Thai Police Bust Multi-Million Baht Sex Toy Smuggling Ring

[simon43]

Although it might come as a great shock to those who have retired early in LoS, there are some of us, (well maybe not many!), who are over 50 and still working, either out of choice, or because their retirement fund is insufficient or pension has not yet kicked in.

At the age of 51 years, I find myself in this category, but since I work for myself, have never had any intention to retire anyway - working for yourself is much more fun!

Although I now have a reasonably good and regular income from my small hotel businesses, I have minimal savings, due to both divorce and a business failure some 8 years ago.

Despite the uncertainty about future tourism in Thailand, I think that my airport hotel is a reasonably secure venture, and I have plans to open a third guesthouse perhaps later this year.

My plan is to remain in Thailand/south-east Asia for the remainder of my life - the idea of returning to the UK would not be a happy decision.

So, ignorant as I am about savings plans, what would be a recommended (and safe) strategy for me to save for the day when either ill-health forces me to stop work, or for when my Thai family forceably drag me away from my office and insist I relax on the beach with a cold beer?

I can invest about 200,000 baht a month, and my lifestyle is reasonably frugal, since I am lucky enough to live rent-free at my hotel. I have no plans to buy a house in Thailand - renting is far more appropriate in my circumstances.

Of course, it could be that I continue to receive an adequate daily income from my hotels until the day I die, but it's always prudent to put some money aside, even at this rather late stage, and to especially consider the costs of potential ill-health/inability to work.

I do qualify for a much-reduced UK state pension (if that still exists), as well as some small private pensions. But I want to ignore all these in my savings calculations.

I had been looking at the savings funds from Generali, but I'd appreciate advice from those who are more astute at savings than myself.

Simon

[trogers]

The first thing I would do is to invest in insurance, both life and medical and hospitalisation policies. Even if I have assets in real properties, I will need hard cash to tide over the time period needed to sell some off.

[aussiebebe]

I agree about the need for life and health insurance, certainly, but I'm assuming they are in place already. Ignoring your smaller UK pensions, my first advice would be the Thai pension system, if you are eligible through your hotel business. If possible, a local pension should be considered to attract the tax relief on contributions. If not, then a simple offshore savings plan of regular or lump sum contributions with the offshore wing of any UK bank which attracts tax-free interest.

Whilst there are many offshore products sold as pension plans they are merely savings plans and many with astonishing set up charges and commisions as there is no disclosure or frankly transparency in much of the offshore sector. Do be aware in Thailand of regular premium savings plans neatly packaged by advisory firms as they tend to sell 30 year savings plans on spurious disclosure of charges. You could end up with the first 2 years premiums being used to pay commission, for example.

Edited February 20, 2011 by aussiebebe

[ExpatJ]

Im in a similar position (though 10 years younger!). My retirement planning consists of investing in US and Asian stocks, in property, and gold. I dont qualify for the UK government pension but i do have a company pension that will kick in age 65.

In terms of property, i have bought one condo for rent already and am actively saving to buy more. I hope to have 4-6 condos in Jakarta, Bangkok and possibly elsewhere in Asia available to rent out by the time i'm 55- all bought and paid for. So that should provide a good income and also taking care of them, finding tenants etc should give me something productive to do when i have stopped working full time.

Im also thinking of investing in annuities- from what i have researched, investing 100,000 USD in an annuity brings on average 6,000 USD return per year (though i suspect less these days), guaranteed for the rest of ones life- so 400,000USD invested in annuities would bring regular income of 2,000 USD per month which is a nice addition to the company pension and rental income.

In terms of stocks- i have my money in a BRIC mutual fund, a small/mid cap Indonesian mutual fund, Thai stocks (blue chip high dividend companies) plus some value stocks (TMB 2 baht per share for a bank??!! a classic value stock!). I also recently put all my US based savings into a US potash company (MOS) and Shell Oil- shell pays a good @5% dividend per year, while food prices are increasing with population , demand for fertiliser is only going to go up hence i bought MOS. I plan to keep these US stocks for the next few years (buy and forget) while the thai stocks i trade more regularly. So far in 2011 the US stocks are doing well, though my thai portfolio is down -10% (its was a horrible January for thai stocks as those who invest here can tell you!).