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Photo: In addition to your normal expenses, donations to the temple are always welcome and, as you can see, donating brings about many benefits. What's On This Page?
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Thailand - Costs
Thailand is an extremely cheap country in which to survive. Many Thais survive quite adequately on tiny amounts of money and you can too, if you want (or need) to. Despite dual pricing schemes there is no official local and tourist market as there is in Cuba, for example. Foreigners are just as entitled as Thais to use cheap local transport, to stay in cheap local accommodation and to eat cheap local food. On the other hand, there exist opportunities in Thailand to spend as much money as you can afford - or can't afford - as the case may be. Compared to many neighbouring countries Thailand is not poor and it isn't quite the bargain bucket some people imagine it to be. The Thais aren't stupid and understand supply and demand. With millions of tourists visiting each year there is no shortage of demand, particularly in certain areas. Prices therefore reflect the market. A Brit wrote to me asking for help in finding the luxury hotels in Phuket for £6 a night (about Bt400) that he had been told about. He had been searching on the Internet but couldn't find anything for that price. It didn't surprise me. Prices in Phuket are horrendous compared to most of the rest of Thailand. If you really want to go to Phuket (and I can't imagine why anyone would want to) don't expect it to be cheap.
Money for nothing, Chicks for free "Turn your computer into a money-making machine." "Earn $2,500 a month sitting on a beach in Thailand. Easy." Once the ad headlines have grabbed your attention you can read about how doing on-line surveys is the key to obtaining what everyone wants in life; the thing that is as elusive to us as turning lead into gold was to Medieval alchemists. How to lead a fantastic lifestyle in the sun without doing any work. I have read through this crap out of fascination and curiosity. My reaction has been the same as when I receive e-mails from Nigerians offering me a 30% cut of $600,000,000 if I just give them a little help getting the money out of the country. My reaction is one of bewilderment. How can people be so stupid? At the same time, the ads are mildly amusing but only because I find other people's stupidity mildly amusing. To first get some empathy the guy explains how he used to be stuck in a dead-end job as a cubicle clone until he found the magic answer in life. He now lives in a magnificent apartment - by the beach in Thailand, of course - and has a dream lifestyle. He gets up in the morning and has freshly squeezed orange juice with his breakfast before doing a couple of on-line surveys just to keep his bank account ticking over. He then relaxes on the beach for the rest of the day before spending the evening with one of his harem of exotic Thai beauties. Give me a break ... pleeease. Think about it. If it was this easy to earn $2,500 a month, do you think there would be any staff working in McDonalds? In fact, would there be anyone working in the entire retail, fast food and service industry? If you can't make easy money where you live, why should it suddenly be possible to do so in Thailand. And why does making this easy money always have to be on a bloody beach? Why do these guys who have discovered this 'amazing secret' spend their own money advertising the fact to the rest of the world? Surely, these wonderful money-making opportunities are limited so if you tell the rest of the world all you end up doing is cooking the golden goose, don't you? Why do they show alleged statements of their huge monthly earnings but then have links on their web sites for people to donate money? Just in case you haven't got the message yet; it's a con. You might just as well wait for an e-mail from Prince Hamad Bin Maktoum in Nigeria, give him your bank account details and wait for your cut of his massive fortune. There is no such thing as a free lunch. (PS. I would be grateful if anyone spotting these types of ad on my web site could let me know.)
