Budget to live in Bangkok

rusvik

New member
Jan 21, 2011
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Hey,

I know we've got some Bangkok based AM here. What kind of budget do you need to live comfortably in Bangkok. Last time I lived there I was a broke exchange student. With living comfortably I mean:

2 bedroom condo in Phrom Pong - Ekamai area
Transportation - taking taxis daily or having a motorbike
Eating out in good restaurants at least twice a week
Gym membership in upper scale gym
Drinking and partying twice a week
Good coverage health insurance
Money for studying language or college classes (non degree/open university)
Travel once a month in Thailand and neighboring countries (no Macau gambling spree)
Money for girlfriend/hooker/ladyboy

Thanks!
 


I'd ballpark $1,500-$2,000.

But it really depends on many things. Like how "hard" do you like to party? One can have a few beers, or another can get 3 hookers and 5 bottle services.

Source: lived in Chiang Mai for 7 month.
 
I'd ballpark $1,500-$2,000.

But it really depends on many things. Like how "hard" do you like to party? One can have a few beers, or another can get 3 hookers and 5 bottle services.

Source: lived in Chiang Mai for 7 month.

Thanks, but that seems a bit low budget for Bangkok. Probably more than enough for Chiang Mai though. How did you like it there btw?
 
I average 1.5k per month without rent. My friend here all have 1 bedroom condo's in 2 year old places and that is another 1k so about 2.5-3k would give you a nice lifestyle.



M
 
My friend and I rented the most luxurious place in Chiang Mai. It was just built, we were one of the first to move in. It had marble floors, mountain view, salt water pool, convenience store, coffee shop, they were building a gym (a good one), and it was gated. It was a 2bd for $800.

Overall I loved it. I picked CM over BKK, because we didn't really want to party too much, but more to concentrate on the business and work. Needed something quiet. There is room for party too, though if you need it.
 
I average 1.5k per month without rent. My friend here all have 1 bedroom condo's in 2 year old places and that is another 1k so about 2.5-3k would give you a nice lifestyle.



M

What do you do for Visa and Health Insurance?
 
BKK sucks balls, why do you want to live there? Chiang Mai is a cooler climate and it's more foreign friendly as well. If you want to go island hopping every month it's still probably cheaper to live in Chiang Mai than BKK.

In terms of Visas, most people get a dual (or multiple) entry tourist visa. Each entry gets you 60 days which can be extended another 30 days. You can always just overstay and pay late fees (think it's like 100 baht per day or around $3-4 dollars) but I wouldn't suggest it as sometimes they'll make an example out of you + other countries fucking hate overstayers and you'll be constantly questioned about it.

Personally your tastes are way too high-class for me, I've got no idea why you want two bedrooms (is it just you travelling or what)? Surely if your intention is to travel you want to move around and see the sights and not spend all day in your hotel?

Even so, as long as you don't want to live like a king and as long as you don't want to fuck prostitutes all the time - $3,000 american dollars per month should be enough (which is around 90,000 baht).
 
Is the price comparable to living in Indonesia or the Philippines (3K USD per month) ? In Bali ?

EDIT: What about business internet?
 
What do you do for Visa and Health Insurance?

Depends how long you want to go for.

You can get a maximum of triple entry visa from your home country. This allows you to enter Thailand up to 3 times and stay for up to 60 days each time, and also allows 1 extension of 30 days (which I think was something like 2000BHT fee ~ $70 + 2-3 hours of waiting in line). Meaning in total you can stay for up to 90 days per entry.

After that runs out, or if you don't get any visa from your country, you have to leave the country and come back every 30 days. You can go to any neighbouring country for that, and stay 1 night. In some places, like Burma, you don't even need to stay. Just exit, pay for visa in Burma (500 BHT), then enter Thailand. There is obviously a very organized businesses that are tailored for these "visa runs". You can get them at any tourist agency.

There are some loopholes with educational visas that let you stay longer. But you must be enrolled, and attend, language clases. Some schools are of course corrupt and you can pay them off, and don't go to class. Last I've heard government was cracking down on this.

