I live in Tokyo, supposedly the "most expensive city" in the world.

Below is average expenditures but I can go much lower if I want to be antisocial.

Central Tokyo apartment
$1,000 rent (1 BR)
$100 utilities (water, electricity, gas)
$100 transport (I walk to work)
$90 gym membership (this is a rip off but no choice where I live)
$700 food (I always eat out)
$400 entertainment (dates, clubbing, bars, cafes)
$200 misc (clothes, other shit I want)
Total: $2,590/month

I dont think I could ever live somewhere like LA. My standard of living is extremely high. I never cook. Also note that I live in the most expensive ward in Tokyo so it can be done even cheaper than this.

Bangkok Thailand

(300)Rent: Up to you and certainly sky is the limit but you can get decent studios-1 bedroom that would be close to BTS/ with gym and pool for around 300 a month.

(150)Transportation: Assuming you dont have a car which few foreigners do the costs here are not so bad. There are free bus lines. The skytrain and metro system is fast, cheap reliable(only negative is closes at midnight) and the taxis are low cost for a major city. Hard to give a solid number here but at 5 dollars a day that would likely be more than enough.

(300)Food- Assuming your eating thai food or if you cook for yourself even a little it would be easy to keep the costs here down even if your eating western food and eating in restuarants a fair bit. However if you have a need for expensive restuarants and sushi every night you might add a couple hundred to my estimate.

(70) Visa costs for tourist visa is around this much a month.

(400-1000?) Club fees and drinking. There is a lot of grey area here just because it depends on how much your drinking and if you have a taste for imported drinks over the local thai beers and liquor.

(30) Clothes/ tailored shirts etc

1250 for pretty comfortable lifestyle. Up that to 2k if you like to frequent nice restaurants daily and drink non stop.

Norway, Stavanger

Rent 2 000 USD
Bus-card 100 USD/month
Gym-membership 100 USD
Food 1000USD a month
Eating/Drinking out 1000USD
Clothing 200USD a month

4400USD, and you could live fairly comfortable. You probably pay 35% tax. So you´ll need an income of around 6700USD/month

But I much rather spend that money somewhere else.

For me, $1,500 a month gives me a solid standard of living in Bangkok. $2,500 would give me a very nice standard of living.

A nice and newer one bedroom in a western style building by the BTS will run you $700ish. I have a studio and it's $400. I wouldn't want to downgrade from here these days. I'm itching to get into a one bedroom. Living in even a decent studio is too small for me.

A couple of new, quality tailored shirts will run you $50-$100 each, depending on material. $100-$150 for slacks.

A good dinner and a couple of drinks at a decent place $50. Take a girl and that's $100.

$60 gym membership. $40 cell phone. $50 electricity. $3 water (lol). $150 transportation. $35 internet. $30 maid service very couple weeks. $30 laundry. And all kinds of other small expenses that add up quickly.

Clubs and late night drinking are the real budget killer. I drink mostly vodka and soda, and if I stay out until 5-7AM, I drink a shit load. Easy to drop $100 a night when I go out, though I usually try to keep it to $60.

So yeah, I think $2,500 would give me a very sweet standard of living.

Quote: (03-01-2014 03:20 AM)Fortitudinal Wrote:  

Im living in Kyoto, Japan.

Expenses:

$400 rent (electricity included) reasonably near subway station downtown. Tiny 3.5m x 4.5m appartment though.
$50 water
$40 transport (I bike everywhere)
$500 food (Cook home a lot, and I eat a lot )
$200 booze (been cutting back a lot, really ads up!)
$200 misc (haircuts, toiletries, etc)
$200 eating out (variety is good)

$1600 aprox a month will get you by OK.

Eating and drinking out will get you higher numbers of course.

For a better lifestyle Id say go with $3,000. Socializing has been seriously lacking lately for me.

However Im here for the long run, so trying hard to economize.

I loved Kyoto. In my experience, the girls there looked a lot better there than the ones I ran across in Tokyo and Osaka. I like the city better than those other too as well. I'm surprised you can get by for under $2k though. Are you fairly close to that river, market, and the nightlife?

I would love to spend a few months there some day.

Can't grasp how cheap Thailand is, man...

Quote: (03-03-2014 03:16 AM)RioNomad Wrote:  

For me, $1,500 a month gives me a solid standard of living in Bangkok. $2,500 would give me a very nice standard of living.