Last updated: 4th October 2007 As a British citizen, I can only speak about the UK but I would imagine that a similar situation exists in other countries. There is a myth perpetuated in the UK that is normally based on something heard from someone's mate down the pub or from a taxi driver. It goes something like this: If you let out your UK property and receive rental income, or sell up and put the money in a UK high interest account, you can bugger off to Thailand to lead the good life and you don't have to pay a penny in UK tax on the rent or interest you receive on the basis that you are now classified as non-resident. It's a nice thought and people believe it because they want to believe it. This subject has drawn me into some quite intense correspondence in the past. It is a myth. The UK government makes it very clear that tax must be paid on UK income. There is lots of information at the link I have given here and the message is spelt out very clearly. You might want to print this information off to show to your mate down the pub. If you receive rent from letting out a property; interest from an account that is not an interest-free account (for example a PEP, ISA, or TESSA); or any other form of income that is generated in the UK, then the Inland Revenue will want a slice. With some accounts, such as NS&I Income Bonds, you will be paid the whole amount of interest without any tax deducted. With rental income from letting out a house, or regular savings accounts interest, where normally tax is deducted at source, you can apply as a non-resident to receive the whole amount. The rules determining non-resident status are also explained in the link above. However, just because you receive the gross amount, this does not exempt you from paying tax. It is still your responsibility to declare your income and pay tax if your total income exceeds your personal allowance. You are allowed to receive the gross amount because if you were taxed on everything at the standard rate of tax (currently 22%), you would be paying too much. In the current 2007-2008 tax year, the personal allowance is £5,225 so no tax need be paid on that amount. After that, the first £2,230 is only subjected to 10% tax before going into the 22% band. So, what if you receive the gross amount and just don't bother telling the tax man? This is what is known as tax evasion. A certain Thai prime minister was very good at it. Tax authorities have a habit of catching up with people eventually and the penalties are quite severe. If you evade tax for 20 years, your tax bill will probably be quite large, and you could also be subject to a fine or prison sentence. The good news is that keeping up to date with paying your tax needn't be vastly expensive. With letting out a house, you can deduct all expenses (agent's fees, repairs, gas safety checks, etc.) plus an additional 10% for wear and tear. By the time you offset the remainder against your personal allowance, it is not a fortune. The other good news is that UK tax returns are very easy to file from abroad using the on-line facility. I spend about an hour a year doing my tax return. A couple of months later I pay what is owed and it doesn't break the bank. It also gives me a perfectly clear conscience. Depending on various personal considerations, there will be other factors involved but do not believe the myth that simply living outside the UK exempts you from paying tax on any income generated in the UK. Exactly the same applies with offshore accounts. You may receive interest tax-free with an offshore account but it is still your responsibility to declare your income and pay any tax that is due otherwise you are evading tax and breaking the law.
Last updated: 11th January 2008 The question of how much money is required to live in Thailand is one that I still get asked fairly frequently. It's an impossible question to answer because we all have very different ideas about what is important in life. One of the attractive things about Thailand is that it allows for a very wide range of lifestyles. If you want to live a very simple, inexpensive existence, it is no problem to do so. If, on the other hand, you want to live a millionaire lifestyle with access to the finest shopping and luxury accommodation, then that is also possible. How much money you need comes down to what matters to you in life as an individual. Some Malaysian men who make frequent visits to southern Thailand keep Thai mistresses. I guess that renting a room and giving the girls a monthly allowance probably costs around Bt20,000 a month or so. This would be a ridiculous expense to some men but, to others, an absolute necessity. Likewise, visits to the local 'aab op nuat' bath and massage house fall into the same category. Some men don't care for such things whereas for other men, it is this kind of facility that is the very reason why they moved to Thailand. What about accommodation? For the lifestyle you want to lead would a standard rented room in provincial Thailand for Bt5,000 a month be sufficient or do you require a penthouse in Bangkok or a villa with its own swimming pool in Phuket? And food? A plate of noodles at lunchtime and rice in the evening costs next to nothing but if you want to eat aharn farang at the best restaurants in Bangkok and places like Keith Floyd's restaurant in Patong, your food bill is going to be hundreds of times more expensive. Some men - for whatever reason - insist on having a car in Thailand. Can you live without a car in Thailand or not? Public transport is cheap and plentiful while owning a car significantly adds to the cost of living. Again, it's a lifestyle choice. Travelling around the country also adds significantly to your monthly expenditure compared to staying in one location. I like to try to help people whenever I can but when these questions arrive I don't know what is important in life to the other person. There is only one person who knows and that is YOU. Depending on your individual outlook and lifestyle choices, Bt100,000 per month could make you feel like a prince or a pauper so there is no answer to the question. All I can really do is give a few guidelines on how much things cost. My other advice is to be brutally honest with yourself about what is important to you as an individual so that you can work out approximate living costs and budget accordingly. If you budget for a modest existence but then try to keep several girls on the go, eat and drink like a lord, and make frequent visits to various male 'entertainment venues' each week, it's obvious that your money will run out quickly. Be honest with yourself. Another little warning is that it is extremely easy to underestimate expenses in Thailand. When I think about what I pay for rent and the last few meals I have eaten, it always seems like next to nothing but nevertheless my expenses add up. The spreadsheet I started doing a few years ago to record all of my expenses has been a real eye-opener. I used to know a guy back in the UK (a Scotsman) who recorded all his expenses and I thought it was a bit anal and obsessive. However, doing the same thing in Thailand has enabled me to understand exactly how much I spend each month on average and these are the figures I am using to plan my full retirement in future. My actual spending is significantly higher than my estimated spending.