Also, keep this in mind while being there. You are not allowed to work there unless you have a work visa. It doesn't matter if you work for yourself or whatnot. There were busts even on musicians that simply played at restaurants for small fee. You'll be fine, just don't be stupid about it. Don't go around telling people you are here just "working and living the life". People get jealous and might rat you out.

A good forum with a ton of info and valuable advice is ThaiVisa.com. I found it to be invaluable for getting info on anything, like visas, finding foods, places to go, culture, etc...
 
EDIT: What about business internet?

Our internet was included in the price of the building and it was super fast to download, but the ping times to US servers are shit, and it is not fixable due to physics. Light can only travel that fast ;)

I was able to download stuff at 2-3MB/s easily from my seedbox server. But using terminal for vi edits was really annoying. VOIP doesn't work well either. However cellphone connection for North America is dirt cheap. The price is the same whether to call locally or call Canada/USA - 1BHT(~ $0.03)/minute.

The connection quality highly depends on the area you live in. I've heard they were deploying fiber to home in many parts of the country, so if you need good speeds, look into that.
 
Our internet was included in the price of the building and it was super fast to download, but the ping times to US servers are shit, and it is not fixable due to physics. Light can only travel that fast ;)

I was able to download stuff at 2-3MB/s easily from my seedbox server. But using terminal for vi edits was really annoying. VOIP doesn't work well either. However cellphone connection for North America is dirt cheap. The price is the same whether to call locally or call Canada/USA - 1BHT(~ $0.03)/minute.

The connection quality highly depends on the area you live in. I've heard they were deploying fiber to home in many parts of the country, so if you need good speeds, look into that.

Did you move back to Canada or some other country in SE?
 
Yeah, about $3000/month will give you a decent like in BKK. Nothing exciting, but worry free, although you'll still have to watch your money a bit.

What do you do for Visa and Health Insurance?

Health insurance, I don't bother with. International insurance is expensive (~$6k - $8k/year), and paying out of pocket is cheap. For example, visited a friend in the hospital a while ago, he had his own private room for $60/day, and it was nice. Plasma TV, internet, microwave, the whole bit. Besides, I'm healthy enough. In the past 10 years I think I've been to the doctor 4 times, and twice was for simple stitches.

VISAs are a pain. Fuck around setting up a shell company, getting the Thai board of directors on board, paying the lawyers, accountant, etc. Then every 15 months you have to head out of country to Singapore, Malaysia, HK, wherever, and sit in a hotel for a few days to renew the VISA. Not to mention the border runs every 90 days. It's a pain.

You can usually get away with 1 or 1.5 years as a tourist without issue though. After that, might not be so easy. Actually, hang on, you said you were taking Thai lessons, right? In that case, it's easy. You'll get a 12 month ED VISA, which if you time your border runs right, is actually 15 months.

If you're ballin, there's also this: ThailandElite.com

Looks open, but not sure if it is. Haven't researched it enough yet, because well, I don't have an extra $50,000 just lying around to drop on a VISA. But basically, $50k buys you a lifetime VISA, which you just have to renew every 5 years, and you can renew within Thailand instead of doing the out-of-country bullshit. Was a program started by the government years ago, then it closed, then reopened, then got sold to a private company, so who know if it's still valid or not.

If it's still valid and legit though, I'm hoping to get that in about 6 months. I figure I'm still decades away from being eligible for a retirement VISA, and it's costing me at least $2k/year right now for VISAs (lawyer, paperwork, border runs, out-of-country trips every year, etc.), so fuck it, just pay for 25 years of VISAs upfront, and get 5 year VISAs for lifetime, which I can renew within Thailand.
 
BKK sucks balls, why do you want to live there? Chiang Mai is a cooler climate and it's more foreign friendly as well. If you want to go island hopping every month it's still probably cheaper to live in Chiang Mai than BKK.

