Living on 1000 baht per day

[Roel]

I think hhfarang is referring to the 44,000 budget mentioned by mafiamind, and canthai it can be done, easily. But it goes beyond the imagination of people who live in big pool villas, play golf and drive their Fortuners to the shop to buy imported food for thousands of Baht per trip. No offence intended.

I work and live in Thailand since 1994 and I think our (farang/Thai couple) maximum rent was at one point 8,000 Baht a month. Of course we never had a private pool (but we have had access to communal ones) AND we never use air-con. Even if we stay in hotels we only use it when there is no fan.

Our last rent in Hua Hin (2008) was 4,500 per month and certain people on this forum can confirm that it was a decent place, no longer than 10 minutes walk from the beach and maybe 15 from town centre.

Our monthly water bill has never exceeded 100 Baht and our electricity bill never exceeded 300-something (the amount under which you do not have to pay anything thanks to some government support plan to promote energy saving). But note that we both work full time.

[Tzen Tse]

Interesting posts. Since I just start to live here in HH, these are helpful tips.
Thanks

[Uktom]

At one time I was living on 60baht a day, that was a tough time. that lasted for about 4-5 weeks. 1,000 baht a day is easy to live on, veyr easy indeed.

[Takiap]

At one time I was living on 60baht a day, that was a tough time. that lasted for about 4-5 weeks. 1,000 baht a day is easy to live on, veyr easy indeed.

I agree that 1000 baht a day is enough, or even more than enough, but only if you're single. Even a couple could easily get by on that if there aren't any kids to care for.


Roel summed it up perfectly in his last response, although I have no idea how he managed to keep his electric bill so low. We don't use air con at all, we don't have a pool, and we don't have a million light bulbs lighting up our property, but yet our electric bill averages about 2500 per month. Our government water bill averages about 150 per month whether we get water or not. Last month we only got mains water for about 4 or 5 days, and the bill was 157 baht, while the month prior to that we had water almost every day, and our bill was 152 baht. So far we've only had water one day this month, and no doubt our bill will be about 150 again. Small amount of money, so not worth complaining about.

Getting back to the 1000 baht per day question.....................If I was single, I'd have a great life here on 1000 baht per day, but remember, times are changing, and prices are going up almost daily.

[PET]

TAKIAP - Your electricity bill is much too high if you have no pool and do not use any A/C.

I would have expected it to be much less than half of what you are paying.

There are far more knowledgeable posters than me on this subject and it will be interesting to see what they say, I presume you are paying your electricity bill direct to the electricity company, but the house (owner) can ask the company to check the meter and see if it is running correctly or if somebody else is also using it !!

[HHADFan]

I agree with PET - we run one aircon all night, every night, two fans all day, a few computers, etc. and average 1200 - 1500 baht/month for electricity. If gf's daughter stays with us for a few weeks, running the other aircon at night, it goes up to about 1600- 1800.

Your water bill also seems high. Are you watering a large lawn or a lot of plants using water from the tank/pump? We water about 25 small trees (more like shrubs to me) and a few other things and our water bill averages about 60 baht/month.

Obviously if you're paying a developer for water and electricity, all bets are off. If you're paying directly, there may be something wrong and fixing it may reduce your bills significantly.

How do you get by with no water? Have it trucked in?

[Pleng]

Re Electricity bills, just a point worthy of note.

Since I arrived in the house I'm in now, shared with 4 other people, the electricity bill has virtually doubled. I do have a desktop computer which is on all the time so I presume that is the main cause of it.

If you have a desktop computer, put it to sleep when not using it if possible. Also, if you DON'T keep it on all the time, but switch it on and off several times a day, it may well be more energy efficient to keep it switched on and put it to sleep when not in use, as a big draw of power occurs on initial power up.

[dozer]

http://www.pea.co.th/th/eng/index.php
Takiap
I would certainly seem that your monthly bill for electricity is way too high with regards to your perceived consumption.
Over the years here I have had a number of discussions with friends regarding “excessive” household/small business electricity tariffs.
What I have found is that there are three common reasons for this:-
1 Faulty kWh meters.
2 Metered amount is correct and high consumption is cause by poor power management.
3 Power is being tapped by a rogue consumer.
For
1 You can request that you kWh meter is replaced
2 Carry out a survey and calculate you consumption using the tariffs in the PEA chart (link attached)
3 Make a list of all appliances currently in use and isolate all one by one and then confirm that the meter rotation is at a virtual stand-still.

[Roel]

a big draw of power occurs on initial power up.

