Living in Thailand
Jan 04, 2010
What's the cost of living in Thailand?
Foreign student budget for Thailand
There are many foreign students in Thailand who could not afford to study in their own country. From them, we draw a surprising experience: The smaller your budget, the more you will learn by living in a foreign culture since you will learn to live as the Thais do.
‘When in Rome, do it as the Romans do’ is an saying in the western world. Since Bangkok is an international metropolis, you find any kind of luxury from your daily food and beverages to designer apartments on the 33rd floor of a high riser looking over Bangkok. Certainly, you can spend as much money as you have in Thailand, you won’t ever have a problem to get rid of it.
Here, we forget about what we call in Thailand ‘farang prices’ (‘farang’ is the term used for western foreigners) and focus on the minimum budget to live a decent student life. If you know about the traps, and follow some simple rules, you can live in Thailand for a surprisingly small budget. To make differences and limitations more clear, we will name all prices in Thai Baht.
To understand how that comes, it is first necessary to forget about income and price structure in your own country. Income distribution in Thailand is very different between Bangkok and rural areas. The teenagers working at McDonalds in Bangkok would make between 18 and 22 Baht per hour (that means half a day’s salary for a Big Mac). An average waiter in Pattaya, another big city, will make about 10 to 15 Baht per hour. In Isaan, you get workers aged around 20 for 7 to 10 Baht (all that in 2008).
As it is everywhere, prices go hand in hand with income. Income in Bangkok is higher, and so are the prices. Since most of you will study in Bangkok, we will focus on the costs in this metropolis. A simple dish, such as Fried Rice with Chicken, is currently about 30 Baht. With a bottle of Coke, you pay 40 Baht. This would not be enough to buy a single liter of premium petrol, however. By the way, this Fried Rice with Chicken is a real meal for 30 Baht, while one Cheeseburger at McDonalds costs the same.
Relationships between different categories of goods are different than they might be in your country. Below you see an overview of average salaries in different jobs. Although a few years old, you may well assume that income didn't grow much until today.
Employment Description or Position
Salary in THB (Thai Baht)
Fishing 2,968
Agriculture, hunting and forestry 3,019
Private households with employed persons 4,068
Construction 4,706
Hotels and restaurants 5,680
Other community and social work 6,311
Manufacturing 6,420
Wholesale and retail trade, repair business 6,760
Mining and quarrying 7,646
Real estate, renting and business activities 9,571
Health and social work 10,804
Public administration and defense 11,375
Transport, storage and communication 11,752
Education 14,883
Electricity, gas and water supply 17,841
Financial intermediation 19,325
(National statistics 2005, taken from: National Statistics Office, First quarter, 2005)
Of course, there are a lot of people who are surviving on just 100-200 baht a day. The minimum wage is presently 175 baht per day. I know people who get less than that. I don't know how they can do it. I have a lot of respect for people who can manage their life on so little. Nothing goes to waste. They work long hours just to put enough food on their table. More times than not, anything spare they can afford they give to a neighbour who is "worse" off than them.
It also makes you wonder how Thai people can afford to buy so many of the brand new cars that are on the road that cost 1 million baht and upwards. I think that is one of the first things that startled me when I first came to Thailand. All of the cars on the road seemed to be new. Where were all the old bangers that we have back home? Thailand, like many other countries in Asia, has a big difference between those that have and those that don't. There are many people who are earning 60,000 baht per month and upwards.
To have a better idea of the difference, here are some "real" wages released by the Board of Investment. They are given as a guideline of what to expect for foreign companies starting up in Thailand.
Plant manager 73,396
Personnel/HRD director 71,222
Office manager 47,994
Executive Secretary 32,296
Engineering 26,051
Researcher (Thai) 24,722
Sales/marketing staff 23,785
Public relations staff 16,635
Office staff 15,222
Driver 8,528
Housekeeper 6,532
IT Manager 90,000-150,000
Webmaster 45,000-60,000
Web Designer 25,000-35,000
PC Programmer 22,000-35,000
System Analyst 40,000-45,000
Network Administrator 45,000-55,000
LAN Manager 60,000-80,000
Read more: http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php/2005/07/03/average_monthly_wage_in_thailand?blog=5#ixzz0bdUvYbHr
With such little income, cost of living must be cheap either. That’s not necessarily true for a foreigner as well, however, for two reasons. First, since everybody thinks you have a lot of money as a foreigner, there’s a clear tendency to charge you simply more for the same things. Secondly, Thais certainly learned over time that foreigners tend to go to places that seem to be a bit like in their own country, such as a restaurant looking like a western restaurant, or in Bangkok, just to Khaosan Road.
A small portion of Spaghetti will cost you well over 100 Baht, and a pizza with one glass of western beer quickly comes to 500 Baht. A small bottle of Warsteiner or Guiness is usually between 150 and 200 Baht, while the tasty Thai beer ‘Chang’ costs about 40 Baht for a big bottle (0.64 liter) in a 7-Eleven shop (and 'Chang' is clearly stronger than western beers, meaning you need less :-).
Students' canteen in a university
If you are willing to live like a Thai, you won’t need a big budget. If you insist on behaving like a tourist, you will need the same budget as you would need at home (200 Baht for a small bottle of western beer is about 5 USD or 4 € - that’s not what one would call ‘cheap’). At home, you don't visit an expensive Thai restaurant every day. Watch the reverse picture: In Thailand, western food is as expensive as Thai food is in your country. The best rule is 'go where the students go'.
