Price Of Life

[Phronesis]

I still maintain a small, single room, rented storage shed back in inner city Australia.

I also rent a 3 bedroom 3 bathroom house here in Phuket with 24/7 security, ADSL, Cable, a 50 square metre swimming pool, and a gardener 2 times a week.

The amount that I pay for the storage shed in Australia per week is just slightly more than the amount that I pay per week to rent on my house here in Phuket.

Edited January 5, 2013 by Phronesis

[qdinthailand]

As a side note Thailand is not in the newely released top retirement desinations at least not in the top 5 for Americans and Canadians

Depends on what day, what source you're reading. I did see an online article listing Thailand one of the top 5 just this past week.

[cbrer]

For those with limited funds and a dependent. Say under 100,000 baht a month, life will be a lot better in Thailand than the West.

[OxfordWill]

Small town in the West vs Bangkok. I still can't believe it. Perhaps we could remove the sidewalks and if not, crowd them with vender carts and scooters and what not. Perhaps we could park the cars all askew and pay no attention to traffic or parking signs. A couple of truckloads of litter would help. A bunch of wires overhead running all askew would fit in. Import some polluted air. Put some unknown crap (literally) in the water and perhaps some in the street. Import some food of unknown origin and chemical content. Get a bunch of dogs and rats to roam the streets. Show no respect for other drivers or pedestrians. Worry about the wiring in your new house, and put in a septic or sewer system that won't drain properly. Put some loudspeakers in the streets to mimic the noise...

Idaho's pretty nice...

Those pics do look nice, and I found your post about replicating the feel of Bangkok in one of them very funny.

//epic attachment fail.

Edited January 6, 2013 by OxfordWill

[the cougal]

i dont think chicken, pork, fruit and vegetables more expensive in chiangmai than uk . . how can it be? fruits here goes for like a pound per kg, single serving vegetables are like 10 baht

I can buy a pack of kilo of chicken wings in in Spar the Uk for 25B. Pigs head 45 B in UK in Thailand 250B...Prawns not 250B a kilo in UK..of course you can't buy single servings in the UK

[the cougal]

i dont think chicken, pork, fruit and vegetables more expensive in chiangmai than uk . . how can it be? fruits here goes for like a pound per kg, single serving vegetables are like 10 baht

I can buy a pack of kilo of chicken wings in in Spar the Uk for 25B. Pigs head 45 B in UK in Thailand 250B...Prawns not 250B a kilo in UK..of course you can't really buy single servings in the UK

Have spoken to many Thais now about this. They all say that the price of gas is the critical difference in Thailand becoming expensive, followed by land and houses...then street food...but that depends quite a bit on where you live...food on the street in the S of LOS much more expensive than CM 20B+more! The answer of course is the same as in Europe/USA..stay out of supermarkets and fast food joints where food is concerned, drive more slowly...that way you might be lucky not to be mown down by a new Fortuner at 140kmh in the inside lane...have the children buy some land if you can, choose to live somewhere you don't have to spend money on taxis/tuktuks/motorcycles the moment you step out the door, help the family make a little money.............other ideas?!!

[the cougal]

As a side note Thailand is not in the newly released top retirement destinations at least not in the top 5 for Americans and Canadians

Depends on what day, what source you're reading. I did see an online article listing Thailand one of the top 5 just this past week.

One of the top 10! And do you really think Ecuador is better!!!!?

[loong]

i dont think chicken, pork, fruit and vegetables more expensive in chiangmai than uk . . how can it be? fruits here goes for like a pound per kg, single serving vegetables are like 10 baht

I can buy a pack of kilo of chicken wings in in Spar the Uk for 25B. Pigs head 45 B in UK in Thailand 250B...Prawns not 250B a kilo in UK..of course you can't buy single servings in the UK

Thais enjoy eating chicken wings. I just don't understand it, that they happily pay more for chicken wings consisting of bone, gristle, skin, with a tiny amount of meat, than chicken breast.

As far as I know, chicken feet are not even available in the UK, if they were, they would probably only be about 10 Baht/kilo.

Not sure what point I am trying to make here. Sorry

[tomjerry]

Your right it is much Cheaper here in the rural areas.

But I Think the quality off life is better here too.

