19 hours ago, Hummin said:

Just made for fun, for someone around my age, between 50 and 60. Some additional savings are preferred, and the emergency savings budget is a bit low, but pick your numbers and see where you end up.

It does if your rent is only 15K which I guess is enough for houses outside of city centres or single guys living in a Studio but if you want a decent sized condo in town or near a beach you’re looking at a minimum of double this.

There’s a reason why Thailand isn’t releasing the number of DTV issued. The Thai public would be shocked.

Shocking

1 hour ago, Cameroni said:

I tell you, I wish I'd put my kids in government school. Their current school alternates English and Thai, but I'm not seeing them make huge progress with Thai.

My kid had a problem with Thai reading/writing.

We hired one of his schoolteachers 2x a week for a year for home tuition (not expensive) and it sorted him out.

2 hours ago, SamSpade said:

It does if your rent is only 15K which I guess is enough for houses outside of city centres or single guys living in a Studio but if you want a decent sized condo in town or near a beach you’re looking at a minimum of double this.

There is quite a bit of variety in the 15k segment, and all this is based on being single. You can fine tune the numbers to fit a partner as well. It is just a low end and medium range. If you want to add a high end, the sky is open. 64k also stays within a 65k transfer budget. I have seen nice smaller standalone houses in Bang Saen close to the beach and marked for 10k, but at a simple standard.

4 hours ago, save the frogs said:

How much is that in Thai Baht? Seems exorbitant.

You never insured because you were not eligible or just refused to?

That is concerning if people are shelling out so much for healthcare.

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.

On 8/13/2026 at 2:57 AM, JJ-Thailand said:

These numbers have been valid for many years. I have been waiting for an increase, but it never came despite increasing costs especially in the past 3-4 years.

According to the Thai authorities you can support yourself on 800,000 Baht per year. But the funny thing is that you only need 400,000 if you are married to a Thai lady. Can you live on 800,000 Baht per year alone? Yes, you can. Can you live on 400,000 Baht per year if you are married to a Thai lady (that probably don't work)? No hope in hell.

If you are married to a Thai lady, have a family home, car and a couple of motorbikes all paid for, 400000 a year is easily enough.

As opposed to YT videos from grifters, I use my brain. Works really well.

15 hours ago, Bally Jaggers said:

There’s a reason why Thailand isn’t releasing the number of DTV issued. The Thai public would be shocked.

Shocking

It could be a huge number definately. So far it's being pushed as a tourist visa, but once the public start to learn it will be outraged. I'm surprised opposition parties don't make more of it.

Weird thing during last elections few politicians even knew how it worked !!!

On 8/13/2026 at 10:34 AM, ikke1959 said:

It is no surprise, but you can live in every country if you make enough money. If you have a job no problem or a pension. Without money it is difficult so survive no matter where you are. Another problem however is the bureaucracy and outdated laws in Thailand. If you have a workpermit you are only allowed to work on the place and in the job you have a permit for. Switching jobs is a lot of paperwork, is difficult to keep your visa, and not easy at all. Almost all jobs are for Thais only, so if you, loose the job you are in real trouble. I am just wondering why foreign people can work here as youtuber, influencer, or whatever name you give to someone who post videos and reals. It should be stopped to give a visa for that

I thought the work permit changed so you can now work anywhere (i.e. including from home). Changing company is still a hassle though.

And the DTV visa doesn't let people open a bank account, but does allow them to post to YouTube, TikTok, etc. Where a lot of the visas that allow you to open a bank account don't allow you to do YouTube.
But if you're paying the 250 baht charge to use an ATM with a foreign card regularly - and all you have is a bit of YouTube income, you're going to run out of money.