Not So Cheap To Live In Bangkok

[caramello]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

[JimmyCA]

In 2000 it was very cheap. Now it costs about twice as much in USD terms. The baht is too strong for the good of Thailand's economy.

[londonthai]

yes, but you can always change your lifestyle and live on 200 baht/day, as the great part of the local population do. It's hard but it's doable

[polecat]

That's terrible! How can you be so cruelly deceived? Ask for your money back!

[caramello]

Sorry to cause offence just wondering if anyone else had the same experience that was all.

[TigerLily]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

I can still buy my lunch for 40 baht.

The Cinema still 120 baht .

I still pay 100 baht for wash and blow dry my hair.

Housing is greatly incresing price.

but if u in your own place thing aint change alotz .

unless you paid in dollar!

Thing hvnt changed much.

TigerLily

[caramello]

I can't own my own place...

 

[percy2]

I can't own my own place...

Why not?

I do.

Cheers

[andy1308]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

I can still buy my lunch for 40 baht.

The Cinema still 120 baht .

I still pay 100 baht for wash and blow dry my hair.

Housing is greatly incresing price.

but if u in your own place thing aint change alotz .

unless you paid in dollar!

Thing hvnt changed much.

TigerLily

Wow - I am doing well, I only pay 25 baht for mine. (37 baht if you include the bottle of Pepsi)

[UnknownPoster]

The cheap dollar, big increases in housing, the Thais double charging foreigners for everything.

Not cheap any longer.

[jumnien]

Those looking for the cheapest place to live on Earth would do well to look elsewhere. Those who are drawn to Thailand and appreciate Thai culture will be rewarded indeed!

[caramello]

with humble respect...

i wasn't trying to hint at anything to do with Thailand or Thai culture.

I didn't try to suggest that i was looking for the cheapest place on Earth.

I can't own my own place as we are a non-thai family

we are only here for a couple of years

I simply and honestly wondered if for Expat employees of companies had been suprised at the "real" cost of living when they arrived here compared to what ever they may have been told at interview. nothing more, nothing less.

[backflip]

"Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe? "

You moved here based on someone else's experience? Ouch! I moved here because I wanted to, not because it was the cheapest place on earth. I guess you're going to be forced to move to someplace that has nothing worth stealing.

[Briggsy]

OP,

Please elaborate, what exactly do you mean by "an expat lifestyle". I have lived in Bangkok for over 10 years and I think it's dammmm cheap. When I go back to the UK I find the prices just stupidly expensive.

Maybe you're new to this city and you're getting completely ripped off because you don't know the score. No offence. Do some investigation and you might find you can dramatically reduce your expenditure.

[toptuan]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

Yes, living in Thailand is VERY cheap. Living in Bangkok is not.

I never pay more than 20 baht for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My haircuts are 30 baht. My new apartment is 2,500 baht a month. Buying a nice dress shirt for teaching is about 199 baht. I hired an electrician to come into my apartment and do some significant rewiring to accommodate an air-con unit and water heater. He spent about two hours doing the job. Cost of labor and materials: 100 baht. Every week I have my vehicle cleaned thoroughly--about an hour job. 30 baht.

Last year, I was offered a job at a Bangkok university at three times my current salary. After surveying the territory and expenses, I decided I couldn't afford it. Currently, in "the rest of Thailand" I can save 65% of my monthly salary which I use for international travel during vacation times. (Incidentally, I consider Bangkok as one of my "international" destinations due to the high costs of food, transportation and accommodation.)

Get out of Bangkok and discover the rest of Thailand. Perhaps the "bill of goods" sold to you will wind up being true, after all.

Edited September 15, 2007 by toptuan

[UnknownPoster]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

Yes, living in Thailand is VERY cheap. Living in Bangkok is not.

I never pay more than 20 baht for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My haircuts are 30 baht. My new apartment is 2,500 baht a month. Buying a nice dress shirt for teaching is about 199 baht. I hired an electrician to come into my apartment and do some significant rewiring to accommodate an air-con unit and water heater. He spent about two hours doing the job. Cost of labor and materials: 100 baht. Every week I have my vehicle cleaned thoroughly--about an hour job. 30 baht.

I was offered a job at a Bangkok university at three times my current salary. After surveying the territory and expenses, I decided I couldn't afford it. Currently, in "the rest of Thailand" I can save 65% of my monthly salary which I use for international travel during vacation times.

Get out of Bangkok and discover the rest of Thailand. Perhaps the "bill of goods" sold to you will wind up being true, after all.

60thb a day for food. Sounds dreadfull.

[samran]

BKK definetly has gotten more expensive since we got here in 2000.

Supply and demand, thats all. To say that because you are a foreigner you get charge double for everything is an out and out lie. If you want a certain lifestyle in BKK, you certainly pay for it. I know we do, Thai passports and all.