Sent from my stupid phone galaxy 2

[Blackandwhite]

Today

Chicken breast £8.32 per kg

Port tender loin £6.07 per kg

Thai rice £1.80 per kg

Milk £0.57 per litre

Beer foster £2.28 per litre

Cotton tee shirt fair quality £3.00

Jeans wrangler £16.00

Trainers leather £35.00

Fuel crazy

Council tax four bed house £1575 pa

House contents and building insurance £395 pa

Utilities phone Internet, gas and electric £155 pm

Mobile unlimited calls and texts with Internet £30 pm

Gym membership with pool and health club £32 pm

We live 1 hour from Birmingham not sure how things compare these days

[barefoot1988]

i dont think chicken, pork, fruit and vegetables more expensive in chiangmai than uk . . how can it be? fruits here goes for like a pound per kg, single serving vegetables are like 10 baht

I can buy a pack of kilo of chicken wings in in Spar the Uk for 25B. Pigs head 45 B in UK in Thailand 250B...Prawns not 250B a kilo in UK..of course you can't buy single servings in the UK

i like the comparison of wings, pig heads and prawns when ts mention pork, chicken, vegetables and fruits

[Phronesis]

Time to consider locking in some THB investments and assets if you want to live here.

Considering that the SET is running at red hot all time highs, AND, that it returned more than 60% last year, I am going to completely ignore your advice to "lock in" THB investments.

[chiangmaikelly]

Time to consider locking in some THB investments and assets if you want to live here.

Considering that the SET is running at red hot all time highs, AND, that it returned more than 60% last year, I am going to completely ignore your advice to "lock in" THB investments.

Wasn't it 32% last year? And if everything is going up would not this be the time to buy a house?

[StreetCowboy]

Time to consider locking in some THB investments and assets if you want to live here.

Considering that the SET is running at red hot all time highs, AND, that it returned more than 60% last year, I am going to completely ignore your advice to "lock in" THB investments.

Wasn't it 32% last year? And if everything is going up would not this be the time to buy a house?

Probably a good time to purchase an investment property in the East End of Glasgow...

[rgs2001uk]

Time to consider locking in some THB investments and assets if you want to live here.

Considering that the SET is running at red hot all time highs, AND, that it returned more than 60% last year, I am going to completely ignore your advice to "lock in" THB investments.

Wasn't it 32% last year? And if everything is going up would not this be the time to buy a house?

Probably a good time to purchase an investment property in the East End of Glasgow...

With the added bonus of The Sarry Heid as your local.

They tell me the new money is flooding into Calton these days.

Even better wait til next year and buy the whole street.

[simple1]

Not in the village. Still cheap as. I notice it hugely when we stop in Bangkok or the occasional trip to your area op up in CM. Ask my MIL, she will tell you the village isnt cheap anymore, but up to her, its cheap I say, dirt cheap. No council rates, no water bills, electricity perhaps 800month, food 400week thats feeding 2 big kids plus wife and me, plus we dont have any mortgages, so I cant wait to move there full time. Here in Australia, wife and I dont spend much, and our expenditure would be approx $800 a week . Thats not going out for dinner or any luxuries. Now we have the daughter, who knows, but its gonna be more.

BTW op, your school costs 60k baht a term!..wow thats alot, even for a good school here in Aus.

60k baht actually sounds very cheap in comparison to Australia. Fee for good reputation private school on the East Coast of Australia would be around A$12k, say 360k per year, some more than A$20k a year

[thehelmsman]

food 400week thats feeding 2 big kids plus wife and me

I live in Bangkok but can't see how you can feed four people for 400b per week. Really? Even if you ate nothing but rice I still can't see that, it's 14baht per meal - the price of a can of soft drink in a Bangkok 7/11. Very impressive.

It's not impressive - it's dillusional.

You will always have the I can live on 1 b. a day crowd. Feed 4 - 6 people every day. Shrimp, squid pork and chicken from the store or market and see what it costs.

[theoldgit]

£ 4.90 at Kings Cross for a large Cornish pastie last night,need I say any more.

I love them pasties, the beef and Stilton in particular.

[chiangmaikelly]

food 400week thats feeding 2 big kids plus wife and me

I live in Bangkok but can't see how you can feed four people for 400b per week. Really? Even if you ate nothing but rice I still can't see that, it's 14baht per meal - the price of a can of soft drink in a Bangkok 7/11. Very impressive.

It's not impressive - it's dillusional.

You will always have the I can live on 1 b. a day crowd. Feed 4 - 6 people every day. Shrimp, squid pork and chicken from the store or market and see what it costs.

There are some construction workers in my neighborhood. Temporary housing. They grow their own vegetables. Raise chickens. They only have to buy oil to fry and local rice. It is not delusional. They live OK and very inexpensively. Figure it out. How much would it cost you to eat if someone gave you vegetables and chicken every day?

[thaibeachlovers]

Depends on where in the UK or in the West you're comparing Thailand with.

If it's London - as it is in my case - fergedaboudit!!

Thailand - even central Bangkok - is still far, far cheaper.

Rent, taxis, tube/BTS, food, booze, property tax, petrol but of course, it depends on your individual circumstances, doesn't it?

For a single person with no sprogs, life here is wonderfully cheap. My bottom line here - what I need to cover rent, utility bills, food, drink - is less than half what I'd need in the parts of London that I, personally, would consider living in.

