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Interviews with entrepreneurs and business leaders who’ve “made it” in Thailand. Real stories of ambition, setbacks, and strategic wins on the path to success. Built for founders and operators who want to win in Thailand.
Guests from the US, UK, Australia, and Thailand. Honest journeys and cross-cultural lessons. Inspiration for anyone building in the Thai market.
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https://madeitinthailand.com/apply
Hosted by Scott Pressimone, a US expat based in Thailand for 13+ years and owner of Fractiond, a Thailand-based strategy consultancy.
#ThailandBusiness #ExpatSuccess #ThaiExpat
You can live a good life in Thailand
for just $2,000 a month, and there are
plenty of videos explaining exactly that.
They'll show you the luxury condos
for $500 a month and delicious
street food for two to $3.
But raising a family
here is much different.
When I first moved to Thailand,
my wife and I spent very little,
but as our family grew, our cost
of living increased by a lot.
The fact is Thailand is much cheaper
as a gap year traveler or as a retiree.
But when you're working and raising
children here, there are a ton of new
expenses that you need to account for.
I'll break down my $6,000 a
month budget, which is equivalent
to about 200,000 Thai Baht.
Now, hold on.
I can already anticipate the comments.
I'm not saying that you need 200,000
Baht per month to raise a family here.
You can get by on much, much less.
But by seeing my budget, you
might learn about a few expenses
that you didn't anticipate.
You'll also get a better understanding
of how far $6,000 goes, and
it might not be the luxurious
lifestyle that you might imagine.
I've also included a free budget
calculator in the description of
the video so you can calculate
your own monthly budget.
Alright, the first expense we're
gonna talk about is gonna be
the housing or accommodation.
And in our case, it's a mortgage,
which is 35,000 Baht per month.
When it comes to housing, you're
gonna have to strike a balance
between location and space.
And as much as we enjoyed living in a
small studio apartment as a couple, when
we had kids, it just wasn't gonna work.
So if we decided to live in a nice
location like Thonglor or Phrom Phong, and
we wanted a bigger space, then we would've
spent maybe 70,000 Baht a month, and
that was a bit too much for our budget.
So we had to think can we live a
little bit further out but still
have more room for the kids?
And that led us to places like Bang
Na and Rangsit, and those would
give us the option to have a house.
Now, originally our mortgage was
about 25,000 Baht, but since they
have adjustable rate mortgages
here, after three years, you
have to renegotiate your rate.
And we were able to keep our rate down
at that low interest rate of about 3%
if we increased our monthly payment.
So that's why we have a 35,000
Baht per month mortgage.
But again, expect to spend maybe
25,000 Baht if you're gonna live
in a separate house like this.
Another big sacrifice we made was we moved
out to Rangsit, which is north of the
city and it's a great gated community.
It's really nice, we love it, but
it is a commute into the city.
And so to get on a tollway,
it could take 30 minutes.
It could take an hour.
Again, that was just a sacrifice
we're willing to make, especially
since our location put us pretty
close to a good school for our
kids, which I'll talk about later.
Then there is a community fee, and
whether it's a condo or a house, expect
a little bit extra for maintenance
of the pool or things like that.
In our case, we do have a pool,
a lake with a bunch of fish, a
small gym, and it also pays for
our security guards and gardeners.
So housing altogether is 37,500 Baht.
Then we have utilities.
Now the biggest one is gonna
be electricity, which is 2,500
Baht, and that's because we are
decent with our AC running, right?
So I use it in my office all the
time, and we do keep our AC on
at nighttime, but not every room.
So I think we're doing pretty good
at about the 2,500 Baht a month
for electricity bill on average.
Of course, it's much higher in those
warmer months, March to June, but
averaging 2,500 Baht per month.
The second utility is gonna be
our home internet, which is quite
cheap, with 3BB at 650 Baht.
And then we also have our phone plans.
And in our case we just have it
for my wife and I. And her plan is
more expensive than mine 'cause she
talks more than me on the phone.
But 1100 Baht per month
for phone and internet.
And there's also water.
Water's incredibly cheap, the tap water.
So we get that from the city
and we do filter it out.
But that's gonna be for
our showering water.
Maybe again 300, 250 to 300 Baht.
And then we spend additional, about
500 Baht to have water delivered
for drinking water from Sprinkle,
which I think works quite well.
Utilities all in, we're
talking 5,000 Baht.
Groceries and dining.
This is gonna be a big one for us.
So yes, you can get by on maybe a
30 to 60 Baht street food meal, but
it's not realistic when you have a
family, just in my opinion at least.
We do most of our shopping at Big C and
Makro and Tesco Lotus or now just Lotus.
And we also just get a lot of fresh fruit.
We got a lot of meat and we cook
most of our meals, maybe 80%
of our meals are home cooked.
So we are always going to these big super
grocery stores to get all of our food.
