I found this interesting website

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp

and wanted to highlight the 4 main Thai cities and some other popular expat locations in the area and some of our home countries. Sorry if I missed your country but you can find in the original data at that link.

Consumer Price Excl. Rent Index (CPI) is a relative indicator of consumer goods price, including groceries, restaurants, transportation and utilities. CPI Index doesn't include accommodation expenses such as rent or mortgage. If a city has a CPI index of 120, it means Numbeo estimates it is 20% more expensive than New York (excluding rent).

so Thailand does very well here and although Phuket is quite expensive by comparison with our neighbors, except Singapore.

Groceries Index is an estimation of grocery prices in the city compared to New York City. To calculate this section, Numbeo uses "Markets" section of each city.

Thailand does very well here and Phuket is slightly more expensive than other Thai cities but not too bad

Health Care Index is an estimation of the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, cost, etc.

Thailand almost the top of the list

Crime Index is an estimation of overall level of crime in a given city or a country. Crime Levels up to 50 are reasonable, and crime index levels more than 100 are too high.

so Thailand is in the middle, between Holland and Canada which isn't too bad, and far better than the USA

Anyhow, not trying to draw too many conclusions from this but overall, i'd say Thailand comes out pretty well in these stats for cost of living, health care and crime, the things retired expats care about a lot. i could look at stats for income and i'm sure they would not look so rosey, but for people living on savings and retirement, i'm not seeming many better overall choices in these numbers.

Edited December 21, 201411 yr by oilinki
Fixing duplicated image issue. The first two photos did not open with Chrome.

Interesting stuff indeed.

Thanks for sharing.

maybe its just me but i can't open the attached jpgs. LIK, can you check it out? thx

maybe its just me but i can't open the attached jpgs. LIK, can you check it out? thx

The attached JPGs expand Ok for me when I click on them.

Good stuff.. Thanks for sharing

They didn't open for me either using Safari or Chrome, but they did open using Firefox... Weird!

maybe its just me but i can't open the attached jpgs. LIK, can you check it out? thx

The attached JPGs expand Ok for me when I click on them.

Maybe sign in?

Health Care Index is an estimation of the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, cost, etc

Very surprising to see Panama on top, Thailand second and a country like Singapore well done the list!

There must be a strong emphasis on cost.

This phrase springs to mind "lies, damned lies, and statistics".

Health Care Index is an estimation of the overall quality of the health care system, health care professionals, equipment, staff, doctors, cost, etc

Very surprising to see Panama on top, Thailand second and a country like Singapore well done the list!

There must be a strong emphasis on cost.

Cost along with availability to everybody. Thailand have huge amount of hospitals and clinics all over the place and those are cheap to use. There is the 30 bath schema, which allows even the poorest to get decent heath care. Medicines are cheap and readily available.

While the quality of the best medical care in some other countries might be higher than here, the overall time and cost to get treatment (fixing the problems right away) seems to be much better here.

It was only here where I learned that I can actually go to the pharmacy, clinic or hospital even in cases, which are more of annoyances than life threatening illnesses as here I get an resolution often within hour.

To put this in practical level. Some insect bite my hand and mede it to swell. If I had been in Freezerland, I would had just waited the swelling to go away as the process to get it fixed would include visits to local health centre, maybe specialist and then another visit to pharmacy to get medicine.

Everything is regulated to oblivion and the doctors are spending a lot of their effective work hours to satisfy the needs of the statistics department. The whole system is too heavy process to work well in the real world.

Here I simply walked to local pharmacy and got antihistamines, which seems to work.

After looking at some of these charts, they seem very inaccurate. I live fairly to close to San Francisco most of the year these days and I can tell you flat out, most groceries, gasoline and alcohol, especially wine, is way cheaper here than in Phuket! The freshness of the produce is way superior! Cost of housing is way more, but that doesn't factor into my life as my houses are bought and paid for. Actually my utilities and property taxes are probably more than my rent and utilities in Rawai. LOL! Oh well, life's still a beach, no matter which one I'm living near… See you guys around June.

