Can't Afford To Go Home

[HalfSquat]

I know most people on here are pretty well off and living the dream in LOS but last night I was thinking about going home and I thought of the people that could not afford it.

I've got enough for a ticket if I wanted to go back but don't have any savings so it wouldn't be that easy but what about the people who have been here so long getting a job back home would be too hard or getting mortgage and finding somewhere to live?

Do you know of anyone in that situation or are you yourself in that situation?

Quite a depressing thread really as no matter how nice Thailand is I think a fair amount of us living here are expecting to go home one day.

Got any good tales of going home and having a better life than you thought?

Do you always want to come back to Thailand when you go home?

[mark45y]

I lived with two 20 year old strippers back home. It cost me a small fortune every year. Thailand's the place for me. I could never go home!

[nevermore93]

Interesting topic, and one that I can actually relate to. Me personally, I don't have the means to return home even if I had any desire to. Returning to the states at this point in my life would be like shooting myself in the foot. I no longer have any assets there, and after a year of living and working in Thailand, I don't know if I would be able to handle the reverse culture shock. My life here is far from glamorous, but I can get by on very little. I'll make less here in a day than many guys will spend on booze in one night alone. Trying to start over again in the west is not an idea that I like to consider no matter how tricky life can get here.

I was recently contacted by my family back home. My father is very ill, my mother is half crazy, and my brother has mismanaged the family assets to the brink of disaster. They wanted me to fly home and try to straighten things out, but it was just not an option for me financially. My only options were to request repatriation from the US consulate or find some rich European broad to start sponging off of. I do after all work in the bar scene, and I've seen the girls do it with some success. That last part is a joke of course, but I have taken advantage of a few "opportunities" since I've been here. As soon as I can come up with a decent "dying buffalo" story, I'll be well on my way to competing with the bar girls. If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em!!

Seriously though, I know a few others in similar situations here in my area. We're all just trying to get by and stay legal here in SE Asia. Returning to our home countries is not an option strictly for financial reasons. Getting dropped back into a western society with little or no means of support would be very difficult at best. Starting all over again sounds like an absolute nightmare, and I cringe when I think about the possibility.

There are a few things that I do miss from back home, but there would be far more that I would miss here if I were to leave.

[givenall]

I sometimes want and feel I would like to go home for a while. I can afford but then I think about I don’t really have any place to stay, no work, and no propose. So I am going to be here for a while and see what happens

[WinnieTheKhwai]

I hate being in Western countries. Feels like being in jail. I refuse to spend money in those places other than the bare minimum to keep me alive for the duration. Coming back to Thailand is like being allowed back in Paradise.

[kennkate]

Depends were Home IS Better to be in the UK with Zero Money than in Thailand. At least in the UK you can get housing benefit and funds to manage until you get a job.

Better than the jump from a high rise condo. Plus No medical bills.

Sure there are attractions in Thailand but it's not the place to be on limited funds

[mca]

^^Same here. I've been home once in 15 years for 10 days. I felt really uncomfortable. I even considered cutting my trip short so I could get back to Khon Kaen.

Edited March 28, 2010 by mca

[samuibeachcomber]

Depends were Home IS Better to be in the UK with Zero Money than in Thailand. At least in the UK you can get housing benefit and funds to manage until you get a job.

Better than the jump from a high rise condo. Plus No medical bills.

Sure there are attractions in Thailand but it's not the place to be on limited funds

feel the same way,thailands no place to be broke in,even though the thought of having to return home is not pleasant.

[samuibeachcomber]

If you cant afford to go home that would be pretty dire,does that mean being stony broke in thailand and out on the streets,no visa,and illegal,thats no way to go.Better to keep a reserve stash that you dont touch,enough money for a plane ticket out and a months minimum money when you get home,even then its not really enough.Once you're down and out it would be difficult no matter where you live.

[smokie36]

I know a few people in Samui who couldn't return home for financial reasons. Well not until they reach pensionable age anyway and not much of a life living on the breadline in subsidised housing as an eventual option so I suspect few will choose that.

Personally I'm way too young and poor to move to Thailand permanently and so I spend the UK summer months working all hours to fund my eventual retirement in LOS. Yes I miss the freedom now but hopefully in a decade or so....

[PeaceBlondie]

A friend who can't tell the story here, earns over 85,000 baht a month at a state matayom school. Round trip tickets home to the West. More than the friend earned back home. And after-hours tutoring is 35,000 more. No need to return home.

[JamieP]

^^Same here. I've been home once in 15 years for 10 days. I felt really uncomfortable. I even considered cutting my trip short so I could get back to Khon Kaen.