In terms of Visas, most people get a dual (or multiple) entry tourist visa. Each entry gets you 60 days which can be extended another 30 days. You can always just overstay and pay late fees (think it's like 100 baht per day or around $3-4 dollars) but I wouldn't suggest it as sometimes they'll make an example out of you + other countries fucking hate overstayers and you'll be constantly questioned about it.

Personally your tastes are way too high-class for me, I've got no idea why you want two bedrooms (is it just you travelling or what)? Surely if your intention is to travel you want to move around and see the sights and not spend all day in your hotel?

Even so, as long as you don't want to live like a king and as long as you don't want to fuck prostitutes all the time - $3,000 american dollars per month should be enough (which is around 90,000 baht).


BKK is not that fun , I just like to live in Major cities with big international airports close, I spend about 40% of my time at the burmseese border
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Absolutely wonderful..


Well visa is quite easy,I personally have non immigrant multiple entries and i allows you 90 days straight away, The tourist visa is not that great after a few times over the border and you might get some trouble getting them after a few times.

And the overstay is 500 baht epr day not 100, and it might fuck up you future entries since i stamed in your passport. If I would stay over so would I saty over for a really long time, the file your passport lost. Then use some of the service where you go to the border and have some thai border control "stamp" the new pass entry in the new passport and then leave within time.

Remember if you have the money so is there always a will. Dont hope to find too much info on internet searching in english, my gf found all this shit with 2-3 searches in thai so get a friend to help you out.

I happen to have a friend who has few companies in thailand so he just "hired" me last week as well so I got working permit as well. That in itselfs allows to get a bank account and way beter way better insurance. Most companies will only give you accident coverage up to 200 000 baht unless you have a work permit. MY last surgery was a small thing and stayed in hospital 3 days and that was 340 000:-

If I was you so woud I do student visa, you dont actually have to goto class just pay the visa for just less then a grand and I think you have to run down to immigration every 90 days...

-M
 
What onkel said, also in terms of insurance why not just get travel insurance? It might be ludicrously expensive in the US, but I think I'm paying like $100 per month and that gives me $1,000,000 AUD medical cover and a bunch of other shit (e.g if the airplane loses my bags for a day or two, they give me $300 to buy new clothes).
 
2 bedroom condo in Phrom Pong - Ekamai area - 20,000-35,000
Drinking and partying twice a week - 5,000
Travel once a month in Thailand and neighboring countries (no Macau gambling spree) - 30,000
taxi from sukhumvit on nut to silom (half way across BKK) - 100 ?
the rest depend..


1.5K + rent + shopping/buying materialism is a good life for me. I end up spending about 3k monthly.

edit: fuck.. I gotta check out chaing mai.
 
I was in Chiang Mai last month. The smoke f'ing choked me out. I guess it's nice there except during cold season which is burning season, which to me is a big wtf that you can't visit the place during the time of the year when the weather is best in Thailand.
 
If you want to stay for a long time you can get an education VISA, have to learn something about thailand a couple times a week, most choose language but can be thai boxing as well, then you can stay in the country with no visa runs, just have to check in with immigration every 90 days but thats a piece of cake, way better than border runs.

Also nobody lives in Pattaya? Missing the best nightlife in the world for a guy imo :)
 
International insurance is expensive (~$6k - $8k/year), and paying out of pocket is cheap. For example, visited a friend in the hospital a while ago, he had his own private room for $60/day, and it was nice. Plasma TV, internet, microwave, the whole bit. Besides, I'm healthy enough. In the past 10 years I think I've been to the doctor 4 times, and twice was for simple stitches.

You can get a million Euros of international coverage from Bupa with dental for less than €200 a month. You can get regional coverage for even less. My last workplace didn't insure unmarried partners so we paid for European coverage for my girlfriend and it was about €60 a month.

Saying that paying out of pocket is cheap is dangerous. If something bad were to happen you could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands. My business partner's girlfriend was in a car accident here in Spain and was in a coma for 7 months and passed away. The bills were hundreds of thousands and repatriation from Spain to Canada by air ambulance was something like €70k alone, and that was half price because the plane was already in the area and making a return trip. It doesn't matter how healthy you are if you get run over by a truck.