Monthly Cost of Living in Thailand July 2018

Monthly Cost of Living in Thailand July 2018

Welcome to the July 2018 report on my monthly spend in Thailand.

Total Earned: 66,650  THB

Total Spend:   63560 THB   

 Invested: 9,000  THB    

Saved: loss 5,910

Breakdown

Accommodation – 13,000 THB

My one-bedroom condo is on Sukhumvit 105 (La Salle) and it is a cracking place. I have a great room five minutes walk from BTS bearing. It’s also only around 15 minutes from my office by taxi. There is a small pool and fitness room, neither of which I use frequently.

The staff at the condo are great and speak good English. I have to go in there once a month to pay my water bill and they always ask if everything is alright and if I need any help. I’ve lived in places before where I’ve had no help or assistance when I needed it but I feel confident that my current condo staff are willing to assist me if I need a handyman or to find someone to clean the AC etc.

I’ve previously bought condos but now I am happy renting. I would consider buying something in the future but in order to get a condo I would be happy with I would need to save a lot. There also seems to be so many new condos springing up due to the construction of new transport lines in Bangkok. With the constant building of new condos in Bangkok there will always be a large supply of cheap rooms to rent.

Utility Bills –   3,245 THB

Water: 165 baht

Electricity: 1,280 baht

Internet: 805 baht

Phone Bill: 555 baht

Netflix: 440 baht

I use the air conditioning around 7 hours a day  and have a few appliances constantly plugged in. I wrote an article about paying your electric bill online which is worth a read .

Transport –  2,750 THB

I’m certainly more liberal now when it comes to using taxis. In the past taxi journeys were saved for occasions where there were no other options. I used to use the bus and other public transport anytime I could. These days it is often cheaper to use a taxi than the BTS if there are two or more people traveling. I value the convenience of a taxi nowadays, especially when traveling to work.

My trip to work costs 80 baht but I sometimes split this with other people I work with. If I wanted to I could take a bus and then BTS and finally walk back to my condo and this would cut around 40% off the cost of travel but would take around five times longer.

Around once a week I’ll use a bus to go somewhere. I don’t mind the buses for short journeys and at around 9 baht a time they are reasonable. If I’m going to the local supermarket I’d rather avoid motorbike taxis and take a few minutes longer to arrive by bus.

Food –   10,000 THB

This section includes general food and drinks. When I go for a night out and drink I add that to the “entertainment” section below.

In general I probably spend around 250 baht a day on food and drinks. Breakfast is normally toast and a yogurt. Lunch is fried rice and dinner something like an omelet. I’ll get a snack and a couple of drinks too. As I work in a shopping mall I get a couple of meals from there each day. I’ll get dinner at a local restaurant near where I live or just outside of work. I normally do one big order a month from Tesco Lotus who deliver to my door. This is for heavy items like bottled water and cleaning supplies. Anything else I need I go to 7/11 or Gourmet Market where I work.

In terms of restaurants I’ll visit a nice place maybe once a week. It usually costs around 200-300 baht per dish. It isn’t cheap but then it isn’t unreasonable. The problem is that many expats get into the mindset that a meal can cost 40 baht here so anything twice that amount or more is a rip-off.

General Shopping –     2,250 THB

I hate shopping for clothes but did actually buy some this month at Central Bangna. I got a new pair of jeans and a shirt for 1750 in total. I used my credit card and One Card to get around 30% off the original price.

I also popped into IKEA and got a few bits and pieces for my kitchen. It’s actually pretty cheap there and the food is decent too!

Entertainment –   7,750 THB

I went out for beers and food quite a lot over the last month. The pub just out the back of my school is The Witch, it’s a great place and I normally end up there at least once a week. I then tried a few different restaurants around my area and on average spent around 500 baht each time.

A couple of visits to the local driving range came to 250 baht. I didn’t actually play golf at all in the last month, I’ll try back into it in August.

Travel – 0 THB

I didn’t plan or book any travel this month.

Others –  24,565 THB

My biggest expense was paying towards the cost of the book I have written – Settling in Thailand. At 16,600 this month it was a fair chunk of cash and will be repeated over the next couple of months too. In the past I paid for my book from savings in the UK but for the last few things I’ve decided to use money in Thailand to do so.

I bought my computer in January using a payment plan via my credit card with 0.8% interest. It means I pay 4,899 baht a month plus 391 baht interest. This will be paid off in October this year.

I pre-paid for my maid to come five times in August which cost 2,675 baht. Each visit is for three hours and she cleans, washes, irons and generally tidies my place.

Invested –   9,000 THB

One of the benefits of my job is that my company will match my contributions into a provident fund based here in Thailand. This is only the second month I have been in the scheme but is something I will continue doing. You never know what will happen in the future with investments but it’s good to get something going.

I have also started looking into making voluntary National Insurance contributions back in the UK to help me get a state pension. I need to top-up two years of contributions to meet the minimum requirement. Based on current numbers, ten years of contributions could be worth around 2,000 baht a week when I reach retirement age. It isn’t a great amount of money but it would be useful to have in my opinion. Hopefully more info on this next month….

Saved –   loss of 5,910THB

In total I spent an extra 5,910 baht than I made this month. This was due to paying for my book and without this cost I would have saved around 10,000 baht in cash. I made the call of using Thai savings to pay for the book rather than savings from England. I think I’ll have this situation over the next two months where I’ll make a small loss to cover the costs of the book. If I end up having to pay for something else here in Thailand I’ll revert to using savings from the UK.

Overview – Monthly Cost of Living in Thailand July 2018

I was expecting a small pay rise this month but as it turns out it will come in my August paycheck. I should get email confirmation of it in the next couple of weeks. This is the first job I’ve had in Thailand where I can actually get continual pay rises. I spoke to a few teachers and some, after working for 10+ years at the company, have doubled their salary just through pay increases.

Overall this month my spending was pretty low but is heavily inflated by the cost of my book. Without that 16,600 baht payment I would have been sitting a lot better in the saved section. The book will be in stores from the middle of August I hope and perhaps I will start to get some income from it.

August should be pretty quiet. I’ll be working the whole month and have a new project to start.