How much do I need to retire in Thailand with a fairly high standard of living

[kurtramsbottom]

I love reading these I got higher walls than you threads.

[MrWorldwide]

OP, you need to ask yourself this re neversure's comments : why does someone who routinely posts about how much better life is in the US spend what seems like half his waking hours on this forum posting about everything from his love of semi-automatic weapons to life in a country he clearly loathes ?

I'm all for people playing Devil's Advocate, but the only way you will really know if this country is for you is to spend at least 3 months here - if it's not, the hole in your CV shouldnt be too hard to gloss over. With that timeframe, I strongly suggest basing yourself in Bangkok and making side trips to the other locations on your shortlist : that's precisely what I did in 2008 and I live here now. You asked what I perceived as a simple and reasonable question and you got lectures on why you should reconsider your choice of retirement destination : again, who spends that much time on a Thailand expat forum telling people to avoid Thailand ? Good luck with your adventure.

[hhgz]

"Would US$75k be sufficient for a fairly high standard of living in these cities."

Per what period of time? Per year? Yes, of course.

[CapeThai]

I am a 19 yr. resident of Thailand. I use a factor of 0.285 when comparing prices here with my home country,Canada. Or, expressed the other way, prices there are 3.5x Thai prices. I think for someone from London, you could probably use a factor of 0.2 to 0.25. Think about health insurance costs, if you will need to buy that here.

what you on , I can live for a 1000baht a week easy, but i can live Thai, it depends on what you want out of life try moving after you have your Visas sorted out, Then try living in-Thailand first, Thats what most people do then they get an idea on what they want out of Thailand.

dO YOU MEAN 1,000 BAHT A DAY??????

NOBODY, can live in 4000 baht a month

I CAN LIVE ON 1000 baht a week easy, that does not include Living in my house. I/Wife owns the house. food is cheap, i do not drink , only on special occasions,

what about tooth paste, soap, shampoo, water, electric, medical insurance, telephone, internet etc etc etc..so not easy...it not only about food and drink...

one suspects the beggar on the street cant live solely on THB 1000 every 7 days

Don't forget to also add the toilet paper to wipe your ass with when your done talking out of it.....

Edited March 16, 2015 by CapeThai

[CapeThai]

I'm sure the quality lads over in Pattaya will quickly demonstrate to you how you would be able to live on US$75K should you give them a chance....???

[jacko45k]

I don't understand.

You mention 1-2k$ per month, then ask about 75k$ without specifying the length of time that covers.

I would say £1000 /week plus a lump sum to cover purchase of somewhere to live.

[Naam]

"how much buys you a comfortable life in Bangkok ?' is really at the heart of this thread"

Comfortable is in the mind and can actually have far less than you expect to do with money which brings us back to my original comments of emotional and social stability. Those remain the stumbling blocks for most expats. What good is $75K, or even ten times that, if you remain lonely on the fringes of society and with little to occupy your mind. Many foreigners try to escape this trap by marrying a Thai woman but the changes they achieve are superficial. It's all food for thought.

most probably you can't imagine that people exist who are very happy not only to live on the fringe of society but completely detached from society, id est giving a rats àss about society.

believe me, these people do exist! i am one of them practising that life style since 26 years without feeling trapped.

by the way, there's no chance my wife would allow me to marry a Thai lady

[puukao]

$75k total can get you some relaxing years, maybe 2.5 in length. 75k a year can get you divorced 3x, lose 4 houses, and attacked at 11 bars. i joke, i joke. If 75k a year, hire a chef, personal trainer, masseuse, driver, and tell everyone you are poor (except tell the gf you get 30,000 baht a month). Then get the body fat down to 5%, mind into state of nirvana, and keep extra cash off-shore.

Edited March 16, 2015 by puukao

[malt25]

OP, do you really want to ask if you could live on that money, or you just want to show off?

With your qualifications and intelligence you should very well know if these money is enough or not.

You have been to Thailand before so you must have investigated the cost of living.

After all TV is full of threads about that.

Me thinks if OP is really a lawyer or solicitor, and needs to ask this question, I won't be looking to him for any legal advice.

[AZBill]

From a fellow bar member, why in the world would you want to live in Thailand if you can afford to live in your home country? I lived in Thailand with a high six figure US income for two years and can tell you all I wanted to go was go home. Yeah I could afford anything I wanted and you could too with that income but believe me when I tell you it's not a great place for westerners. My Thai wife won't even go back to visit anymore.

[Thai Travel Bug]

75k is sufficient in any country.

