Living in Thailand for affordable 20,000 baht a month

Tips, advice and news related to living and traveling in Thailand

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richey
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Living in Thailand for affordable 20,000 baht a month

Unread post by richey » Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:31 pm

Living in Thailand can be extremely expensive or (despite a notable picking up of prices during the last 10 years) releatively cheap, depending on your habits of living.

I found the following list on a website:
  • 170 baht – average cost of a retirement visa, divided by 12 - for other visa types, note that this doesn't count in visa runs, business visas, school costs for education visas etc.
  • 5,000 baht – Apartment (cheapest option, in buildings usually inhabited by Thais - the average cost for simple privately rented apartments is between 7,000 and 15,000 Baht per month for a small room of about 30-50m² in Pattaya or Chiang Mai, add 3 - 5,000 Baht for Bangkok)
  • 1,400 baht – Electricity
  • 150 baht – Water (sounded too low to me if you drink 2-3 l /day as you should in Thailand, I'd rather say around 400 B)
  • 300 baht – Internet (mobile Internet package or occasional Internet cafe visits)
  • 300 baht – Cable TV
  • 200 baht – Phone
  • 180 baht – Laundry
  • 6,000 baht – Food (biggest possible range here, depending on food/dietary choices and scale of restaurants/self cooking - 6,000 Baht is the lowest possible cost when eating at markets, street food, or home cooking)
  • 200 baht – Transportation (again: very cheap estimation imo - even when only using Baht busses or walking a lot, I'd estimate this with about 500+ Baht per month, not even occasional considering longer trips)
  • 3,600 baht – Entertainment
  • 1,000 baht – Other (like repairs, new clothes, shoes, cosmetic products, medication etc.)
Total: 20,700 Baht.

Don't make the mistake to plan a long-term trip or permanent stay based on this number though. A road accident, health problem requiring a hospital visit, legal problems or drops in your home countries' currency rate etc. can lead to SERIOUS financial problems. Always make sure that you have good travel/health insurance valid for Thailand, and also a good bunch of money you could use if anything unexpected comes up - because many problems in Thailand you can indeed fix with money. Some of them you can only fix with enough money however… ;)

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