Thoughts on budgeting for living in Thailand long term ...

[Smiles]

Since starting the 'long-term' part of my life in Thailand (i.e. 8 months in Thailand, 4 months 'back there') I've had ample opportunity to be able to come up with some very general expense amounts (in baht) which may (or may not) be relevent or interesting to folks who are contemplating making this step from holiday to day-to-day living.

Naturally, these amounts will be different to everyone according to their circumstances: incomes are different, areas within Thailand will vary in expense, spending habits are wildly different (e.g. if you think you would be inclined to go out to boy bars and off guys 4 or 5 times a week, then all bets are off regarding the 'entertainment' category).

So in the figures below I have left 'entertainment' completely out. I've just added to the list those things which might well be fairly common amongst us all on a monthly basis. Even adding 'food' is difficult (though I've made a stab at it) as I think most farang who end up living long term in Thailand will eventually fall into the 'eat-out' habit more the than 'cook-in-at-home' choice ... and deciding to do so usually means a very wide mix of eating very cheaply on the street, in small Thai restaurants, at night markets ~ or at more expensive, more farang-oriented restaurants. This kind of normal mixing makes it very difficult to generalize about monthly food expense.

I shall just describe our 'lifestyle' a bit ... your's of course will inevitably be different to some degree, or a large degree. All of the below description is included because it is relevent to spending and budgeting:

• I am on a reasonably decent pension ... but certainly not a rich man.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• We have chosen (for the near future at least) to rent rather than buy.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• We are a monogamous couple (8 years and counting, with all intention of staying that way), thus spending no money at all on GoGo bars and off fees. (Change "no money at all" to "very infrequently" to satisfy the minutiae-minded, like Mr X)[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• Our home is a two-story attached townhouse ... 2 bdrms, 2 bath, quite large. [/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• We are easy walking distance to town, thus no transportation issues. We own a vehicle, but rarely use it 'in town'. [/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• Our home is in Hua Hin ... which would make it reasonably comparable to costs to, say, Pattaya or Chiang Mai. If you choose to live in ~ for instance ~ Phuket or Bangkok your monthly costs may well be somewhat higher.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• We would normally do some travel further afield within Thailand on average once a month[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• My partner has a tour guide/taxi business which brings him his own personal income ... especially in High Season[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• There were significant expenses in December 2007 when we spent quite a lot on 'things' to make our home better furnished and more comfortable. There are still things we want to have sooner or later, but the largest purchases have already been made. None of this one-time outlay is taken into consideration in the list below, even though much of the stuff we bought will probably be on the list that most long-term stayers will be considering once they become that.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]

(All figures are average monthly costs)

Rent: 8000 baht (This amount is a good deal for the quite large place we have. We pay by the year which brings the monthly cost down to 8000. Paying by-the-month the place we have would rent in the 10,000 range. Similar townhomes on our Soi (in varying degrees of renovation) are For Rent now at 15,000, but they've been vacant for long stretches at a time)

Water & Garbage(same bill): 45 baht

Electricity: 300 baht (Amount here is an average. All through September and October the heat and humidity in Hua Hin was very high, so we used aircon in the bedroom all the time at night (on 'low) ... the cost went up as high as 600 baht. The temperature and stickiness disappeared in mid November, and we haven't used the aircon at all since: cost dove to 200 baht)

Television: 1560 (This is for True/UBC satellite reception with a dish. One can get regular cable from the local cable company for 2500 baht a year (i.e. 208 baht a month) (!!), but the choices are pretty horrendous for an english-only speaker)

Laundry: 1000 baht

Internet: 500 baht (I purposely did not choose to lug my laptop between Canada & Thailand. This is a decision that may change, but right now I use an internet cafe. Not looked into home internet connection as yet, but if I do bring (or buy) the laptop the cost above will change ... maybe more, maybe less)

Telephone: 500 baht (I buy 100 baht top ups at 7-11 about once every 2 weeks. That's 200 baht in-Thailand calls, but if I overuse the long distance then that pops it up 100 baht easily. Suphot gets one or two 100 top ups as gifts fairly often, so that makes it about to the 500 range)

Travel: 10,000 baht (This is comprised of monthly trips which usually last 3-5 days. We stay in Thai hotels at about 600-800 baht a night .... gasoline costs .... entertainment, and eating. Sometimes we will not go away at all, so this figure is a bit fluid and difficult to generalize. But over all, I think if I average out the trip costs over one year it would be close to the figure)

Transportation: 1000 baht (I give Suphot about 1000 a month for gas for the car ... the rest he pays himself. We spend next to nothing on taxis, tuk tuks, songtaoews etc)

Food & (home) booze: 17,150 baht (This is a tough one as it is rather a moveable feast. I'll try to show you how I arrived at this figure by adding up the following ... and it is very much a 'best-guess' average):

• Four times a week we eat "on the street" (i.e. night market, small Thai restaurants etc) at an average 'check bin' of 250 baht for 2: that's 4000 baht a month[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• Three times a week we eat at higher end place at an average 'check bin' of 700 baht for 2: that's 8,400 baht for the month. [/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• We shop at a supermarket twice a month with an average bill of 1500 each: that's 3000 baht.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• Miscellaneous: daily shopping for small items (bread, milk, eggs, fruit): about 1000 baht a month.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]
• Booze is essentially one 24 pack of Chang beer a month in the fridge at 750 baht.[/*:m:3qasiwyq]

I hope this post will give anyone who has vague (or specific) intentions of living longer-term in Thailand in the near future a reasonable idea of monthly costs which will not change that much.
If I have missed some things which I think I should be included, I will edit the post. But right now I think it is a reasonble collection of costs which anyone should take into consideration.

