Costs Of Living

[siddv]

This is a great thread I'm learnign quite a lot. I'm not living in BKK just yet but I do travel 5-6 times yearly, I own a home in BKK that fully paid and have a TGF who I support. She crys poverty over the 60,00 bht I send monthly. Wehave no kids yet. The house is paid for but she has the 10,000 car payment and god knows where the rest goes..other than to the spa, the live in another 5,000, electric, high speed internet, cable, telephone ect. When I go out..as I'm allowed per agreement ..I can easily blow 10,000 in one night. Could I live on 77K. Not sure. If I were single doubtful..married and watching my pennies? Probably. Case by case I'm afraid.

[Krub]

This is a great thread I'm learnign quite a lot. I'm not living in BKK just yet but I do travel 5-6 times yearly, I own a home in BKK that fully paid and have a TGF who I support. She crys poverty over the 60,00 bht I send monthly. Wehave no kids yet. The house is paid for but she has the 10,000 car payment and god knows where the rest goes..other than to the spa, the live in another 5,000, electric, high speed internet, cable, telephone ect. When I go out..as I'm allowed per agreement ..I can easily blow 10,000 in one night. Could I live on 77K. Not sure. If I were single doubtful..married and watching my pennies? Probably. Case by case I'm afraid.

Wow your TGF is a very lucky lady !

[Gaudente]

This is a great thread I'm learnign quite a lot. I'm not living in BKK just yet but I do travel 5-6 times yearly, I own a home in BKK that fully paid and have a TGF who I support. She crys poverty over the 60,00 bht I send monthly. Wehave no kids yet. The house is paid for but she has the 10,000 car payment and god knows where the rest goes..other than to the spa, the live in another 5,000, electric, high speed internet, cable, telephone ect. When I go out..as I'm allowed per agreement ..I can easily blow 10,000 in one night. Could I live on 77K. Not sure. If I were single doubtful..married and watching my pennies? Probably. Case by case I'm afraid.

When I read things like this my blood boils....60,000 baht a month in a country where the average salary is 7,000 baht , and for a girl that without her farang tington would drudge in a ricefield 12 hours a day , eat only rice , sleep on the floor of a shack ...and instead of being grateful, she cries poverty for receiving a "salary" that is 4 times what a bank employee earns....no wonder us farang have the "tington label" stuck on us ....no wonder Thai Immigration lashes our asses making us peregrinate each 90 days to a foreign embassy to beg for a Visa they could issue at local Immigration offices....we are pussies, not men, and we get what we deserve.

[Fred Sanford]

I say if you have the cash then why not spend it. Siddv obviously has the cash; more power to the man. I don't think he's too concerned what effect this will have on expat poverty packers

[DrFisher]

I rent a beautiful 3 bedroom no one ever lived in before my rent is 5,000 B per month (not furnished) I have high speed satellite internet 2000 B per month and all the English TV chanels on the service formerly known as UBC (I forget what it's called now) satellite thats like 3000 per month I think the water and electric are around 1500 B per month so thats 11,500 B per month and I would say I live better than most Americans. I think you can do the math from there.

[Krub]

I rent a beautiful 3 bedroom no one ever lived in before my rent is 5,000 B per month (not furnished) I have high speed satellite internet 2000 B per month and all the English TV chanels on the service formerly known as UBC (I forget what it's called now) satellite thats like 3000 per month I think the water and electric are around 1500 B per month so thats 11,500 B per month and I would say I live better than most Americans. I think you can do the math from there.

I suppose your 3 bedroom is not in central Bangkok ?

[DWALDO]

I agree with Gaudente if you give your Thai girlfriend 60,000 a month thats like giving her a years pay to a waitress or even more with no living expences for housing either. Without being patronising to the Thai's I find them like teenagers with money. I give my soon to be wife over three times what she earned in a restaurant in Phuket and she didn't make any extras either and pick up a lot of bills when I'm there and yet what ever I give her, a week before my next installment she's broke. I don't presume to know anyone elses business but I find the corrolation between what they earnt before they met us and what we send them well out of proportion. It's as though there normal lives are like an apprentship to when one of us comes along on our white charger to save them when in reality 99% of these women we meet in whatever circmstances will never end up in the arms of a farang, well not on a permanent basis anyway. It is hard not to get angry if someone who lives ok on 6,000 a month tells you there life will be a misery unless they have at least 30,000. I'm not talking from total experience but I have had some, I'm lucky that my wife to be seems ok with money but who knows. When I read what some posters say it's hard not to think mate you are being ripped off I would say Honey I'm broke for a year can you go out to work and see what the reaction would be I'd love to see inside a Thai womans head and find out what they think. I must admit sometimes I think it is like a game of wits between you and her entire family and they try to keep on the right side of the thin blue line getting as much as they can without you leaving.

I am a bit of a cynic, but you know how the saying goes; a cynic is what an idealist calls a realist. Dave

[siddv]

I did not intend to make someones blood boil or put a quick end to this thread but I believe many of you are kidding yourselves with how cheap you think Thailand really is. Ok if you're living out in the boonies with your country girl who doesn't expect much, then more power to..enjoy that's a good life for some. but for those of us with young TGF from middle incoe families this is how some of the of the 60K Bht allowance braeksdown. If we were talking Hi SO gals then you can double or trivble these numbers. The outflows are 10,000 car pymt and insurance, live in help 5,000 ( and belive me she is worth it..she works her butt off) sometimes a few baht more to her to go out from time to time, a few bath to the step mom 5,000; home internet & telephone-1000, UBC 1670, electric-2000; water 1,000-big yard and lots of plants-daily soaking; entertainment basically 5,000 per week and food 2,000. Oh I forgot about the salon and spa. Toss in the remainder for that and I'm at 60K more or less. Hey that not bad! Cheap by my standards and more realistic than some of the embarrasing low numbers I have seen used here.

[lotus eater]

When I read things like this my blood boils....60,000 baht a month in a country where the average salary is 7,000 baht , and for a girl that without her farang tington would drudge in a ricefield 12 hours a day , eat only rice , sleep on the floor of a shack ...

not every girl can be assumed to be the uneducatede daughter of a poor rice farmer.

if she is one, and she's pretty, she has the option of earning quite a lot in a 'bar' while waiting for her knoght on a white charger.