This is the big one with regard to spending money in Thailand. How much will power do you have? I am being quite specific here and not talking in general terms. How much will power do you have as a foreign man with regard to amusing yourself with Thai women? At the bar you can go home alone or you can take one of the girls. Instead of a quiet night in you can go out for a soapy massage or such. It's easy to convince yourself to go ahead based on the rationale that you couldn't back home because the opportunities just don't exist and even if they did it would be very expensive. Yes, these activities are easily available in Thailand and are very cheap compared to the West but when you start making a habit of this kind of entertainment ten or 20 times a month it soon becomes your highest item of expenditure. And in addition to girls, how much will power do you have concerning alcohol. This is another item that can have a big effect on your spending in Thailand.
You need somewhere to live. A room for a month can be rented for as little as Bt2,500. In Bangkok and provincial city centres it might not be the fanciest of rooms. I have seen rooms for this money in old Chinese shophouse buildings and they are pretty grim. Your neighbours will be mosquitoes, rats and lo-so Thais, none of which make for very good neighbours. It is possible though to get fairly new, reasonable accommodation for this price in the provinces if you live a little way out of town or don't mind a very small room. Electricity is charged for by the unit - Bt5 upwards - and the total depends very much on your use of air conditioning. Depending how well ventilated the room is, its location and the time of year, your A/C use will vary. My current room receives no direct sunlight and stays relatively cool. My monthly electricity charge varies from around Bt300 to Bt700, running a fan quite a lot of the time and switching the A/C on for fairly short bursts when it gets too hot. Even running A/C almost constantly shouldn't result in a monthly electricity bill of more than Bt2,000. Water is either charged for by the unit or at a flat rate of Bt100 a month where usage is unlimited. If it is metered you may pay as little as Bt30 a month. Some rooms come with fridges and TVs; others don't. They can be rented for about Bt400 a month each but buying is actually a cheaper long-term solution. TVs, especially, are very cheap these days and can be picked up for Bt3,000 or less. Fridges are a little more expensive. Food is ridiculously cheap. Local rice and noodle dishes are available for Bt20. You could eat three such meals a day, rent a cheap room without A/C and be looking at spending Bt5,000 a month but there probably aren't many farangs in Thailand doing that. Transport is another item in Thailand that is very cheap. I have been on four hour train rides that cost Bt18. Tuk-tuks, sawng-thaews and motorbike taxis are abundant and offer cheap options for local transport around town. These cost from Bt10 to Bt20 - the prices vary from place to place. Inter city transport is also cheap with lots of buses and trains. It is possible to make a 24 hour journey from one end of the country to the other for less than Bt1,000.
For the average farang, living a basic Thai way of life isn't a particularly attractive proposition. To be comfortable it is necessary to spend more on a room. In the provinces a decent room can be rented for Bt5,000. To go beyond a bedsit type place and get a proper one bedroom apartment in the provinces it is necessary to spend about Bt10,000 to Bt15,000. Bangkok, and to an extent Phuket and Chiang Mai (all major farang magnets) are generally more expensive than other areas of Thailand. Bangkok has rental apartments for Bt250,000 a month if you are interested. The next item is food. Thai food is great but most farangs (including this one) can't eat it all the time. Ahaan farang in Thailand can get quite expensive compared to the local food. A medium size pizza is about Bt250, a Big Mac Bt60, and a KFC meal about Bt100. Eating Western food at big hotels starts getting expensive. The Starbucks phenomenon has really taken off in Thailand and I enjoy a good cup of coffee at times but it seems crazy paying five times as much for a mug of coffee as I paid for my meal (this happened to me in Bangkok recently, Bt20 for a great rice dish and Bt100 for a big Latte at Starbucks). If you are staying in somewhere like Patong Beach or around the Sukhumvit area of Bangkok there are many Western food options but expect to be paying upwards of Bt500 a day compared to Bt60 a day if you were eating from local street vendors. Transport too is something that you can spend a lot more money on than you need to. Granted, luxury coaches and plane travel is cheap in Thailand compared to the West but the costs soon start to add up.
