Living in Thailand on Less Than $500 a Month

Continuing our series of articles about living abroad cheaply, if you’ve decided to get out of the rat race during the current economic doom and gloom but haven’t really got much in the way of cash, or if you’re thinking about retiring early, or maybe you just want to be a beach bum for a few months, why not get yourself over to Thailand?

Obviously you could log on to Thais are Us, one of the many internet dating sites, get yourself married to a lovely smiling Thai and go off and live in a village amongst the water buffalos - but it doesn’t have to be your only option…unless you want it to be! 

If you get away from Bangkok it is possible to find yourself living in Thailand on less than $500 (£344) per month…

The first consideration is going to be accommodation.  You’re not going to be able to put yourself up in the Bangkok Hilton on a budget of $500 a month living in Thailand, but accommodation can be found from as little as $30 (£20) a month for a small apartment without air conditioning in places like Chang Mai up in the mountains of northern Thailand. 

Air conditioned apartments start from $70 (£50) per month.  If you want to be nearer the coast, then apartments and guest houses in Phuket start from $90 (£62) per month.  With accommodation under $100 a month that leaves us $400 to play with if we are going to prove to you that you can still live in Thailand on under $500 per month…so, here goes: -

Whilst it would be very tempting to go straight into trying to fit a months worth of nightlife in Thailand into $400 it’s probably better to consider the cost of food as your next priority.  The majority of lower end apartments won’t have cooking facilities so it’s going to be a case of eating out.  Obviously you can eat in a restaurant every night, but again budgetary requirements won’t cover this.  You can however get fantastic Thai food from street side food stalls.  A good meal for one will cost around $1.10 (£0.75), and it usually consists of rice with spicy chicken, spicy pork or spicy something else! 

A bottle of beer runs to around $1.50 (£1.00) and a glass of beer can be had for around $1 (£0.70), soft drinks and orange juice run to about the same.  Three meals a day and fresh fruit snacks should come to about $180 (£125) per month.  So far we’ve spent $280 of our budget, so we are well on track to showing you that you can live in Thailand on less than $500 per month.

Obviously you’re going to need to get out a bit while you’re living in Thailand, and with $220 remaining we can do that.  Put aside around $30 (£20) for a months worth of laundry and we are now down to $190.  Going out to dinner without getting too heavy on the alcohol should run to about $12 (£8.25) per person, and getting to and from your preferred spot shouldn’t be too expensive as a 3 kilometre taxi ride will run to about $0.40 (£0.27), so you can look to spend around $72 (£50) a month on eating dinner out once or twice a week and maybe $25 (£17) in taxi rides. 

The remaining $90 (£62) you can invest in wine, women and song, or fritter it away on other things as you see fit.  But you can see by the figures, it is possible to live in Thailand on less than $500 a month.  Now let me get that flight schedule!