Isn't that an urban myth?

[Nereus]

a big draw of power occurs on initial power up.

Isn't that an urban myth?

It will depend on the appliance, equipment etc. Unlikely to be noticable with a PC, but true for such things as electric motors, some types of lights, mostly equipment that has some form of "inductive" part in it. Although the power supply of a PC could be classed as "inductive", it is that small that the supply meter is unlikely to register it.
You stand more chance of damaging a PC hard drive because of the mehanical stress of spinning up to speed, than any cost involved with the intial switch on.

[HHADFan]

a big draw of power occurs on initial power up.

Isn't that an urban myth?

Maybe, maybe not - either way - I didn't write it.

[Roel]

Oops, hit the wrong quote button I guess. Did not no know it was technically possible to copy a quote and than assign that quote to someone else. Lesson learned. My humble apologies HHADFan.

[HHADFan]

No apology necessary, Roel. I didn't think you'd done it intentionally, it just shocked me.

[Uktom]

At my current house, if our electricity bill is below 300baht, we do not have to pay for it and it never has been over that. We use the aircon now and them, but rarely. Water is always around 45baht. When I was at that guest house 2 or so years ago I was single and there was a time where I was really really stuck for money. I was living on 25-30 baht meals once or twice a day for a few weeks. You could probably live here on 50baht a day excluding bills.

[Super Joe]

Taking this question of whether or not a single farang can see out the rest of his days in Hua Hin on a budget of 50-60,000 Baht, if we're to assume a healthy future lifespan of 30+ years, for an average Joe in terms of investment prowess, and needs to include accomodation ... then based on inflation alone surely the forum's collective experience of Hua Hin to date has to be something along the lines of... it's highly unlikely. If we all generally agree that 50-60k is comfortable now, but does not provide a lot of room for manouvre, then unless someone is capable of achieving maybe 6, 7, 8% growth on their income generating 'pot', then Hua Hin will eat us up between years 10-20. It scares the hell out of me, I'm achieving 0% so going backwards by maybe 6-8% a year... or whatever HH's inflation has been.

- Thailand's historical average inflation has been about 4% for the past 30 years (I think!?)
- Phuket's last year was 8.6%, or close.
- Hua Hin's over the past 5-8 years? maybe averaged 6% minimum, 7%, 8%?... and the next 10, 20 years?
- Do any of us expect it to settle down to average inflation inline with the rest of the country? No chance imho... foreigners, wealthy Asians, wealthy Bangkokians will come in great numbers. It's one of the best choices left now Phuket is virtually full, hugely expensive & suffering major crime, Krabi is not convenient access-wise, Pattaya doesn't suit a large % of people. Where else is easy access from Bangkok.

IMO, this currently plentiful accomodation, in the 8-15,000 Baht range is going to rise rapidly when it reduces in supply as more and more of it gets redeveloped for richer pickings as has been going on, and as demand increases as more foreigners return/choose to retire here. So imo inflation will be a killer for a non-working, non-stock market genius. What are people achieving on savings or pension increases, 3.5%?... that might be 3% short of where we need to be. Inflation out pacing our income growth by 3% p.a. means in just 12 years the 50-60k/month has lost a third of it's value, that's major. In 23 years it's devalued by over a half.


Exchange rates:
That's just inflation... how can we realistically say it's doable over 20-30 years when in our experience you can have 20-30% of your incom wiped out over night by exchange rates. If we were giving this advice pre-2007, surely that would have thrown a massive spanner in the works.

Women, babies, inlaws:
From what I've seen, 7/8 out of 10 farangs will fall at this very expensive hurdle. What % of single people can control whether they fall in love or not, I hardly know anyone still single!? How many 50, 60 year old's have kids they weren't planning, Yamsaard is full of old Dad's... schools etc would cause major budget problems. I wasn't ever planning to have kids. It's easy'ish to say no to family handouts... but when 80 year old Mum or Dad of the woman you love needs a life saving op/meds, and you have a few grand in Dollars collecting dust in the bank... are you gonna let them slowly suffer and die. Don't answer pls, rhetorical


Health/Sickness/Accidents:
We've all heard stories of insurance companies wriggling out of paying, you didn't follow protocol while you were bleeding to death, them not covering the full amount etc.


Seems you'd need an awful amount of things to go your way for a large number of years. Most of us have suffered them in a fraction of that time. Not deliberately being negative, but trying to be realistic about inflation. Most of us I assume have never really experienced it as were working and getting pay rises to suit.


SJ