Already we have a list of items that are considered essential and as you can see, you can spend as little or as much as you like. However, there are a few more things to consider. Thai immigration is such that anyone living in Thailand has to make fairly frequent trips to the border. If you live near to a border this doesn't cost much but from Bangkok you might be looking at Bt2,000 a trip. New visas have to be acquired outside of Thailand which means a trip to a neighbouring country. They cannot be processed in one day and most Embassies and Consulates only accept visa applications in the morning so you have to arrive the night before. A two-night stay is normally required therefore, so you need to look at transport and accommodation charges as well as visa charges. A one-year non-B visa, for example, costs the equivalent of Bt5,000 in the local currency of the Embassy or Consulate. Acquiring a work permit also costs money and has to be kept in synch with your latest passport stamp. Every 90 days I have to make a trip to the border to get my visa stamp updated and then a trip to the department of employment to get my work permit extended. In addition to transport costs the work permit costs me Bt850 every time I get it extended. Unless you never get ill (and I have never met anyone in my life so far who doesn't) you will occasionally need to pay to see a doctor or a dentist. The charge depends on the doctor so you may pay a little or a lot. Once again, it's not expensive compared to the West but it all adds up. I suffered from a very nasty eye infection for a long time which required specially prepared anti-fungal eye drops which had a shelf-life of one week. This wasn't cheap. Want to get health insurance just in case? Mine cost about Bt14,000 for one year of cover. Internet and phone charges are quite cheap. Bangkok is the cheapest place for hourly Internet charges at an Internet cafe - sometimes as low as Bt10. The charge in the provinces is about Bt20. Tourist idiots get charged Bt1 per minute and think it is cheap. Places like Phuket airport are an absolute rip off but if you have checked in and then need to send an e-mail what do you do? 2005 saw huge strides with broadband distribution. When I arrived in Thailand to live in 2003 there were quite a few Internet cafes, even, that still had dial-up lines and not many people had a broadband connection outside of Bangkok. The scene has completely changed and now many apartment buildings offer a permanent broadband connection. I pay Bt500 a month which is a huge saving on the dial-up connection I used to have. Some places I have seen offer it for Bt300 a month and one place was offering it free. Wi-fi hotspots have become fairly common in Bangkok but aren't so common in provincial Thailand yet. Landline phone charges are cheap and mobile charges with a Thai SIM card within Thailand aren't that expensive. On the streets of Thailand are many people with mobile phones offering low call rates. They can do this by buying call packages which offer very good rates for high usage. Thailand has a big rag trade and locally made clothes are cheap, as are shoes. If you want your own transport you can pick up a second-hand motorbike (Honda Dream style) for about Bt5,000 and fuel isn't expensive. I don't know about insurance costs but get the impression a lot of people ride around without any. That's fine until you collide with a new Bt6 million Mercedes whereupon you will be looking at a big repair bill - that's if you manage to avoid getting shot dead by the owner (yes, it has happened). I can now feel myself starting to ramble and that is something I wanted to avoid. I wanted to talk about costs in general terms without going into too many specifics. Comparing individual costs, most things are cheaper in Thailand than the West, but everything adds up.
OK, we all know that the majority of farangs living in Thailand are male and we know the main reason why most of them are there. No surprises. Thai women get expensive after a while no matter what strategy you use to have your fun with them. The bar girl scene involves bar fines, money for the girls and buying them meals and things. I don't know what the prices are these days but probably between Bt1,000 to Bt2,000 per assignation. Visiting girls in bathhouses and massage parlours probably costs the same. Permanent Thai girlfriends probably work out the same over a period of time and can come with lots of other problems. There is quite a bit of truth in the old adage that you don't pay prostitutes for staying the night, you pay them so you can say goodbye in the morning. If you are stupid and/or naive, getting involved with the wrong Thai girl will cost you a lot of money and the shirt off your back.