[Furbie]

with humble respect...

i wasn't trying to hint at anything to do with Thailand or Thai culture.

I didn't try to suggest that i was looking for the cheapest place on Earth.

I can't own my own place as we are a non-thai family

we are only here for a couple of years

I simply and honestly wondered if for Expat employees of companies had been suprised at the "real" cost of living when they arrived here compared to what ever they may have been told at interview. nothing more, nothing less.

Welcome to TV; where you will find a hard core cadre of people who firmly believe Thailand is perfect, complainers should be shot and life in general in Thailand is so perfect we should bow down and scrape every time we see a Thai.

Of course, there is the other side which say that every Thai is out to rip you off, every Thai girl is a prostitute and the country is a 3^rd world backwater that will never get its act together - so don't even bother trying to complain or fix anything.

Once you have been posting/reading for a while, you will figure out who is who and hopefully be one of the middle folks who realizes nothing is perfect, but in general it's a great place and that by helping each other out, we can all have a better life here in the LOS.

As to your question; in general, I have found most services connected with Westerners/foreigners have gotten more expensive – this is particularly true over the past two years. F&B prices, cable, hotels, rent, health care, etc., have all gone up significantly. However, basic Thai service style items like motorcycle and regular taxis, hair cuts, street vendors and basic items such as water, rice and cooking oil remain the same or close. So, if you want live your life with only the basics, more power to you – I however, can not, and my life has gotten more expensive.

That being said, in some cases, such as airfare (thanks to Nok and Thai Air Asia), mobile service, internet etc., I am happy to say it's getting cheaper. But you would think with the baht being so strong for so long that some other pricing would go down, especially on $ imported gods, but that is not really the case – maybe to early in the cycle with forward contracts at previous exchange rates.

Now a quick note to you look at your home county pricing people - what a poor argument, look how cheap Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are – these are the comparison countries, along with Malaysia (also getting expensive) Burma (never been there) and the Philippines – seems the same to me. But if we compared cable, electronic goods, cosmetics (quality), cars, wine, etc. it is all much cheaper in the US. I would also point out that the customer care would be vastly improved as well. Let's compare apples to apples, not to oranges – no matter how badly you want to make your point about how great it is we all get to live in paradise.

[ZZZ]

Does anyone else feel that they were sold the idea of Thailand being cheap to live in and then arrived in Bangkok to find that (for an expat lifestyle at least) it's not nearly as cheap as they might have been led to believe?

As no one else have answered your question I will give it a go.

When you hear most people talking about how cheap it is in Thailand they usually fail to mention that the prices they are talking about are the lowest prices you can find. In reality the prices you end up paying are probably twice the amount you were told before you got here.

Another thing they did not mention was that the life style here is different. You probably eat out a lot more in Thailand than in your home country, this will probably cost a lot if you prefer western food. There are also a choice of things to do and they come at different price levels, sometimes more expensive than back home.

Other things that is not mentioned is the work place peer pressure that could make you feel like you have to spend more money than normal. There could be the need for a driver, gardener, maid, cook. Schooling for the kids could also be a lot more expensive than anticipated. If you are used to government health care these costs could also come as a surprise.

In the end I agree with you and think that most people living here are spending more money than they initially thought they would.

Still, Thailand is, or can be, cheaper than most of our home countries.

[toptuan]

60thb a day for food. Sounds dreadfull.

It is. I live an obscenely affluent lifestyle compared to those around me. They have to cook at home because of the outrageous 20-baht meals at the local eateries.

Oh, and compared to the West? Those 20-baht meals are tastier and healthier!

No, not everything is perfect in LOS, but these things were a nice bonus to discover when I arrived: basic, simplified, healthy living at a bargain.

Edited September 15, 2007 by toptuan

[caramello]

Thank you very much to those recent posters

I have to say after that initial barrage for what i thought was a fairly benign question that i thought i would simply never post again! Really quite upsetting but then again i am a softie kind of girl

We do like Thailand and have lived in a few countries with our various postings and have learnt to see the "good" and the "bad" in each new place (including home with the benefit of a wider perspective).

I think though that perhaps the HR departments have not yet caught up with the price hikes that some folks indicate have occured in some sectors.

Anyway Thanks once more it was good to hear some well reasoned opinions and some good straight advice

[JimmyCA]

Those looking for the cheapest place to live on Earth would do well to look elsewhere. Those who are drawn to Thailand and appreciate Thai culture will be rewarded indeed!

I am not sure if this is thai culture but I can walk around the sois where I stay almost as if I am invisable. I like that. The rest of the culture is a void, meaningless.