@jim: You need to compare the local living costs in general. How much does a meal cost instead of what are the prices of western foods in different locations.

I just had a good dinner at my usual price. I asked one of the meals, which was made by the order or A'la carte. Then delivered to my table along with glass of ice water. The cost was 40 baht, or 1 euro.

Freezerland option: I get to a work place food court. Queue to get few spoons of food, along with bread and milk. Eat with not so great joy and clean my table by myself afterwards. For this I pay about 5 to 7 times what I do in Thailand.

Gasoline prices here are cheaper compared to my home country, then again gasoline might be cheaper in the US.

Wine is expensive here. Adapt to the environment and start enjoying Khao Lao - it's cheap and probably doubles as cockroach poison as well

maybe its just me but i can't open the attached jpgs. LIK, can you check it out? thx

Same here. I restarted Firefox 34.05 in Safe Mode (add-ons disabled), but the problem persists.

Next best thing: here are the links to the full size images:

1. Consumer Price Index
2. Groceries Index
3. Health Care Index
4. Crime Index

Just a small charge for this service

Edited December 21, 201411 yr by Xircal

What about the CAI? Consumer Alcohol Index.

A can of Archer is almost 23 baht now.

Leo is up to 34 baht at the mom and pop shops.

Sang Som is up from 35 baht when I first got here to 60 and sometimes 70 baht in a lot of bars.

@jim: You need to compare the local living costs in general. How much does a meal cost instead of what are the prices of western foods in different locations.

I just had a good dinner at my usual price. I asked one of the meals, which was made by the order or A'la carte. Then delivered to my table along with glass of ice water. The cost was 40 baht, or 1 euro.

Freezerland option: I get to a work place food court. Queue to get few spoons of food, along with bread and milk. Eat with not so great joy and clean my table by myself afterwards. For this I pay about 5 to 7 times what I do in Thailand.

Gasoline prices here are cheaper compared to my home country, then again gasoline might be cheaper in the US.

Wine is expensive here. Adapt to the environment and start enjoying Khao Lao - it's cheap and probably doubles as cockroach poison as well

LOL! I am comparing the price of groceries, not eating out. Yes I can "eat out" for a 100 and something Baht in Thailand, I can also get a huge taco here for $2.50. I can get a burrito and a real margarita for $8 or eat out at a nice place near the Yacht Harbor with a fantastic view for about $10. Gas is now $2.45 a US gallon (3.78 liters). A bottle of decent red wine is $6. A bigger bottle of the same rum I buy in Thailand for $24 for a .7L is $14 for a .75L bottle. Plus I make a hell of a LOT more money here than I do there! No Lao Khao here though! ;-)

What about the CAI? Consumer Alcohol Index.

A can of Archer is almost 23 baht now.

Leo is up to 34 baht at the mom and pop shops.

Sang Som is up from 35 baht when I first got here to 60 and sometimes 70 baht in a lot of bars.

drought leo and tiger is 40 baht in my local (happy hour price), i doubt there are many places in the west with those bar prices.

After looking at some of these charts, they seem very inaccurate. I live fairly to close to San Francisco most of the year these days and I can tell you flat out, most groceries, gasoline and alcohol, especially wine, is way cheaper here than in Phuket! The freshness of the produce is way superior! Cost of housing is way more, but that doesn't factor into my life as my houses are bought and paid for. Actually my utilities and property taxes are probably more than my rent and utilities in Rawai. LOL! Oh well, life's still a beach, no matter which one I'm living near… See you guys around June.

i used to live in Palo Alto, CA so i was interested in your claim that groceries are cheaper so i went to the safeway online shopping site for 94306 and to the tesco/lotus website to compare a few basic item prices

i came up with this list

tesco/lotus safeway safeway ratio

baht/kg $/lb baht/kg

chicken 125 $4.80 341 2.7

fish 200 7 498 2.5

pork 80 4 284 3.6

onions 24 1.5 107 4.4

potatoes 33 1 71 2.2

spaghetti (italian) 128 2.2 156 1.2

eggs each 6 $5/doz 13.33333 2.2

orange juice 1ltr 55 $5/59floz 92 1.7

toilet tissue 1 roll 10 $.5 10 0.5 16 1.6

so the ratio indicates how much more expensive safeway is than tesco. clearly things like rice will be way cheaper here and cheese way cheaper there so i only included stuff that isn't highly location specific.