It's very easy to underestimate how much money you actually get through while living in Thailand and even now I still do it but I am a lot more aware of this tendency than when I first arrived in the country. When I think about my spending it never seems very much. My current room - with electricity, water, Internet and fridge rental all included - costs about Bt8,000 a month. Yesterday, my lunch cost Bt50 and my evening meal was Bt25. The place where I went for my evening meal serves the most delicious food and charges the same for a very filling meal as most Bangkok restaurants do for their service charge. Most of my meals are pretty cheap actually and so is everything else. My fare to and from work is Bt10, drinking water from the machine at the apartment is Bt1 per litre and my grocery shopping never comes to much more than a few hundred Baht each time I visit the supermarket. I don't use my mobile phone much and only top it up once or twice a month with Bt300 worth of calls. On many days I spend far less than Bt500 and some days less than Bt100 (the price of a large latte in a Bangkok branch of Starbucks). Even assuming that my average spending was Bt500 a day, that would work out to about Bt23,000 a month after paying for my room. However, my average monthly spending is always far higher than this. Why? After about six months in Thailand I had noticed that I was taking out far more money from the ATM than I thought I was spending but the money had to be going somewhere. Where, I wasn't exactly sure, so I started to keep a record. This sounds really anal (and I had thought the same thing about a Scotsman I used to work with who made a note of every penny he spent) but it's an easy thing to do and has helped me to understand my spending. I use my computer every day anyway and while I'm checking e-mail or making web site updates I just put what I spent that day into a spreadsheet. It's simple and the spreadsheet gives me all the totals and averages. What blows my budget is not the necessities of life that I have already mentioned but all of the other things. Last month, June 2006, started off really cheaply. For the first couple of weeks I was spending less than Bt400 a day on average. After paying for my room I was set for a total monthly spend of about Bt20,000 if I'd continued how I started off. But that wasn't to be. I needed to go to Bangkok to apply for a new passport because my old one was almost full. The return airfare was Bt4,000 and the hotel cost just over Bt1,000 a night - I stayed for two nights. The new passport was Bt7,000. Being in Bangkok was too good an opportunity not to buy some things that are impossible to get in provincial Thailand. My spending started with some Thai language book and CD packages for Bt1,500 and continued with some photographic lighting equipment which set me back over Bt11,000. When I got back, my girlfriend broke a glass tabletop in our room by accident which, of course, I had to pay for. The final expense was money for her which I had promised some time ago. She had been on about getting a laptop computer so I had agreed to give her two lots of Bt10,000 in consecutive months to put towards a computer if that is what she really wants. My spending for the month got quite close to Bt60,000 when at one point it looked as if it was only going to be Bt20,000. OK, I could have saved money by taking the bus to Bangkok but the total time there and back is 24 hours. I could also have saved money by staying at a cheaper place but I like a certain level of comfort - especially in Bangkok. I could have tried to get my new passport by post but I didn't trust the mail for such an important document. I wasn't obliged to give the girlfriend money but I don't like breaking promises. Buying books and photographic equipment was completely unnecessary but I enjoy photography and learning Thai. And what's the point of life if you don't enjoy it? You could say that having to get a new passport (which is the thing that triggered my high spending for the month) is a one-off, fairly rare event and I agree but there always seems to be something that comes up every month. This month I need to return to Bangkok to collect the passport and I may use the trip as an opportunity to take a few days extra off and do a little travelling around the central region. Next month I need to go to Penang to get a new visa. That will mean more hotel and travel expenses and Bt5,000 for the visa. My web site hosting charge is also due. The month after that my medical insurance is due. It will be around Bt15,000 and it is something I don't want to be without in Thailand. The following month my house insurance in the UK will be due and after that the UK tax man will be after me for tax on my UK earnings. The UK government will also tell me how much I need to pay to keep my National Insurance contributions up to date. (I do so because it is conceivable - though highly undesirable - that one day I may have to go back to that cold, damp, miserable, expensive, little island in the