Cheers ...

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A good template to start with. Did you factor tips into any of the eating out costs etc?

[Hmmm]

Interesting. For those without calculators, that's about 40,000 baht/month.

Any health insurance ? Other incidentals ? Movies, car maintenance / insurance, medicines ?

Electricity looks low, but do you pay the electricity company directly, rather than a rapacious landlord / condo management ?

[TrongpaiExpat]

Very good for electric, I don't know how you do it. I live in a 80sm two bedroom tree shaded condo, has three ac units and use mostly the bedroom unit set at 25c and the one in the living room is set at 29c and on all the time. The one in the spare bedroom is seldom on. We do a fare amount of cooking, have a demand water heater for the shower, a washer but not a dryer and I run a few fans when we are home. Then I run one large aquarium with a pump, lights and filters all the time. My electric bill is not padded by the condo owners and it comes in at 1,200 for the cool months, up to 2,100 in the hot months.

I used to live in a high rise on the 27th floor in a 60sm unit and had two ac units and that cost me 2,600 to 3,200 per month. Sticking up there in the sky, no shade and if the AC was off the place turned into an oven.

Also factor into account that we take a trip every month for 4 to 6 days but have to keep the living room ac unit running at 29c or the fish in the tank would die. The bedrooms are closed of and shut down when we leave.

You monthly food expense is in line with ours as long as I stay out of some farang food restaurants and stick to Thai food and cooking at home. Last two nights we went to some fancy places and spend over 6000B but that's only for Christmas eve, day and other special days or uncontrollable urges but not every day. There was a 20,000B per person Christmas buffet at someplace in Bangkok I noticed in the Post.

[x in pattaya]

I live in a one bedroom condo, almost never use the air con but run the TV & computer a lot, don't do much cooking aside from throwing something in the microwave from time to time, and my electric bill runs around B1500 a month. Never bothered with a water heater until about a year ago, but adding the on-demand water heater for the shower didn't seem to make a big change.

Is your electricity metered and is anyone reading the meter?... use a lot of candles? bathe with the neighbors garden hose?

I'd add in about B 1000 a month for TOT adsl Internet and I pay for B29,000 annually for hospital insurance (only in-patient covereage) and B 6,500 for my friend's medical insurance.

Taking into consideration some annual amounts for insurance, condo maintenance charge, satellite TV, etc., my monthly average is closer to B85,000/B 90,000

thus spending no money at all on GoGo bars and off fees.

Considering your tale of debauchery while plumbing the depths of Soi Twilight this entry may not survive an auditing.

[Smiles]

Good questions regarding the utilities.

Thailand seems to have a two-tired structure regarding utility payments (i.e. water, electric, television etc) if one is living in any kind of rental:

• (1) the first being that one pays directly to the utility itself ... in our case, the water bill is paid to the city of Hua Hin, the electric and TV connection is paid to the electric company and TRUE/UBS.
  
  (2) the "Rip Off" option (usually no choice) wherein one pays the landlord for all the utilities, and thus pays straight through the nose with quite large markups from the "true" utility bill ... the (significant) difference ending up as pure profit to the landlord. Trongpai comments that his utility bill is not padded. Perhaps so, but many are, for sure.

We are lucky, as we rent under #1. It's definitely something to determine at the time of initial rental, as you can easily see from the whining cheapskate posters above. :blackeye:

" ... Considering your tale of debauchery while plumbing the depths of Soi Twilight this entry may not survive an auditing ... "

That was a behavioural anomoly, duplicated once only every 4 years. Besides that, I specically stated that "entertainment' was not included as part of the monthly costs because of the difficulty in keeping track of our/anyone's hedonism.
If you wish to add in the 3 beach boys a day plus the numerous 4-somes you take part in during any given evening, you'll have to start your own topic.

Cheers ...

[mahjongguy]

I too am surprised at the low electricty bill. When we lived in an apartment in Bangkok the average bill from the manager was around 3,500 baht. Now we have a house in Jomtien, and the bill from the electric authority still averages 3,500 baht.

In my discussions with friends in various living situations around Thailand, two people with air conditioning and televisions and computers and a big fridge should expect to pay more than 3,000 baht most months.

So, I think your meter is broken. Lucky you!

[x in pattaya]

If you wish to add in the 3 beach boys a day plus the numerous 4-somes you take part in during any given evening, you'll have to start your own topic.

That's all covered under "laundry."

I still think there's something wrong with your electric meter. People in our building, including Thais, have the option of paying directly to the utility company (or are forced to in the event they fail to pay the condo management too often) and no one is eager to do that.

Maybe the meter reader is just using an estimate and if he ever gets around to actually reading it, you'll owe a truly spectacular amount.

[TrongpaiExpat]

Good questions regarding the utilities.

(2) the "Rip Off" option (usually no choice) wherein one pays the landlord for all the utilities, and thus pays straight through the nose with quite large markups from the "true" utility bill ... the (significant) difference ending up as pure profit to the landlord. Trongpai comments that his utility bill is not padded. Perhaps so, but many are, for sure.

The choice is find someplace else. The first question I asked when condo shopping was is the electric bill from the utility company or from the condo. If they said condo or something not clear, I did not even bother to ask to see available units. The mark up can be quite high.

Thanks for the run down on your expenses. I notice that you live with a partner, and that this seems to reduce some of your costs and increase others. I would be interested in your opinion on what would happen to your running costs if you lived alone. This might mirror the situation of a larger proportion of the board readers.