It's not the living in LOS that's expensive for a single guy, it's the laydees, and that's not something that would normally be considered in the UK.

[balo]

When you've been living in Norway like me for most of my life , the rest of the world is cheap.

Travelling to UK and its 30-40% cheaper than Norway -

So living in Thailand for me is cheap cheap cheap.....

[HardenedSoul]

Depends on where in the UK or in the West you're comparing Thailand with.

If it's London - as it is in my case - fergedaboudit!!

Thailand - even central Bangkok - is still far, far cheaper.

Rent, taxis, tube/BTS, food, booze, property tax, petrol but of course, it depends on your individual circumstances, doesn't it?

For a single person with no sprogs, life here is wonderfully cheap. My bottom line here - what I need to cover rent, utility bills, food, drink - is less than half what I'd need in the parts of London that I, personally, would consider living in.

It's not the living in LOS that's expensive for a single guy, it's the laydees, and that's not something that would normally be considered in the UK.

Well, personally, I don't include a budget for women - bought or otherwise - in my bottom line

Even if I did, the cost of a meal for two at any half decent restaurant in Bangkok is far less than it's counterpart in London so I'd have to disagree with you.

[HalfSquat]

60k for a school term x3 for the year = 180,000 baht (£3600) is still a lot less than you'd pay in Bangkok for a good school, it would be more like 400,000 - 500,000 a year which is £8-10,000. I guess that wouldn't get you much in the UK when thinking about a private school?

Overall, living in Bangkok is cheaper than living in a city in the UK, let alone London.

For 30,000 baht a month in Bangkok you can get a nice two bedroom apartment with swimming pool and gym. In the UK you wouldn't get much for £600 per month and nothing in London.

Things like child care and nannies, cleaners and maids are so cheap in Thailand you can't really afford not to have them. In the UK, a working couple would probably spend almost one salary on child care.

Thailand is cheaper for me because you can choose to live life on a budget and still do things like eat out, go to the cinema, etc. If you want to spend UK prices you can and can get just a good experience if not better for the same price.

100,000 baht / £2,000 a month in Thailand is perfectly adequate to live off of. However, in the UK you would have a much lower quality of life.

[HardenedSoul]

and the western women look different from thai women, like western women look like thai buffalos. You’d need to main line Viagra to sleep with western women and mortgage yr house to feed and clothe her. Live in the west in a sweet little town? Sure, go for it. Compare prices with the west? Why? Who would live there unless they had too?

I can't understand why some guys feel the need to berate Western women so much. There are plenty of hot-looking Western women - it's just that they're not as interested in money as the girls many guys knock about with here.

Those that are invariably want more than the farang guy with a few baht in Thailand can afford to pay. After all, you don't often see seriously-rich Western men moving to Thailand to grub around at the bottom of the barrel in Pattaya. Why would they when they can whoop it up in London, New York or Los Angeles with gorgeous Western women they can afford?

To a lot of foreign men, poor Thai and other Asian women seem easier to deal with because of the importance they attach to financial security but just because a pound, a euro or a dollar goes a fair bit further in Thailand in terms of female interest, it doesn't mean this is some kind of pussy Utopia.

There only seems to be less emphasis on the "touchy-feely" stuff that many guys never really got their head around in their homelands. The truth is, however, that it's still there under the easygoing nature and gushing gratitude when you hand over the baht and any man forgetting that here will be forced to remember it at considerable cost - financial and otherwise.

[Choonpon]

Things in Thailand are generally much more expensive nowadays. Inflation. But I doubt food is cheaper in UK. Another thing, foreigners usually comment 'cheap cheap', those thais of course raise their prices. They are stupid if they don't.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Thaivisa Connect App

[Phronesis]

Hmmm...after a good deal of passive observation, I have concluded that these "cost of living" threads generally diverge into two distinct discussions.

The participants in the first discussion are largely preocuppied school costs.

The participants in the second discussion mostly debate whether or not their stated monthly budget should include P4P expenses.

[HardenedSoul]

Hmmm...after a good deal of passive observation, I have concluded that these "cost of living" threads generally diverge into two distinct discussions.

The participants in the first discussion are largely preocuppied school costs.

The participants in the second discussion mostly debate whether or not their stated monthly budget should include P4P expenses.

Thanks for that

[Nana Cowboy]

check out the land thread in the Issan forum. Tell those people how everything costs basically nothing and the land prices they are quoting cant possibly be correct

[chiangmaikelly]

check out the land thread in the Issan forum. Tell those people how everything costs basically nothing and the land prices they are quoting cant possibly be correct

Why would you disagree with a thread in a different thread? Afraid of the experts in that thread? Link it anyway so we all can see how little you know about Thailand and land prices.

[TommoPhysicist]

As foreigners can't own land in Thailand, it can't really be part of our discussion on cost of living.