North Sea). When friends or family turn up somewhere in the region I am expected to visit them, wherever they may be. For trips down to Singapore, which I make once or twice a year, I don't pay for accommodation but I always get through a lot of money. The list just goes on and on and this is the reason why I typically spend more than double what I think I should be spending each month. I could lock myself away and lead a very austere life but that wouldn't be much fun. My spending is not a problem because it is within my means but the point I'm trying to make is that it is something which is very easy to underestimate. This is an important consideration if you are thinking about making a move to Thailand. My average spending per day in Thailand (since I started recording what I spend) is Bt1,400 a day. Even now, it sounds crazy to me but I know it is accurate. After a cheap day yesterday, today has been another sub-Bt200 day. How can my average spending possibly be so high when there are so many days when I spend so very little? But it is. If anything, this figure is low because of items I have forgotten to account for. Also, this doesn't include some fairly major purchases such as a digital SLR camera and several high quality lenses. My estimate of average daily spending would be half this, that is, around Bt600 to Bt700. Knowing the actual figure is good because if I decide to take some time out and not work for a while I will have a good idea of how much money I'll need and it also helps me figure out if I can afford big purchases. If I just relied on estimates and guesswork they would be way below the actual figure and I could end up getting into some financial difficulties by severely underestimating. Don't be too simplistic when trying to estimate costs. Don't think that you can get a room for Bt5,000 a month and survive on Bt300 a day, thereby enabling you to live on Bt15,000 a month indefinitely. Yes, you will be able to get a room for Bt5,000 (half that if you want) and yes, there will be many days when you will spend less than Bt300 but overall your spending will be far higher than you imagine. Lots of unforeseen expenses crop up and, in addition, there is no shortage of pleasurable things to spend your money on in Thailand. I should add that I no longer drink and even when I did it was no more than one large bottle of beer a day. If you are doing a lot of drinking and maybe buying drinks for bargirls and taking them home with you your spending in Thailand is going to go through the ceiling. If you're planning to live in Bangkok or Phuket it will go through the roof.
I always get through more money in Bangkok than I do living in the provinces but this doesn't necessarily make it expensive. Bangkok is the biggest city in Thailand by a very, very long way and not even Chiang Mai, the second largest city, comes close. There are many things to spend your money on in Bangkok. There are lots of nice places to stay and eat that simply don't exist elsewhere in Thailand. There are items in Bangkok camera and book shops, for instance, I would be tempted to buy but very little worth buying where I live in the provinces. For some things it is actually cheaper than other parts of Thailand. Local style rice dishes from street vendors can be bought for as little as Bt14. In the provinces the cheapest I have seen the same food for is around Bt25. Internet shops in the provinces charge a minimum of around Bt20 an hour. An Internet shop owner I know went to Bangkok to investigate opening another shop there but decided against the idea. The hourly rate in Bangkok is Bt10 in some places with certain shops offering an amazingly cheap rate of Bt7 an hour. He just didn't think it was worth his while trying to compete with these prices working on such low profit margins. Cheap accommodation is available in Bangkok but because it is such a noisy, crazy city it is one place where I don't want cheap accommodation. I always get the best I can afford in order to try to isolate myself from the noise, heat and pollution. As the frantic development of Bangkok continues it is becoming an increasingly divided city in terms of wealth. It contains the most lavish department stores and residential buildings in Thailand as well as the worst slums I have seen in the country. What I like about provincial Thailand is that you can get the best of both worlds. You can find nice places to stay and eat but at Thai prices. In Bangkok all of the nice places have been built specifically for foreigners and priced accordingly. One of the attractions for me of living in Thailand is the low prices so I think it's crazy paying European prices and I refuse to do so. At the other end of the scale in Bangkok are the really cheap places to stay and eat but the standards of quality and hygiene are far below what I am comfortable with. It is the middle ground that suits me which is what Bangkok lacks and why I prefer provincial Thailand. (Plus the fact I find that breathing fresh, unpolluted air is far better for my health).