Not in Australia, its almost borderline poverty. Sydney house price, median is $1,000,000 AUD. $

Paying off a house, dinner out once or twice a month, pay the bills, and a few beers wont get you much change out of $75,000 if at all.

And if you smoke 25 cigarettes a day, ($650 per month) forget it,

[theoldgit]

Flame removed.

[lannarebirth]

First, you have to be 50 to get a retirement visa. If you want to retire earlier, then the only real option is the five year Elite Visa, which is about $16K for the five years. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/777349-questions-about-thailand-elite-membershipcard/

Doesn't anyone get the investors visa anymore? Used to be 3 M Baht on time deposit at Government Bank when I first did it. Pretty sure it's higher now.

edit: Just checked, it's 10 M Baht now.

http://www.doingbusinessthailand.com/blog-thailand/doing-business-in-thailand/thailand-visa-and-work-permit/thailand-visas/thailand-visas-the-investment-visa.html

Edited March 17, 2015 by lannarebirth

[Soutpeel]

First, you have to be 50 to get a retirement visa. If you want to retire earlier, then the only real option is the five year Elite Visa, which is about $16K for the five years. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/777349-questions-about-thailand-elite-membershipcard/

Doesn't anyone get the investors visa anymore? Used to be 3 M Baht on time deposit at Government Bank when I first did it. Pretty sure it's higher now.

edit: Just checked, it's 10 M Baht now.

http://www.doingbusinessthailand.com/blog-thailand/doing-business-in-thailand/thailand-visa-and-work-permit/thailand-visas/thailand-visas-the-investment-visa.html

THB 3.0 million investment visa stopped a long time ago

[MrWorldwide]

I don't understand.

You mention 1-2k$ per month, then ask about 75k$ without specifying the length of time that covers.

I would say £1000 /week plus a lump sum to cover purchase of somewhere to live.

Chief, did you happen to see the post where I strongly recommended we stipulate everything after the OP as 'XXX THB per month' ? As if things werent sufficiently confusing to anyone trying to follow this discussion, you've thrown GBP into the mix : what the frack for ? Most of our home currencies are in the toilet against the baht and USD at the moment - so much easier to simply keep it all in Thai baht so that we're all talking apples and those apples are roughly the same a month or so from now. The OP made it clear that he's earning USD in London - or Hong Kong / wherever - there's no need to add the pound to this discussion.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=THB&view=1M

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=THB&view=1M

[sundrenched]

Good gawd lets all sit on the floor, adopt the lotus position join hands and sing kumbaya, talk about a circle jerk.

You dont live here yet can tell those of us do all about the place, rather strange.

However, what in your Thai experience would be the benefits and drawbacks of lets say, Chanthaburi, Petchabun or Loei, none of them of the tourist trail.

What and where do you base your observations on, Mr Negative above you chose for whatever reason known only to him to head to CM, what a dump, still it keeps getting hits on webpages from cheap charlie farangs looking to retire on the cheap.

Anyone who has spent time here knows better, avoid the place like the plauge.

Some of us on here live in gated communities and never experience whats talked of, its almost like two differing countries, the financially challenged and those picking more more per month in housing and kids education allowance than some of our experts on here live on per year.

Pollution, gated community, no problem

sweltering heat, they invented this new thing called A/C, I point a remote and the temp cools, I appreciate they may not have these in Oregon, and not all on here can afford to run it, they are usually found in the foodcourt of Big C on Pattaya Klang, talk about WiFi huggers, the freeloading a/c huggers have them beat every time.

shocking levels of corruption, as a tourist how did corruption affect you and where was it experienced?

I have lived in Bkk for years and never been exposed to it, must venture out of the gated community one day.

incompetence, agree, the dek serv in Pattaya brought me a beer that wasnt cold enough last week, when I pointed this out in Thai to her, the bottle was replaced straight away, learn to speak Thai you wont have such problems.

hellish traffic,, compared to where, tried Jakarta lately, compared to middle of nowhere booniesville US of A you are probably correct, compared to New York or London, sorry dont think so.

Thailand, its for adults only, those from the Nanny state should stay home.

What a lot of nonsense. Brings to mind another problem my first real-estate agent mentioned, which was "it's hard to meet good-quality expats here". One way that rears its ugly head is people like you assuming things about other posters you know nothing about. I do live here but nice attempt to put up a straw man that I'm a tourist. I happen to have lived in London and New York too (for a total of more than 10 years), and getting around those cities is MUCH easier. Traffic flows better, public transport systems have much wider coverage, and walking is infinitely more pleasant. But thanks for finding one example (Jakarta) that's even worse. It'll make me feel a lot better thinking about that next time I'm stuck in a traffic jam here. As to the sweltering heat, I assume you never go outside? Lastly, I'm a big-city person. For me it's not a choice between Bangkok and Nakhon Nowhere, but Bangkok or other large, cosmopolitan cities around the world.

