Cost Of Living

[Bobe]

My wife and I will be moving to either Chantaburi or Rayong in July. It has been a few years since we have been back to Thailand and I have questions about the cost of living in those areas. I have a retirement income of 90,000 baht each month and a little over 3,000,000 baht in savings. Will we be able to live fairly nice without having to dip into our savings each month? Thanks in advance for your comments.

[tuky]

At the top of the page is a "search" facility, if you try this and search for the words "cost of living" or similar you will come up with many results. I just did it myself and ended up with 375 different topics.

In reality, you can live off what you want to live off in Thailand.

I am not too sure how but my wife and I seem to go through 100k+ each month, whereas other members (western folks) can live off 20-30k baht per month.

However, this is not true for all of Thailand.

I think the best answer to your question is that there is no answer...

You have to work it out as you go along.

I must say that 90k per month and 3 mil in the bank (for a house?) is not a bad retirement lifestyle in Thailand. You are a lot better off than a lot of farang here in your situation.

Please feel free to ask more questions. Just take the time to search what has already been mentioned in this topic beforehand.

Lucky bugger.

[BKK90210]

My wife and I will be moving to either Chantaburi or Rayong in July. It has been a few years since we have been back to Thailand and I have questions about the cost of living in those areas. I have a retirement income of 90,000 baht each month and a little over 3,000,000 baht in savings. Will we be able to live fairly nice without having to dip into our savings each month? Thanks in advance for your comments.

I saw your profile on the left - from Oregon heh?....I'm in Seattle and we plan to be in BangSare area (between Jomtien - Sattahip) in couple yrs from now. It's good we will still be neighbours.

We're in Thailand every year, usually at the end of the year. I don't know about you but we have very simple taste (like don't drink, party, and always eat local thai foods most of the time)...and we know we can live by comfortably with just about $1200-1500 a month...with house and car pay off. But we have prepared the fund of around $3000 a month just in case, with the rest of savings in the upper 6 digits mostly in IRA, stocks and bonds which will still be in the US constitutions. Then again we're only in the early 40s so there's still a few decades left for us to live.

Having about $2200 a month is quite nice especially without the expenses of a house and a car. But with 3,000,000 baths in saving - it will be scary if you get sick alot or will have major health issue later on.

Just my thought

BKK

[pianoman]

Also being from Oregon (Portland) I felt that I should chime in here... I don't really know to much about the area's you asked about, but I have been living up in Kalasin (Issan) for the past two years and Love it and found that I can be very comfortable on a monthly income / outgo of only about 40,000 baht... And that is with renting my small 3 bedrroom 2 bath house / home for only 3,500 baht per month...

Also, the uncle of a friend of mine is now living just down the Soi from me with a monthly social security income of only $780 per month... He does need to watch his spending a bit, but still finds it a much better life / lifestyle than he had in Grants Pass on the same income... He says "It is nice to be back in the Upper Middle Class again"...

Pianoman

Edited February 1, 2006 by pianoman

[Khutan]

I have a retirement income of 90,000 baht each month and a little over 3,000,000 baht in savings.

With an appropriate budget, you could live happily in Bangkok on that amount. There are plenty of farangs in BKK who live on less than half of that and no "nest egg" in case of need.

My advice, don't touch the 3m unless you are in a dire emergency.

[rcalsop]

When I first started living as a working expat I liked to have a very good life style and used good salaries to live high ,but the reality was although I was on a good salary I was still very low down on the rich scale where the real money was , life was a bit false and I was constantly striving for more . I have come to realise it is better to be nearer the top of the dung heap further down the scale and therefore changed my life style , house tastes , car purchases and general style ...I may sound shallow but now when I look at the other people who live near our modest but very pleasant house they are double income struggling families I /we actually live quite comfortable in our means and I feel happier being the rooster on the smaller dung heap ,

I do not have to check the prices in the resto to decide if we have the cash to eat there I enjoy that freedom .

I would hate to be poor in Thailand I still pay all my social dues back home so if things go seriously belly up ie health issues I can run back to the nanny state .

Once you get established the amounts seem fine to live on ....