I'm "home" in the UK now. It's about 10 degrees, it's cold and windy.

I just want to get home to KK.....

[tonititan]

Personally, I am really enjoying living in Thailand. The last few years have been great, and I do enjoy returning after visits at home. But, I am very much looking forward to moving back home someday.

I do know of several people who returned home after living in Thailand for varying lengths of time. The majority of these people are unhappy, but the common denominator appears to be money. Getting a job at home right now is tough, so they are living with relatives/friends and trying to scrape by. I think that you really have to plan ahead if you plan on going home. I am doing that now - already starting to save up so that I have plenty of money to get started when I go home eventually.

[IMA_FARANG]

Go home...interesting idea.... but where is HOME anyhow.

I work in Greece...but that's not HOME....it's just a place I work to earn money.

I originally came from the U.S. ..... but that's not HOME anymore.....I don't really have any close family there.

I have a place to live in Bangkok and a Thai family there with a house I can stay in. That may not be completely my HOME, but it's as close as I'm likely to get.

I intend to retire this year, in September. I have the funds to be deposited in a Thai bank to qualify for the yearly retirement visa extensions. I will be able to live on my pension/retirement.

So I guess I'll go HOME...to Thailand.

Like the song goes...anyplace I hang my hat is HOME.

For me Thailand is HOME now.

If worse comes to worst....and for some reason I can't stay in Thailand.....I might try Cambodia, possibly Sihanoukville.

[warriors]

Home is where the heart is and my heart is in Thailand has been for the last 6 years. New Zealand is clean but BOARING. I am lucky I can live most placers and I do not need to work.

I all ways keep my eye on the house pricers in N.Z. Just to make sure that I have enough to buy a small 3 bedroom brick and tile freehold house should the need ever arrive to up and move back to N.Z. The rest of the money is well taken care of to keep me happy in retirement and paying my health covers where ever I live.

I am so lucky to have found my heart in Thailand with my Thai partner here.

Best of luck to you all.

[Jingthing]

I can't imagine being so broke I couldn't cough up the money to go back to the USA. However, I have nothing there to go back home to, and for me the prospects of finding any kind of employment after such a long gap (added to a horrible economy) would be very dim indeed. So that is a nightmare scenario. BTW, many embassies will lend the money for the passage of broke nationals. My current understanding is that the US will lend the money, but it is owed back, and you loose your right to travel internationally until it is paid back.

[smokie36]

I can't imagine being so broke I couldn't cough up the money to go back to the USA. However, I have nothing there to go back home to, and for me the prospects of finding any kind of employment after such a long gap (added to a horrible economy) would be very dim indeed. So that is a nightmare scenario. BTW, many embassies will lend the money for the passage of broke nationals. My current understanding is that the US will lend the money, but it is owed back, and you loose your right to travel internationally until it is paid back.

Lucky for you. The UK government will stump up for a phone call home so you can beg someone for the fare.

[whichschool]

I was in a similar situation about 5 years ago after a 6 month holiday here i had nothing to go back for but about 25000gbp in savings, fortunately i got lucky and started a company selling property overseas with the boom going on it was quite easy to make money ... if it were now anyone in a similiar situation would find things a hel_l of a lot harder.

Edited March 28, 2010 by whichschool

[robblok]

I am saving money and the work i do here is the same as i did at home just at an other location (don't you love internet) so i keep my knowledge current and if i have to move i can. Just have to raise my price then or work for a company doing what i do now.

But yes i see the problem for many of us going here is burning bridges in the old country so it is hard to go back.

[Jimi007]

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Edited March 28, 2010 by Jimi007

[Jimi007]

I am fortunate that I haven't burned my bridges. I still have a house in California, a job and a daughter there. I can't work here, but I have a house and a wonderful GF and dog here. It's hard keeping things going in two places half way around the world from each other, but somehow I've managed it for five years. It helps that my daughter is 22 and away at the university, but I see her and work when I go back for about three months a year. Plus it's beautiful where I have a house there and here. But I miss being here when I'm there and I miss there when I'm here. I need to get to work on a US visa for my GF, but that's not an easy one either. I don't think she would qualify for a tourist visa, and an F-1 means we would have to stay in the US at least six months a year to keep her "green card." Life isn't easy, IMHO...

Edited March 28, 2010 by Jimi007

[Stjohnm]

I sometimes think about going back home but then I realise on the few occasions I do visit theres a reason its during the Summer, & I always freeze even on a Sunny British August Day.