this list is far for a complete shopping basket but i don't want to spend all day on this, but its clear to me a lot of basics are cheaper here

about beer, American crap like bud is cheaper than thai beer and craft brews are a bit more expensive but i'd happily pay US prices for decent beer

Edited December 22, 201411 yr by stevehaigh

After looking at some of these charts, they seem very inaccurate. I live fairly to close to San Francisco most of the year these days and I can tell you flat out, most groceries, gasoline and alcohol, especially wine, is way cheaper here than in Phuket! The freshness of the produce is way superior! Cost of housing is way more, but that doesn't factor into my life as my houses are bought and paid for. Actually my utilities and property taxes are probably more than my rent and utilities in Rawai. LOL! Oh well, life's still a beach, no matter which one I'm living near… See you guys around June.

i used to live in Palo Alto, CA so i was interested in your claim that groceries are cheaper so i went to the safeway online shopping site for 94306 and to the tesco/lotus website to compare a few basic item prices

i came up with this list

tesco/lotus safeway safeway ratio

baht/kg $/lb baht/kg

chicken 125 $4.80 341 2.7

fish 200 7 498 2.5

pork 80 4 284 3.6

onions 24 1.5 107 4.4

potatoes 33 1 71 2.2

spaghetti (italian) 128 2.2 156 1.2

eggs each 6 $5/doz 13.33333 2.2

orange juice 1ltr 55 $5/59floz 92 1.7

toilet tissue 1 roll 10 $.5 10 0.5 16 1.6

so the ratio indicates how much more expensive safeway is than tesco. clearly things like rice will be way cheaper here and cheese way cheaper there so i only included stuff that isn't highly location specific.

this list is far for a complete shopping basket but i don't want to spend all day on this, but its clear to me a lot of basics are cheaper here

about beer, American crap like bud is cheaper than thai beer and craft brews are a bit more expensive but i'd happily pay US prices for decent beer

Okay, yes chicken is more. Overall I would say I spend about the same here on groceries as I do there. Vegetables are cheap and really good! A Pineapple is $2.99. I won't eat the "beef" in Thailand. The beer is just so superior to anything in Thailand here though. A Sierra Nevada draft pint for $3.50 with a slice of pizza for another $3.50 isn't bad though! It's nice to be able to live in both places, but we're starting to like it here more than there. My wife is bringing me Tom Yum Goong home from the Thai restaurant she's working at! LOL! Life's the same, only a different place. Enjoy Steve!

As one ages, health care is the game changer.

No! It's all lies! Phuket is terrible!

I read it on thaivisa.com

On a broader scale, this organisation is fairly reliable.

http://www.transparency.org/country/#THA

The "Rule of Law" and "Press Freedom Index" is interesting.

I don't think the crime index is worth bothering with since it is notoriously difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison on such things.

This is for many reasons but partly because some countries rate (for example) rape as sex crime while others rate it as violent crime and in some places it isn't even a crime in some circumstances (Thailand included btw) where the law differentiates between raping a person who is not one's wife raping one who is. Similarly some drugs are legal in some places but illegal (and the severity/category of the offence variable) in others.

Traffic is another one; if one were to treat traffic violations as a crime then it is hard to see how Thailand of all places could be anywhere except near the very top of any list based on the level of crime.

Finally there is the issue of reporting. Since publicising crime levels equates to airing one's dirty laundry in public governments are very sensitive regarding what information they release, often preferring to put a rosy tint on things so as not to affect important economic sectors such as, oh I don't know, tourism perhaps...

The other three items in the OP seem fair enough though, quite interesting really to see how the place stacks up.

It depends on where you are located too. If you are somewhere like Bangtao then its going to be a rip off, compared to the old folks homes in Chalong