging d**ks contest.

Looking through the figures, the message I try to convey is:

1. stay invested in the UK property market, over the long term it is important to remain in it, because although in the short-term there is an attractive gain however over the long-term it would be so much more difficult to buy back in at a later date and if you would have stayed in-an even more attractive gain! think-about-it.

2. what-ever plan you make be prepared to move both ways, contemplate both scenarios, moving to thailand and returning to the UK if you needed to. Make as sure as you can, you are ok on both these scenarios

Was looking thru this. Just curious, how do the numbers stack up if interest rates go up and property prices down, given the current environment.

[lazeeboy]

Interestingly enough I am in a very similar, albeit smaller, boat. I complete on my property next week and will be moving to Bkk in October. I only made half what you did (however I did that in 18 months so I am not complaining!!!). Like you I considered renting but after my mate rented his place to a lovely eastern european coouple only to find 13 Albanians in there the following week. I realised that even with an agent remote landlording is hard.

In London the property market feels like it did just before the last crash. There are speculative developments going up everywhere and flats in modern blocks are not valued at what people thought they would be. In the news last week there was, for the first time, talk of negative equity in some places. Now I know this may be local to areas in London but generally where London goes others follow.

First time buyers are so far out of the loop that things could go bang and crash. Of course I may be wrong and the next boom is coming but we seem to have hit a stamp duty ceiling where I live and all the agents are saying that one bedroomed flats will not go over £250K because of stamp duty so little in the way of growth expected in that market in the next couple of years.

With all this in mind I decided to sell and invest. You can get 6% easily but I went to a variety of brokers and they all recommended a good cautious fund which should yield 9-12%. The one I have gone for will re-invest anything over 6% and I can take the 6% yearly income on myinvestment. It has a small risk but a very small one.

I chose HSBC and if you invest over £50K you get free premier banking which makes alot of sense if your money is in the UK. They have opened a bank account for me in Bkk and transfers of money are free. I will keep all my monies from investment and business in UK banks and only transfer in what I need. As De Niro said in Heat, " Only have what you can walk away from in 15 minutes" or something like that. Anyway rules change and if we have to leave Bkk in a hurry I don't want to lose all my money too.

I will be living in one of the outer suburbs Sapansoong which is 15 minutes from the new airport and about 10 miles from the city centre. There is a BTS station being built only 2-3k away as part of the link to the airport so that should help transport. There is a bus that goes to Siam Square and the market is wonderful. It is not, though, ex pat heaven, as I have only ever seen one farang and he seems to have disapeared!!

You can rent a 2 bedroomed house a 3 minute walk from the market ad the bus stops for 5-6K Baht. Its very green and peaceful and in the evening we can drive into the city in less than 30 minutes (not in the rush hour unfortunately!!!)

Many people will tell you that you can't come to Los on less than 10 squillion pounds but frankly you can. There are so many threads that address it and so many people live here well on less than 52K. Medical emergencies can be avoided with insurance and as you will not be bar hopping and fining you can live a nice comfortable life on the money. Much better than the life you will live in UK.

I wish you all the best in your new adventure

agree 52000b is enough to live on easy but in say 10 years it wont be ,you'll be off the property ladder in england and prices would have doubled ,in ten years prices in thailand have doubled too ,beer rent ,food etc ,think hard before whatever you do ......

[blizzard]

how you know prices gonna dubble in 10 years.

ive been cumming to los for 5 years. prices hardly move.

[weescotsguy66]

So how far are you down the lines of moving over to LOS?

Rented property can easily be 3,000 baht for a small apartment, giving you time to sort out, where you want to go.

Yes the interent is full of hyped up rices for farangs, so your wife should do the walking for you, you not to be anywhere around.

Good Luck with ebay, is your wife not going to be working like a part-time job say even 10,000 boosts your income.

Have you completed analysis what your going to spend your money on.

With your estimated 16,000 bhat rent way to high look before you leap.

Why are you looking at Bangkok? There are cheaper places elsewhere in Thailand with the same farang facilities.

I am still working and going back and forth to Thailand monthly, one day I will sit down and find out what e spend our money on.

Kids Don't come cheap but lots of fun.

Drop me a PM if yo want to chat more.

[fletchsmile]

how you know prices gonna dubble in 10 years.

ive been cumming to los for 5 years. prices hardly move.

Blizzard some of us do a little more than catch the bus and eat noodles. That said it'll be coming to you soon. Bus fares up 50 satang and mama noodles up 1 baht in 10 years or so I hear. Don't tell me you don't drink beer, that's gone up quite a bit in the last few years

To OP

Would agree for the need to protect vs inflation. Also there are much nicer places in Thailand than BKK, which are cheaper too.

Edited October 15, 2007 by fletchthai68

[freitag1]

I really don't get all those people who say you can't make a living in Thailand and earn good money. The Internet opens the doors to work basically everywhere and making money on the Internet is still no rocket science.

[fletchsmile]

Sainsburys Internet Saver pays 6% on all balances from £1 up, and this will increase to 6.25% on 1 August 2007.

http://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk/savings/sa...PAGISAVMAIN0002

Northern Rock's Silver Savings Online account offers 6.1% from £1 if you are over 50. The interst rate is guaranteed to be no lower than the UK Bank Base Rate until 31 Jan 2010 and there are no restrictions on withdrawing your money but you can only manage the account online.

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/

Icesave* pays 5.95% currently (scheduled to increase to 6.2% on 13 July 2007), and is guaranteeing to beat the base rate by at least 0.25% until October 2009, making it a top guaranteed account.

http://www.icesave.co.uk/

This website below is great.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/s...s-best-interest

There are also some monthly saver accounts that pay up to 8%

http://www.lloydstsb.com/savings/monthly_saver.asp

This is very useful, well done, more posts like this please with links!!!!

With the benefit of hindsight....

Edited October 16, 2007 by fletchthai68

[fletchsmile]

Northern Rock's Silver Savings Online account offers 6.1% from £1 if you are over 50. The interst rate is guaranteed to be no lower than the UK Bank Base Rate until 31 Jan 2010 and there are no restrictions on withdrawing your money but you can only manage the account online.

...

This is very useful, well done, more posts like this please with links...

OK, including links:

Barings Bank, Hokkaido Takushoko Bank, First International Bank of Grenada, Net Bank, ...:

"http://www.google.co.th/search?hl=th&q=bank+collapses"

I think they'll all be paying similar rates in 2010

Edited October 16, 2007 by fletchthai68

[astral]

http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savings/silver-savings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/://http://www.northernrock.co.uk/savin...avings-

online/

:D