Edited March 17, 2015 by sundrenched

[tom21]

if anyone no matter what age or income should make sure the income is indexed. stops problems in the future of cost of living going up and income not

[reptile91602]

I made a few kind of smart ass comments yesterday but I thought I should give you some good advice.

1st - If you are marriied to a non Thai and you are not sure she can handle a third world country, don;t move here. There are just better places to retire that are more normal than Thailand. Also most of your choices for a place to stay are littered with prositutes and most foreign woman don't want to see that everyday they go out.

2nd -- If you are not married don't move here because there are better places to move to with the kind of money you have to spend. Keep looking, like south america. some great places there and the language is just a whole lot easier to learn. More savvy expats and you can actually own your own stuff there and the visas are much easier to get and the girls are better in general.

I don't know why anyone would come live here unless they have a Thai wife who has been tested true through the years or is into heavy playing around near the oceans. Again south america has a better selections of beaches and girls with real faces and bodies to play with and the music and the cost of alcohol and wine and cheese.Oh well.. The only reason I am here.and I have been here over 20 years is because I have a great wife and she has a great family or at least most of them are.and we live in a quiet part of central Thailand where there is nothing much to do and we see few foreigners unless we go into town. Some people just wuldn't like that.

Good luck.

[MrWorldwide]

@sundrenched, I would add metro Manila to Jakarta as two places with worse traffic than BKK, but that doesnt mean I'm a fan of Bangkok's traffic and it will only get worse. We can play the 'city X sucks even worse than city Y' game all day long, but none of that helps the OP with his original query. 3 months in Bangkok should give him a taste of what he can expect here without locking him into buying cars and condos - the grass is inevitably greener somewhere else but I think he should give it a shot before he looks further afield.

[mogandave]

Aside from the gash, I really do not see the attraction of Thailand as a place to retire.

I guess you can live cheap here, but you can live cheap a lot of places.

[sundrenched]

To be a bit more constructive to the OP: on your budget (assuming $75,000 a year) you can afford to maintain a modest lifestyle in 2 locations. The best situation in my opinion is being able to spend 3-6 months a year here, and the rest in a more "normal" country. London might get too expensive, but there are tons of places in Europe or the US that are quite pleasant (e.g., Spain) and where you can live comfortably on 35-40k a year, and then you have the rest for Thailand. But to each his own of course. Like I said, I do like many things about Bangkok (the numerous nice cafes and restaurants, the sense of style for instance in decors, good-looking women, the fact it's very international, etc.), but it's a mixed bag. Sorry if I overreacted earlier, but likewise people who overreact to anything negative (but realistic) get my goat. Sometimes I think we need a subforum here where only positive comments are allowed, so those forum members have their own playground and can leave the rest of us alone who see the good and the bad as a package.

[seancbk]

75k is sufficient in any country.

The OP was talking US$ per year.

US$75k per year works out at slightly more than 200K THB per month which for Bangkok could give someone in their mid to late 40s a pretty decent lifestyle, but certainly isn't over the top. Much depends on how much they choose to pay in rent.

Same goes for Hong Kong, where it equates to about HK$59K a month, again you could live quite well but you'd still need to watch your spending (more so than in Bangkok, although BKK is catching up fast).

From experience I would say that to have an active social life (eating out 3-4 times a week and drinking 5-6 nights a week) in Bangkok you need at very least 30K THB a week. That doesn't leave much for rent, utilities, clothes, gadgets, holidays and other costs.

Of course it totally depends on what sort of person you are and what sort of places you want to go to.

For the record I have lived in Bangkok for more than 6 years and prior to that Hong Kong for 35 years.

[blazes]

You sad person living on 20 quid a week. Get a life.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.

How about a gesture of acknowledgement to Charles Dickens?

[Soutpeel]

Aside from the gash, I really do not see the attraction of Thailand as a place to retire.

I guess you can live cheap here, but you can live cheap a lot of places.

this is something I have always wondered as well, if one took the freely available ladies who are not that choosy who they shack up with provided they a have a few bob, out of the equation would you really see the same number of of people wanting to retire here ?....I am inclined to think the answer would be No

[MJP]

You sad person living on 20 quid a week. Get a life.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.