Weather aside I could happily never return all my friends are out here now & if the saying that home is where the heart is, then Thailand is my Home. Having said that, I make sure I always have enough air miles for a ticket just in case, the tanks roll down mainstreet again.

[mca]

^^Same here. I've been home once in 15 years for 10 days. I felt really uncomfortable. I even considered cutting my trip short so I could get back to Khon Kaen.

I'm "home" in the UK now. It's about 10 degrees, it's cold and windy.

I just want to get home to KK.....

I fully sympathize Jamie. If I truly ask my heart after 15 years in LOS it wouldn't particularly bother me if I never saw England again for some reason. All the folks I care about from home visit me here a couple of times a year anyhow at varying times.

Edited March 28, 2010 by mca

[simcity]

If you French, no problem, i a pretty sure the French embassy will repatriate you for free with lodgement and support training at arrival.

I think it is the only country doing it, if you look at it deeply, with alliance francaise all over the world, i must said France are doing many individual , must come from the egalite / liberte / fratarnite.

In one way, I do not agree with this system as they blood suck dry the French with tax, happy to have left this country 30 years ago.

When i am home, the first point i made is to get all items impossible to find in Thailand, good bread / cheese / wine / prosciutto et for few days, i enjoy myself

[whiterussian]

Could never go back to the UK to live... could go back to earn to come here again, but to be honest, living here in Thailand has afforded me the opportunity to visit Australia.

Not only can a Brit earn money there (out in the bush for example - dam_n good money), but it has the added advantage of being a place that a Thai woman might actually be able to adapt to! The asians over there are highly productive, the weather is incredible, and unlike in Europe, they are still making land!! Something England ran out of around the time of the Roman invasion!

That I think is the only goal I can aim for if I found myself back in the UK...

UK or 'Mud Island' as the ungrateful South African and Zimbabweans call it!

Apologies to any Ozzies reading this... I know you are being invaded by Poms right now.

Got down the wire myself... took a decent TEFL, and thankfully, I dont have to book a flight back just yet... although I wonder with my parents in a house about to be repossessed, maybe its better they came to Thailand! What on earth to do with all the skint baby boomers eh?

Edited March 29, 2010 by whiterussian

[bdenner]

If most of the guys here who want to return home but can't for 'financial' reasons were honest with us and themselves they'd admit that the problem was burnt bridges. Being outstanding:- taxes, child support, credit card debt, court fines, gambling debt etc. etc.

They can't hide from that sort of thing forever and would have came up with an outstanding story to get sympathy from me.

[lazygourmet]

If you French, no problem, i a pretty sure the French embassy will repatriate you for free with lodgement and support training at arrival.

I think it is the only country doing it, if you look at it deeply, with alliance francaise all over the world, i must said France are doing many individual , must come from the egalite / liberte / fratarnite.

In one way, I do not agree with this system as they blood suck dry the French with tax, happy to have left this country 30 years ago.

When i am home, the first point i made is to get all items impossible to find in Thailand, good bread / cheese / wine / prosciutto et for few days, i enjoy myself

Belgium will do it as well... a nanny state by excellence

P.s.: regarding deli products and wines you are able to find everything in Thailand...

[WinnieTheKhwai]

If you cant afford to go home that would be pretty dire,does that mean being stony broke in thailand and out on the streets,no visa,and illegal,thats no way to go.

Um, there's more costs related to 'going home' than the airfare. For example, if you're without a house and employment then going 'home' is a challenge financially.

[Gary A]

If most of the guys here who want to return home but can't for 'financial' reasons were honest with us and themselves they'd admit that the problem was burnt bridges. Being outstanding:- taxes, child support, credit card debt, court fines, gambling debt etc. etc.

They can't hide from that sort of thing forever and would have came up with an outstanding story to get sympathy from me.

I know a guy who had his car burned by a friend of his and collected the insurance money. He also ran his credit cards to the max as well as owing substantial back taxes. He brought a pocket full money to Thailand and has been here for about ten years. He has a Thai wife and two kids. His business has failed and he is hanging on by his fingernails. He has scammed a number of his friends including me.

I do feel sorry for his wife and kids but have NO sympathy for him. If he somehow is able to remain in Thailand, what will he do when he runs out of schemes and tricks? What happens when he is no longer able to work at all? No savings, no pension and no hope.

[mca]

When I first moved to Khon Kaen a guy I vaguely knew who was married with 2 kids asked to borrow 2000 baht from me (as in "give me") because he literally didn't have any money to buy milk formula or nappies.

Married. 2 kids. Hasn't got 2000 baht.

Christ.