Pricing is an interesting subject in Thailand but often contradictory. There is no such thing as a fair price. The Thais are clever at exploiting supply and demand so you see good examples of the free market economy, if it benefits them, but if it doesn't benefit them they resort to cartels and monopolies to protect profit margins. They have very fixed ideas about certain things but are often out of touch with reality. For a start, time doesn't seem to make much of a difference and the concept of appreciation and depreciation hasn't really been grasped, especially depreciation. Used car prices in Thailand amaze me. Fifteen year-old Honda and Toyota saloons that in the UK would cost the equivalent of about Bt20,000 go for ten times that amount. Thailand has tried to market itself as the Detroit of Asia so there are no shortage of cars. I just can't figure out why old, used cars are so expensive. My only explanation is that the love for material things - especially cars - is so intense that these beloved objects never lose their value. My father bought a new car in the UK and tried to sell his old one. His old one was about 10 years old but had spent its life in the garage, just coming out to be washed or to go to Sainsburys once a week. It had done barely more than 1,000 miles a year on average and looked like a new car. He couldn't sell it and ended up giving it away. In Thailand I saw the car pictured above for sale. It is an Austin Allegro - possibly the worst car ever made - and the last ones came off the production line in 1983. In England people would laugh openly in your face if you tried to sell such a car. You would have to pay someone to take it off your hands but in Thailand it still has a value. I didn't telephone the owner to find out how much he wanted but it still has some kind of a value. Ever since I started coming to Thailand, the prices of some things just never change. Food is a good example and Thais will know exactly what a portion of som tum or a bowl of khao tom bplaa should cost. After the hikes in oil prices, the cost of ingredients started to rise because goods are transported by road. Some restaurant friends complained to me that because of increased costs their profits had started to go down. I couldn't really understand this. As far as I was concerned, if costs had gone up it was perfectly justified to increase menu prices. "We can't do that," they told me, "because people will stop coming here." And this is very true. Thais don't complain if they think something is expensive, they just vote with their feet and go somewhere else. What this means is that individual businesses are scared to increase prices even if their costs have risen. What is very common in Thailand - even among foreign run businesses such as dive shops on Koh Tao - is for cartels to form. You see it all the time. Massage shops and beauty salons in a town will all charge the same price and no one will break the monopoly. Customers have a choice - pay the set price or go without. But with this position of power over the customer a certain amount of abuse of power starts to creep in and the set prices are actually higher than they should be. In Hat Yai in March 2006 sawng-thaew fares went up once again to Bt10. Just over a year ago they had been Bt5. They went up to Bt7 and then Bt8, now Bt10, an increase of 100%. I admit that diesel has gone up quite a lot in the last couple of years but not by 100% so the sawng-thaew drivers have actually ended up a lot better off as a result of the increases. The other universal belief in Thailand is that all foreigners are immensely rich and all Thais are poor. Because of this it is always completely justifiable to charge foreigners more for the same item or service. I have written more about dual pricing elsewhere where it is done officially but the policy to charge foreigners extra is just as extensive in unofficial situations such as paying tuk-tuk drivers.
Haggling is expected everywhere apart from in department stores where there are fixed prices. It's a simple game. The shopkeeper bought something to sell and wishes to make as much profit as possible by selling it for as much as possible. Thais are very perceptive and very good at reading people. I even got chatting to a hooker in Krabi one time (I was with my girlfriend at the time and it was just chatting) and asked her how much she charged clients. She told me she worked out how much each individual could afford and that was the charge. Shopkeepers work the same way. Thais automatically think foreigners are rich so the price quoted to you will be high. The first thing you need to do is establish a price at which the shopkeeper won't sell the item for so go in with a very low offer. There is nothing worse than making an offer and having the shopkeeper snap it up because you know you have still paid too much. You go in very low and the shopkeeper goes in very high. You just need to work towards something in the middle that is acceptable to you both. Thais like to haggle using large calculators to punch out the offers and they won't tell you the price verbally even if you understand Thai. One last point to remember is that many Thais have become greedy as a result of stupid farangs handing over silly amounts of money. They start to think that all farangs should do the same and refuse to sell things at a small profit if they can't get the big profit they want. Stupid farangs have a lot to answer for but every year millions more visit Thailand.
I'm not in Bangkok which would be a more expensive place to live. The essentials of life in Thailand (accommodation and food) are really cheap. There are a few days when I spend less than Bt100 if I eat toast for breakfast and then eat local food for lunch and dinner. Despite the basics being cheap, the other stuff adds up. A lot of my spending could be considered non-essential but life wouldn't be much fun without certain things and the objective of coming to Thailand wasn't to live a life of austerity. A mobile phone isn't really essential but I'd be quite lost without it and wouldn't have the friends I have now without one so that's no fun. I don't need to have Thai massages but I enjoy them and compared to the West they cost peanuts here. If you want to, or need to, it is possible to live very cheaply in Thailand. Find two people to share a cheap room with and you can have a roof over your head for Bt1,000 a month or less. Eat street vendor food three times a day and you can eat for Bt60 a day. That's just what many Thais do. The opportunities exist though to spend as much money as you want, or can afford (or can't afford, as the case may be). This is especially the case in Bangkok or Phuket. If you have an addictive personality combined with a lack of will power be prepared to get through enormous amounts of money very quickly. If you can't stay out of the bars every evening and can't resist bringing home a little souvenir from your visit to the bars you had better have a lot of money in the bank. My typical monthly spend seems to be around Bt30,000 a month but other expenditure comes up regularly causing my monthly spending to far exceed this amount (see the 'Underestimating' section above). Overall, as I stated above, my average daily spend is about Bt1,400 Baht, or just over Bt40,000 a month. I stay in a nice place, eat well and don't consider that I'm missing out on anything but since I started to live in Thailand I have given up drinking. I think a lot of the reason I drank back home was because that's what everyone does. It was basically peer pressure and something that I didn't need. My Thai friends, who are mostly female, don't drink so I don't feel a need to either. It is also a way of distancing myself from the drunken farangs in Thailand who I do my best to avoid. I rely on public transport and don't have my own vehicle. I am no angel and occasionally indulge myself in some of the sensual pleasures that are easily available in Thailand but, having a live-in girlfriend, I don't spend a lot this way.