And occasionally we'll
go to a Villa Market.
But this is really just budget
oriented grocery stores here.
To get that meat it can really
add up for a family of four.
There's also the non-food that
we get at the grocery stores.
I included things like pharmacy
shirts for the kids, little supplies
here and there, things like that.
And it's pretty high at 9,000
Baht, but just ballpark.
There's just always things that
creep up and things that we have
to maybe pick up at the local shop.
Then there's dining out.
We don't do this very frequently.
Maybe once a week.
Eating out is about 800
Baht for our family.
When we go to a Jones Salad in the mall.
Again, nothing super extravagant.
But compare that to like a
home-cooked meal, which is about 300.
Baht a meal out is about 800
Baht and a pizza delivery.
Again, getting a couple pizzas for the
kids that last a little bit longer.
Again, about 800 Baht.
So that's why our dining out budget
adds up to about 3000 Baht per month.
Groceries and dining
altogether, 45,000 Baht.
Now again, this is a really big
portion of our expenses, but.
When you break it apart, the food portion
of this groceries and dining budget
ends up being about 300 Baht per person
daily or about a hundred Baht per meal.
So really it's not super crazy
when a typical street food meal
is, let's say 50 to 60 a Baht.
We are spending about a hundred Baht
on average, so it's not much more
than street food, and that's because
we do a lot of home cook meals.
Next we have health insurance.
This is a big part of our budget as
well, and that's because we don't
just have that basic health plan that
might cover you for a doctor's visit.
We really prioritize our catastrophic
care, and that would mean things like.
What happens if you get
into a car accident?
If you get cancer, something that is
gonna cover you up to a hundred or 200,000
Baht isn't gonna cover enough, in my
opinion, for those catastrophic events.
So we went with a company called
Luma, which provides care up
to 32 million Baht in coverage,
which is almost a million dollars.
So it's pretty extreme.
But that does cover us and our kids.
For each of the adults, it's
about 60,000 Baht per year.
And for the kids it's about 35,000 Baht.
So our average monthly
is about 15,000 Baht.
Then there's preventative care.
When we take the kids to the pediatrician,
to the eye doctor, to the local
clinic when they have a flu, something
like this, just 1500 Baht a month.
And then there's life insurance because
when you have kids, of course you
wanna protect the kids, your wife, your
family in case something does happen.
So I went with Unisure, which is
an international insurance agency
for life insurance, and a term
life insurance policy is running
just over 2000 Baht per month.
Altogether, healthcare
insurance, including life
insurance, is about 18,000 Baht.
Then we have education.
Yet another really big one.
Now, the international
schools are crazy expensive.
If you wanna send your kid to
a top institution like NIST or
ISB, they charge between 500 to
900,000 Baht per student annually.
So as much as you might look at my
budget and think it's crazy high, if
you're a parent that's sending your kids
to one of these international schools.
I think my budget will pale in comparison.
Because we send our kids to
a bilingual school, which I'd
consider it to be an in-between.
You have your public schools, which are
cheap or free or very little, right?
And then you have the bilingual
schools, and then you have
the international schools.
So to send two children to primary
school at an bilingual school is
costing us 20,000 Baht per month total.
Now that is for a 50 50 program,
meaning 50% in Thai and 50% in English.
'cause we really do wanna prioritize
them being good at speaking Thai and
they get a lot of their English at home.
So altogether I think it's a
good deal and we're really happy
with education they're getting.
But, it's not small money.
It certainly does add up.
And there is one additional fee related.
The last expenses that I share does
include things like the books and
tuition and everything altogether,
but I didn't include the school van,
which is separate here, to have them
picked up and dropped off every day
for those two semesters is 5,000 Baht.
Education all in we're
talking 25,000 Baht.
Now transportation, just us getting
around, running errands, going on a trip.
That all in is gonna be 2,500 Baht.
That does include about
2000 Baht for gasoline.
That includes just things like
the tag to keep it renewed.
So there's always other expenses here, but
2,500 Baht for our main mode of transport.
And I don't include the upfront cost that
came from purchasing a used Honda CRV.
That's gonna depend on the year that
you get and all these other things.
And there's also ride share.
So I actually go into the city every
once in a while and I will pay for
the MRT or BTS, and I will pay for a
grab taxi to go to and from on evening
events when I come into the city.
So that does add up quite a bit.
So I budgeted about 3,500 Baht per month
on ride sharing and public transport.
So altogether the transportation
costs are 6,000 Baht per month.
Shopping is a much smaller portion.
We do occasionally go to our local
mall, which is Future Park Rangsit.
And, getting books, getting gifts,
getting small things for the kids.
I budgeted 3000 Baht per month
from just these local shops.
And then online shopping for other
items like I mostly shop on Lazada,
but it could be household items,
electronics, 5,000 Baht per month.
