I don't live in Thailand. I just spend about a week a month. I do buy travel insurance each time, but they rejected the claims that I thought were legit, and I didn't even file a claim for my heart attack, which I chalked up to a pre-existing condition. I'm 100% insured through Medicare in the USA. But you can't hop a flight during a heart attack. Admittedly, I do go to Bumrungrad and Samitivej, mostly because they have my complete histories from when I worked in Thailand and had 100% (Euro based) coverage through my employer. So I'm paying their premium price because it's not a strain for me. Just a PITA. The biggest problem was the daily limit from my bank back home, so I had to pay them 300K baht a day while I was staying there, to stay under $10K USD a day Tying all that back to the OP, I know it's possible to live a decent life in LOS for 30K a month. But that doesn't leave a lot to set aside for surprise expenses and the not so surprising expenses of getting up there in years. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of older YouTubers lamenting that they've lived overseas for decades, and now they can't afford to move back. They haven't been making contributions to SS, have no savings, and no credit to rent an apartment or buy (and insure) a car. Maybe that's the algorithm feeding me... At least back home, I can pick up some work if I get strapped. Not so in Thailand. One data point that surprised me is that I have 2 Canuck friends I used to work with, and they're paying well over 40K Baht a month for health insurance to get the coverage they need. Largely age related. Ouch.