How about a gesture of acknowledgement to Charles Dickens?

I had assumed people would know of Wilkins Micawber and this famous quote.

[Naam]

I made a few kind of smart ass comments yesterday but I thought I should give you some good advice.

1st - If you are marriied to a non Thai and you are not sure she can handle a third world country, don;t move here. There are just better places to retire that are more normal than Thailand. Also most of your choices for a place to stay are littered with prositutes and most foreign woman don't want to see that everyday they go out.

2nd -- If you are not married don't move here because there are better places to move to with the kind of money you have to spend. Keep looking, like south america. some great places there and the language is just a whole lot easier to learn. More savvy expats and you can actually own your own stuff there and the visas are much easier to get and the girls are better in general.

I don't know why anyone would come live here unless they have a Thai wife who has been tested true through the years or is into heavy playing around near the oceans. Again south america has a better selections of beaches and girls with real faces and bodies to play with and the music and the cost of alcohol and wine and cheese.Oh well.. The only reason I am here.and I have been here over 20 years is because I have a great wife and she has a great family or at least most of them are.and we live in a quiet part of central Thailand where there is nothing much to do and we see few foreigners unless we go into town. Some people just wuldn't like that.

Good luck.

we live in a quiet part of central Thailand where there is nothing much to do and we see few foreigners unless we go into town.

that's why you have no idea about other people, their personal yardsticks, demands and expectations... i.e. you lack the qualifications to render any advice.

[mogandave]

Aside from the gash, I really do not see the attraction of Thailand as a place to retire.

I guess you can live cheap here, but you can live cheap a lot of places.

this is something I have always wondered as well, if one took the freely available ladies who are not that choosy who they shack up with provided they a have a few bob, out of the equation would you really see the same number of of people wanting to retire here ?....I am inclined to think the answer would be No

Exactly. Not too many guys wanting to retire to India, and it is cheaper, has better food, and you don't need to learn a new language.

[Strangebrew]

OP depends If you saved you will need a Thai bank account first with 800,000 baht in it First to be permitted to stay here Then depending on taste either rent I recommend or buy But in buying your stuck there if you decide you want to go elsewhere. In Us dollars I pull down well 4,500 per month Not saying what I have in saving that is private matter but enough shall we say I have 2 places in the Philippines Rent in Bangkok a nice condo. Also rent a place in Hua Hin like it there for the peace and quite. When the urge hits rent short time in Phuket Or some other place I wish to visit. Now food enjoy a good steak which is hard to find . Entertainment well figure you got bar fines, of course the ladies fee which can be high if you let them try that short time hotel.Reason for short time hotel don't want them to know what I have or where I live. You understand that part when here a bit. Don't need a car they drive on wrong side of road, Taxi's are cheap and if need be plenty place to rent car and driver. Don't need Rolex watch had one over rated Do have trike weather is nice enough for one. street food is cheap, clothes cheap, beer cheap, most women reasonable Have insurance a must here. With all that Still have cash left over afterwards. Oh also the expected bribe if needed. The don't do department never have one move in with you unless your getting married to her. Oh beware of balconies here Farang's tend to do headers here. Never leave drink unattended or you might wakeup with either a ladyboy next to you and a sore butt or sore butt and broke. good luck

[CharlieH]

Flame/Bating posts removed.

Disagree with a post by all means, but no need to get personal or inflammatory just for a reaction, ie Troll responses

[blazes]

Strange how so many on this thread consider $75,000 per annum a magnificent salary. Where I come from (white, West), this would be a rather low income for a professional person. (Especially working in a big city.) (I would expect a lawyer to be bringing in, in a big city, an absolute minimum of $150,000 in his or her mid-40s. A doctor would be on that also, and a professor, depending on the subject he teaches.)

$75k (before or after tax??) will buy you a very comfortable life in Thailand, providing you don't spend more than 50,000 baht on rent and don't risk skin cancer playing golf three times a day after meals. Also, providing you stay single or at the very least find a woman (there are many here) who is frugal and hates to spend money (even if it is yours).

The misanthropes on TV.com all imagine that it is the Thai pooying who is "stealing' their money, when in fact it is foolish farangs, falling violently "in love", who willingly give their wealth away to enjoy the "respect" they get from tossing dollars around (and being called "hansum"). I never hear any complaining male on TV acknowledging his own responsibility for his newfound poverty. No sign of acknowledging that we all make choices. And choices made with our genitalia are inevitably going to end up badly.