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[Tompa]

I don’t know how you guys manage to live off 20000b/month? The only way I can see this is if you already own a house and paid for car/motor bike cash, and don’t travel anywhere.

This is what we spend on an average month (for 3 people and 2 dogs)
Rent (2 floor house about 200sqm) – 10000B
Car (installment payments 2 cars 1-2 years old) – 35000B
Car insurance – 2500B
Car service – 1000B
Petrol (we drive a lot back and forth to Bangkok) – 15000B
Electricity (2 aircons in upstairs bedroom, 2 downstairs. An aircon is always on somewhere) – 15000B
Internet plus landline phone – 1600B
UBC – 2500B
Cable – 300B
Mobile – 5000B
Personal health insurance (Alliance) – 5000B
Maid (5 times a week, 3 hrs per time cleaning/laundry) – 8000B
Gardner (perhaps twice a month) – 1000B
Food (eat out/in) – 20000B
School fees (private but obviously not in Bangkok/pattaya which are just rip offs) – 4000B
Dog food – 5000B
Others – 30000B
Overseas trip (1 a year) – 20000B

Works out at around 180000B/month. You could obviously spend a lot less than this if you had to, but we can afford it and want to have decent living standards.

Tompa

[Pierrot]

manarak, on 2009-06-26 01:43:45, said:

P.S.
Pierrot, is that Saint-Ex in your avatar?

No, Andre Malraux. A adventurer, a bit a smuggler on the side, a great writer (The Royal Way is a great book about his adventures in Cambodia), a fighter, critical of the French colonial rules in Asia, he helped organized a resistant movement in Indochina, later he joined the republican army during the Spanish civil war, and, during De Gaulle government, he became France's first minister of culture. If my life is only half as full and successful as his, I will quite happy .

A couple of quote from him :
“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.”
“There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman.”

[manarak]

a quick question just for clarification:

it has been said that power costs approx. 3.5 baht the unit.

what is defined as a unit in Thailand?



I think this thread now nicely sums up budget concerns for east Pattaya! Well done and thank you all!

[innkeeper]

givenall, on 2009-06-22 23:07:11, said:

manarak, on 2009-06-23 00:44:18, said:

Hello all

I am considering moving to Thailand with my family (now that's original...), and I'm doing my calculations to estimate our cost of living.

I am sure this question has already been asked, but I have been searching the forums and other internet sites for some time now, and I am still unable to locate some definitive info on some of the expenses I need to include in my cost of living, especially insurances and utilities.

I'm not looking now for a contest about who will pay less, I just want safe amounts that I can budget on, as well as input on some budget items I might have overlooked.

We are a family of 4, 2 young children (7 and 5 y.o.) - wife is not thai.
We will live in a big house (400-500 sqm) with pool, probably in the area of Jomtien/East Pattaya, Pong, Siam country Club, etc.

Thank you for any input.

(in baht)

Utilities
Power - I have no idea what to budget. We will make heavy use of Aircon, TV etc. We are 4 people in a big house, temperature in living quarters will be ca. 23-25 °C.
internet - I need a good connection. How much is the best available?
cable TV - I read UBC is 1600 baht a month?
water - Family with children and a large pool. I have no idea.
telephone - what is your typical monthly bill without international calls?
mobile phones - is 400 baht monthly per phone enough?
long distance calls - I budget those separately, I plan to use Skype. As an alternative, are there cheap call-by-call solutions?

Insurances
House - I'd like to insure the house itself up to 10m (replacement value), and the contents for about 2m. I heard about premiums around 10-20k a year. Is that accurate?
Car - I'd like to insure damages to third parties only, with me as a designated driver (17 years without claim)
Scooter - same as for the car
health and accident - no cost savings here, I will go for a top notch expat insurance from home with 100% coverage and all extras

Food & beverages used at home
here I don't know. I plan on sending our home employee to the thai markets and have her cook food for us at home.
what about 300 baht per person and per day? in a month, that would be: 300*4*30 = 36000 baht
(this should include beverages and breakfast/lunch for our employee)
too much? not enough?

Then comes the maintenance budget.
aircons - I believe aircon maintenance is every 6 months, but how much per aircon unit?
pool - Then the pool maintenance - how often and how much?
garden - Gardener for 2500 square meters?
house repairs - usually back home this is a % of the cost of the house. what about 5%, i.e. 50k baht?
car - what does the yearly service cost?
petrol - I think I'm on the safe side with 6000 baht per month, I don't drive much

Then the dreaded "miscellaneous" expenses.
No idea what to put in there, will 2000 baht a month cover that?
- proceedings with thai authorities - visa, driving licence, etc.
- everything else I didn't think about?