To enable you to determine your own budget, we will now have a look at the cost of study (tuition fees), and then on the cost of living.
Cost of study (tuition fees)
For undergraduate studies, we prepared an overview of average program costs for you. There are some things you should know, however.
First, not all universities spread the tuition fees equally over the semesters. Some universities charge you with more during the first semesters, while tuition fee is lower in the last semesters.
Some programs are more expensive since heavy technology is needed, such as laboratories in applied chemistry or nanotechnology. If you compare standard programs, such as business administration, you may be surprised about the range of tuition fees. Generally, higher tuition fees don’t necessarily mean better education. Demand for international programs in Thailand is high due to the inflation of academic degrees over time. There’s almost no white collar job to get anymore without a bachelor degree. With about half a million graduates leaving Thai universities per year, international programs became an alternative for getting a better starting position.
Since everybody in Thailand knows that international programs are more costly then standard programs in Thai, many say that some universities just cash in on that. Even for a high tuition fee, the only international element in such a program might be a US college textbook.
The most important single factor of good university education is the quality of the professors. When looking a bit deeper into the different tuition fees, you will quickly find out that some of the cheapest programs offer you 90% coverage of all courses by western university professors, while some of the most expensive programs are not worth their money at all.
Campus life at a university in Bangkok
Be aware of hidden costs! An important cost factor might be the additional payments, such as for textbooks. You will want to make sure that you calculate such expenditure as well. Again, in some of the cheapest programs, all textbooks, handouts, academic and administrative fees are included, while in some of the most expensive programs, you need additional budget to cover these hidden costs. Not all universities are eager to publish the real cost of study in order to look a bit better against competition.
Finally, there are rankings on the Internet of ‘name universities’ against ‘no-name universities’ in Thailand. Name universities exist in every country; they are more attractive and promise better job opportunities after graduation.
Please be aware that this applies only within Thai society, however. There is no reason to believe that a name
university offers a better international program than a no-name university does. Check the credentials of the
professors, and don’t get lured by a stylish campus or pictures of beautiful girls (actually, they are all beautiful, on
every campus).
Cost of living
The vast majority of all Thai students in Bangkok live in a one room apartment with their own bathroom. While Thai students love to share their rooms (Thais hate to do anything alone), you probably will prefer to have a ‘safe haven’ on your own. A 30-40 square meter apartment you will get in a modern and well-maintained building for around 4,000 Baht a month (see How to find an apartment). With wireless ADSL (very widespread), water, and power supply, it may sum up to 5,500 Baht per month – if you get adjusted to using a fan instead of air condition. Heavy use of air condition can easily double your monthly expenditure since power consumption was sure not an argument when purchasing your room’s air-con.
Bangkok traffic is infamousYou may want to make sure that your apartment is close to the campus. Compared to the cost of a dinner, taxis are
very expensive and usually stick (with their meter running, of course) in the same traffic jam as a bus does. The most expensive busses are the air-conditioned ones. Even with currently rising prices, you won’t need to pay more than 10 or 15 Baht for a ride. By the way, riding by tuk-tuk may still appear nice to you, but between all the busses with their black dust, and with you as a foreigner being the target of all sorts of scams and excessive prices, you won't do that often.
By the way, don’t dream about buying a cheap bicycle for the way to the campus until you know Bangkok traffic and climate…
If you don’t want to spend the money for a health insurance, visiting a doctor is as cheap as medicine is. There are hospitals targeting westerners, of course. Getting a tooth extracted and a denture over two teeth made, for example, may cost about 25,000 Baht in such a hospital. For that price, you can expect nurses and doctors to speak English fluently. Certainly, in the ‘land of smiles’ good looking teeth are of highest importance for everybody. If you go with a Thai fellow student as a translators into a Thai hospital (equally modern as the western oriented one), the extraction will cost you about 200 Baht, and the denture comes for about 2,500 Baht.
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In Thailand, many things are different when it comes to expected cost structures. With the low salaries listed above, many Thai people make a very decent living. To run on budget just needs you to learn how they do it. This learning effect causes a lot of what we call ‘living experiences in a foreign culture’.
There are numerous other fields where westerners spent unnecessarily much money. Some are obvious, some you need to see in reality to understand. Unfortunately, we can’t mention them all here. However, we think you've got a good idea about expenditure in Thailand already.
When international students made the photo stories about foreign students in Bangkok, they also asked them for their monthly over-all expenses. Most of them have budgets ranging between 10,000 and 20,000 Baht per month, still allowing them for the evening beer, apparel, hobbies, and cigarettes.
Short trip to the beach
Let us finish this article with a word about traveling in Thailand. Sure you know the cost of a holiday in one of the most developed tourist destinations in Thailand already. When you’re here, try something else: Accept the offers of your Thai fellow students to join them for a trip to the beach. They travel a lot, and they know to reach the most beautiful places on budget. A weekend at the beach with a lot of fun may cost you well below 1,500 Baht including transportation.
You see, there are a lot of reasons‘to 'do it as the Romans do’!
thank you for information from studyinthailand.org and
http://www.thai-blogs.com/index.php/2005/07/03/average_monthly_wage_in_thailand?blog=5