Last updated: 10th December 2008 On my trips to Thailand before 1997, the Thai Baht was pegged to the US dollar and the Baht to UK pound exchange rate was about 40 - give or take a small amount. After 1997 (as a result of the Asian financial crisis) the Baht was devalued and unpegged from the dollar, thus being allowed to float and subject to international market forces. As I seem to remember, the exchange rate suddenly jumped to around 60 at that time. The following table shows various exchange rates in recent years after drawing money at an ATM in Thailand from a UK bank account. I stress that these are ATM rates and not official ones. You can see that at the end of 2004 (including the ATM charge) it was possible to get Bt10,000 this way for less than £138. Following the credit crunch crisis that unfolded in 2007 and continued throughout 2008, by November 2008 it was costing in excess of £200 to get the same amount, and the exchange rate had dropped to below 50 from a high of over 73.
Short term visitors to Thailand have a tendency to convert Baht prices back into the currency from where they come from. I used to do the same and still do it to some extent. This means that since the Asian financial crisis of 1997 Bt1,000 has been worth approximately 15 UK pounds or 25 US dollars, dependent of course on fluctuating exchange rates. It makes everything seem cheap compared to home but some people think they are still at home. They are not, this is Thailand and the economy is quite different to developed nations. Dinner at a Thai restaurant doesn't cost 40 pounds as it would do in London, massages are not 80 dollars an hour and leaving a compulsory tip of exactly 15% is not part of Thai culture. Throwing around money in Thailand has made some Thais greedy and actually spoils things for a lot of visitors. Throughout these pages I have given some indication of prices in Thailand but here I will just summarise a few examples of the value of Bt1,000. It might help to put things into perspective while you are in Thailand. You're not at home so get out of that frame of mind, you are in Thailand. This applies especially to Americans.
I'll think of more examples later but it might help to remember a few of these when throwing around Bt500 or Bt1,000 tips in Thailand.
Transferring Money To Thailand Here is what my UK bank told me regarding transferring money to my Thai bank account. It's only general guidance and will of course differ from country to country and bank to bank. We will need to send the payment by SWIFT. This is the fastest and most secure method of making an International Payment in either sterling or local currency. Payments will arrive within two to five business days. You will need to supply the following information to make this type of payment:
Our charge is: GBP 21.00 When sending an International Payment there is a possibility that the beneficiary bank and/or an intermediary bank may charge for handling the funds. We can attempt to cover these for an additional GBP 10.00 charge (All Charges Remitter). We cannot guarantee that the receiving bank will not deduct any further charge. Should such charges be sent back to us, we will only deduct any further amount in excess of GBP 20.00. A British visitor to the site wrote with a suggestion to use Paypal to transfer money to Thailand. The only problem was that Paypal couldn't transfer money to a Thai bank account and therefore the Thai person he was sending the money to had to open an account with a US bank in Thailand. To send money is free and can be done using various channels, including text messaging from a mobile phone. To receive funds costs 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD. Of course, there is also the very well-known Western Union company who have many outlets in Thailand, along with hundreds of smaller money transfer companies. Transferring money isn't a problem, it's just about finding a method to do so efficiently and cheaply. I still have not had cause to do this myself, relying on ATM transactions to withdraw funds from my UK account. If you have experience of transferring money to Thailand and can make further suggestions, I am happy to publish them here.
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