And finally the "personal allowances".
My wife will certainly like to get some massages, go to the zoo/aquapark/shopping/movies with the children, dining out, taking taxis, buying clothes, buying toys, etc.
I thought about 500 baht a day per adult plus 250 baht per child, putting the total at 1500 baht per day for the whole family?

I live in Bkk for the past 2 years in a 300SM house and my estimate for you for the life style you are looking as described above, you would need a budget of 200,000 bth or about $6000/month min excluding kids' school fees

[innkeeper]

innkeeper, on 2009-09-02 20:57:15, said:

givenall, on 2009-06-22 23:07:11, said:

manarak, on 2009-06-23 00:44:18, said:

Hello all

I am considering moving to Thailand with my family (now that's original...), and I'm doing my calculations to estimate our cost of living.

I am sure this question has already been asked, but I have been searching the forums and other internet sites for some time now, and I am still unable to locate some definitive info on some of the expenses I need to include in my cost of living, especially insurances and utilities.

I'm not looking now for a contest about who will pay less, I just want safe amounts that I can budget on, as well as input on some budget items I might have overlooked.

We are a family of 4, 2 young children (7 and 5 y.o.) - wife is not thai.
We will live in a big house (400-500 sqm) with pool, probably in the area of Jomtien/East Pattaya, Pong, Siam country Club, etc.

Thank you for any input.

(in baht)

Utilities
Power - I have no idea what to budget. We will make heavy use of Aircon, TV etc. We are 4 people in a big house, temperature in living quarters will be ca. 23-25 °C.
internet - I need a good connection. How much is the best available?
cable TV - I read UBC is 1600 baht a month?
water - Family with children and a large pool. I have no idea.
telephone - what is your typical monthly bill without international calls?
mobile phones - is 400 baht monthly per phone enough?
long distance calls - I budget those separately, I plan to use Skype. As an alternative, are there cheap call-by-call solutions?

Insurances
House - I'd like to insure the house itself up to 10m (replacement value), and the contents for about 2m. I heard about premiums around 10-20k a year. Is that accurate?
Car - I'd like to insure damages to third parties only, with me as a designated driver (17 years without claim)
Scooter - same as for the car
health and accident - no cost savings here, I will go for a top notch expat insurance from home with 100% coverage and all extras

Food & beverages used at home
here I don't know. I plan on sending our home employee to the thai markets and have her cook food for us at home.
what about 300 baht per person and per day? in a month, that would be: 300*4*30 = 36000 baht
(this should include beverages and breakfast/lunch for our employee)
too much? not enough?

Then comes the maintenance budget.
aircons - I believe aircon maintenance is every 6 months, but how much per aircon unit?
pool - Then the pool maintenance - how often and how much?
garden - Gardener for 2500 square meters?
house repairs - usually back home this is a % of the cost of the house. what about 5%, i.e. 50k baht?
car - what does the yearly service cost?
petrol - I think I'm on the safe side with 6000 baht per month, I don't drive much

Then the dreaded "miscellaneous" expenses.
No idea what to put in there, will 2000 baht a month cover that?
- proceedings with thai authorities - visa, driving licence, etc.
- everything else I didn't think about?

And finally the "personal allowances".
My wife will certainly like to get some massages, go to the zoo/aquapark/shopping/movies with the children, dining out, taking taxis, buying clothes, buying toys, etc.
I thought about 500 baht a day per adult plus 250 baht per child, putting the total at 1500 baht per day for the whole family?

I live in Bkk for the past 2 years in a 300SM house and my estimate for you for the life style you are looking as described above, you would need a budget of 200,000 bth or about $6000/month min excluding kids' school fees

[Rionoir]

Hope your family enjoys Thailand as much as you are planning on enjoying the bargirls... at least you aren't abandoning them I guess...

[johng]

Quote

what is defined as a unit in Thailand?

1 kilowatt hour  ( kWh ) = 1 unit

When you use 1000 watts for 1 hour, that's a kilowatt-hour

[MJP]

Fair play to you guys if it's affordable, but some of the sums of cash being thrown around here are staggering.

US$6000 a month to live in Thailand?

Must say if you have your own place and have sorted all the costs out, we do it for an annualised average of about 20,000 a month now perhaps a bit less. Step out the door to go anywhere, do anything . . . it's possible to do two months budget in a week.

[Gary A]

If it cost 180,000 baht per month to live in Thailand, how much would it cost to live in a western country?