So our shopping budget totals
to 8,000 Baht per month.
And then entertainment is
another relatively small one.
We let the kids go to play
centers at the local shops.
We also occasionally will
go to an aquarium or a zoo.
But to be honest, a lot of what
we do is free entertainment.
So we'll go outside a lot, we'll go
to our local park, we'll go to the
playground that's in our neighborhood.
We'll feed the fish.
So we'll fly a drone, right?
There's a ton of little things
that we can do for free.
But still, we budget about 2000 Baht
a month for those paid activities.
And then there's the small
subscriptions like Spotify or
Netflix, 500 Baht in our case.
Entertainment, 2,500 Baht per month.
Then vacations.
We do have to take a break every
once in a while and we go to
places like Hua Hin and Khao Yai.
Usually it's just places
that we can drive to.
We haven't done a lot of airfare
or domestic flights, but they
can be relatively affordable.
In our case, just compensating
for the nightly stay at hotels.
A lot of times they're gonna range
around a thousand to 1500 Baht per night.
And so that's why we will save up to go
on maybe twice a year domestic vacations,
and that's just 3000 Baht per month.
International travel would really make
our budget crazy to be honest, because
to go to the US for instance, could cost
150,000 Baht, if not more, for a family
of four, for a nice round trip ticket.
And that would not even
include accommodations if you
don't have a place to stay.
That would be a huge chunk.
And in our case, since we haven't
been back to the US in a few years,
I put no budget for that right now.
But international would add quite a bit.
So vacation budget is just for those
domestic trips, which is 3000 Baht.
And then saving and investing.
Now, this is one that I
consider a non-negotiable.
Before we even think about our food budget
or our other budgets that I went through,
we first set aside money for the future.
Because remember, everything's very
different if you're a pensioner or a
retiree and you're pulling from your
current savings or from that pension.
In our case, we are building
up our wealth here in Thailand.
I think people forget that as soon
as you're not vacationing here,
you really have to put money away.
And so we put away about 22%
of our budget into saving and
investing, which is 50,000 Baht.
And so that's, I'm not gonna
break that down for you.
The, but the gist of it is 50,000 Baht.
And then there are a bunch of other
considerations, so don't forget
about things like visa expenses.
Don't forget about maybe Thai
expenses, going to a school
or getting a local tutor.
Don't forget about all the
emergency things that come up.
We had situations where we had to
have our engine replaced on our used
car, and that was 30 or 40,000 Baht.
We also had a couple health emergencies,
which resulted in having to pay the
deductible on our insurance plans.
That's another 30,000 Baht.
I just want to put this as a reminder for
you to think about all those other things
that do, come up outta nowhere sometimes.
So here's the summary all in.
And as you can see, that adds
up to a 200,000 Baht budget,
which is about 6,000 US dollars.
And I'm sure there are some
of the bigger items on here
that you might disagree with.
But as a whole, as you can see,
this is not an extravagant life.
This is not living and going out on yachts
all the time or going to hi-so hotels.
When you're dealing with family and
you're paying for the education and
you're paying to feed a bunch of
kids, these things really do add up.
And before you know it, you
can get to pretty high numbers.
You can certainly get buy off on less,
but I just wanted to share this so you get
an idea of how much a family could cost
if you're in a similar situation to me.
So I hope that got you started.
Now, having said that, I do wanna
show you a tool that I have for
you here, which is going to allow
you to create your own budget.
And if you go here, and I am gonna
share the link in the description
of this video, but you can make
your own copy of this calculator and
you can fill in all your numbers.
And all of these yellow cells here
can be filled in with the numbers
that you want in whatever currency
and whatever duration that you want.
So for instance, you could
change and say, oh, my budget
is $500 US dollars per month.
Or you can say that I'm willing
to spend 200 Baht per day.
You can put in all the numbers in
the way you want just by clicking the
dropdowns and selecting what you want,
and it'll calculate out what your
monthly budget is in various currencies.
You can also scroll down to the
bottom and you'll see a summary of
your monthly expenses, your yearly
summary, as well as a daily summary.
And lastly, it has a
percentage breakdown here.
So all of these gray cells
or calculations, I would
recommend not adjusting those.
But again, if you adjust and put
in all your expenses here in these
yellow cells, then you'll figure
out what your family budget is, and
hopefully that gets you started.
As you can see, tying can cost
as much or as little as you want.
You can certainly get by on $2,000
a month, but if you have a family,
it's easy to spend a whole lot more.
Having said that, kids are well worth it.
No matter what your budget
is, you can make it work.
I hope you got some
value outta this video.
If you did, please give me a like,
and if you like videos like this
about living in Thailand or about
starting a business here, go ahead
and subscribe to the channel.
And don't forget to use the
free budget calculator I have
linked in the description.
Alright, I'll catch you on the next one.