[Lucifer]

Living in any capitol city is going to be expensive. Just look at New York, London, Paris, Peckham. Way too expensive compared to the rest of the country.

France, is for example relatively cheap compared to England. But not so much Paris, even compared to London.

[think_too_mut]

To remove the main obstacle when it comes to talk how cheap or expensive it is to live in Bangkok, let's take a look at a Thai person living in BKK.

My wife eats food from street vendors or soi eateries, no restaurants, no western food, drinks only plain water, no smoking.

Nobody can call cash strapped nor a cheap Charlie - she would not feed pizza or burgers to the dogs.

It's our daughter that consumes some money - ice creams, donuts, those tempting toys at 7-11 etc, anything with Doraemon or Barbie imprinted that she does not already have.

Once a month, wife's friends from school (they all graduated but have remained connected) would gather, hire a bungalow in some seaside place that has seen no farangs and go 6 of them and share the cost.

She does all that on 10-15K baht per month, including internet, mobile, land line , electricity (aircon used 12-16 hours a day).

Most of things and places she needs to go to are walking distance, if not then taxi, no baht buses.

For simple ailments (colds, cough....), a nearby hospital provides health care at such a low price that she does not bother going to Samitivej where she has an open checkbook with anything 100% refundable.

There is no constraint how much she can spend - but up to 15K is what she does spend and if you asked her she would describe her life as comfortable with no any worries. She could do probably at a third of that if she had to.

What determines the bulk of the cost is the rent. Then build on that. Western food has never been cheap there.

Non-Thai meat, fish, fruit....that I would buy at Carrefour are priced the same as in Tokyo.

I don't understand what has changed - it's always been like that. How could BKK become an expensive place? Same life style would have cost the same 10 years ago.

It's rather - before there were fewer things to spend money on and they were local and cheap. Now with Starbucks and all that, western prices for western goods are same as back home and most Thais don't give a flying <deleted> about them.

Otherwise, we would be seeing massive rioting of impoverished masses - but that is not happening.

Edited September 15, 2007 by think_too_mut

[Jimjim]

Yes, if you want to eat Western food, buy expensive clothes from ritzy malls, etc. it's no cheaper than the U.S. or other countries, for sure. Big apartments are not too much cheaper in Bangkok than Seattle, also. But still, so many things are cheaper. Buses, taxis, etc. If you take advantage of the differences and start to eat Thai food and think differently about how you spend, you will see it's quite cheap compared to a place like London.

Also, I don't see how anyone on a true expat salary could think Bangkok is expensive, as it appeared the OP is now. Perhaps I misunderstood. It's not dirt cheap if you want to eat the same things as home and still use "western" services. Western services are a novelty here so they're more expensive, naturally. Step outside of Emporium, however, and you can see the difference.

[Briggsy]

So, Caramello, could you please give us just 2 examples of expenditure that you are referring to and how much you expected to pay for them.

[londonthai]

changing slightly a lifestyle, adjusting to the local level of goods and services, and as somebody just mentioned above - finding cheaper accommodation, which usuallly is the largest single expenditure.

common sense of shopping around instead of buying on an impuls, mixing with the thai to see how they do things. If, on average, they are spending 6k baht/month, then spend more, but not 10 or 20 times of that.

[caramello]

I am sorry i really do thank those who responded positively to an honest enquiry and a first proper post.

However i don't really feel like responding to the Trolls and the Thought Police.

I am amazed at the hostility on this board, absolutely amazed.

[think_too_mut]

I am sorry i really do thank those who responded positively to an honest enquiry and a first proper post.

However i don't really feel like responding to the Trolls and the Thought Police.

I am amazed at the hostility on this board, absolutely amazed.

It's rather that your original 2 line post sounded like a troll. People like to discuss things like you have asked and possible trolling was put aside.

And you can keep being "amazed" but that's how boards work.

Repeated questions (not from me) to specify what you are comparing have remained un-answered.

In one of your posts you said

"I simply and honestly wondered if for Expat employees of companies had been suprised at the "real" cost of living when they arrived here compared to what ever they may have been told at interview. nothing more, nothing less."

Nobody is surprised. Expats come on packages that are higher than their original package at home.

Companies use reports and stats produced by professional agencies for each (business) place in the world.

No company would send an employee to Thailand to live off 20B som tum off the street vendors "because that's what Thais do".

I was an expat in Papua New Guinea, the most expensive (and little known) place on Earth where 1 L of milk is 5US$. But both sides, my employer and me knew that, and the package was 2 times my Oz money.

[londonthai]

caramello, stick on these boards for some longer to see true trolls.

that may be the case that your employer did tell you some porkies how cheap bangkok is to lure you into the employement contract - you can brake this contract on the ground of wrong facts being presented to you, you can try to change this contract or you an try to find ways of spending less