A nice and newer one bedroom in a western style building by the BTS will run you $700ish. I have a studio and it's $400. I wouldn't want to downgrade from here these days. I'm itching to get into a one bedroom. Living in even a decent studio is too small for me.

A couple of new, quality tailored shirts will run you $50-$100 each, depending on material. $100-$150 for slacks.

A good dinner and a couple of drinks at a decent place $50. Take a girl and that's $100.

$60 gym membership. $40 cell phone. $50 electricity. $3 water (lol). $150 transportation. $35 internet. $30 maid service very couple weeks. $30 laundry. And all kinds of other small expenses that add up quickly.

Clubs and late night drinking are the real budget killer. I drink mostly vodka and soda, and if I stay out until 5-7AM, I drink a shit load. Easy to drop $100 a night when I go out, though I usually try to keep it to $60.

So yeah, I think $2,500 would give me a very sweet standard of living.

Damn. $2,500 is like rent for my ass in LA. (almost)

That's it, I'm moving to Thailand.

You can easily get a studio in LA for 800-900 bucks, often less. I don't see where these figures are coming from. LA isn't as bad as the bay area.

Quote: (03-03-2014 06:48 PM)Tenerife Wrote:  

You can easily get a studio in LA for 800-900 bucks, often less. I don't see where these figures are coming from. LA isn't as bad as the bay area.

Yes you can, but it's in a low-income area. I've done the studio in shitty areas before and paid my dues.

Now I live in a nice area and for a 1 bedroom with all the trimmings it's pushing 2k.

LA can be done very cheap, as I have done it before, but eventually one likes to live well and not on the edge.

Delete

Quote: (03-03-2014 06:37 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

Can't grasp how cheap Thailand is, man...

For a major city Bangkok is probably the best bang for your buck in the world.

Now you move away from Bangkok and move to a smaller city in Thailand (exception being international beach tourist places like Phuket) things start to get really cheap.

Quote:Quote:

violin player on Telephone and 45 who doesn't accept tips

He died a month or two ago.

Quote: (03-03-2014 06:43 PM)Christian McQueen Wrote:  

Damn. $2,500 is like rent for my ass in LA. (almost)

That's it, I'm moving to Thailand.

Here's a one bedroom in a building I may move into. Great location, right by the BTS. 20th floor.

Only 40 square meters, but for $700 it's a pretty nice. May be able to talk them down too. My friend lives in this building and talked them down from $700 to $500 because the building is so empty. They are building like crazy around here, and a lot of units just sit vacant.

^^ wow Rio. Furnished and everything. Does it include maid service? Not that it matters, I imagine maid service is cheap (I think you said $30 bucks).

Is it close to the central area? I guess since it is near the BTS it isn't a big deal.

Nice pics!

this is so tax income related, AND subjective as well, as we all have different living standards

@Rio:

Thanks for posting pics.

Digging the modern look.

Any reason why they have so many vacant units, but continue to build?

Quote: (03-04-2014 11:36 AM)Christian McQueen Wrote:  

@Rio:

Thanks for posting pics.

Digging the modern look.

Any reason why they have so many vacant units, but continue to build?

If I had to try to understand why Thai people do some of the shit that they do, I'd be losing my hair quicker than I already am lol.

A lot of people say it's a big housing bubble. One agent said people buy up several condo units at a time, sit on them for a few years, then sell them at a profit. I have no idea what is going on, but I wouldn't count on Thai people to use much logic while making their decisions. The recent government rice scheme, which was completely retarded, is a pretty good example of Thai logic.

I've looked at units in close to a dozen buildings, and every single one had multiple vacancies. They've also opened three new 20+ floor condo buildings right next to me in the past year, and have another 1-2 being built.

Sukhumvit, main area of Bangkok, has new condos being built on damn near every street. Large ones, too.

Quote: (03-04-2014 11:32 AM)samsamsam Wrote:  

^^ wow Rio. Furnished and everything. Does it include maid service? Not that it matters, I imagine maid service is cheap (I think you said $30 bucks).

Is it close to the central area? I guess since it is near the BTS it isn't a big deal.

Nice pics!

It doesn't include maid service, but pretty much all buildings offer it. I pay $17 for two ladies to come clean my condo from top to bottom and do my dishes, and that's pretty expensive. I have them come once every 10-14 days.

This is on OnNut, very close to the central area. Thonglor and Ekkamai, the two places you probably hear about most on here, are only 2 BTS stops away. It takes like 20 minutes to get to Siam, where all of the large shopping malls are at. Bangkok doesn't really have a central city center that you want to live around like most cities.

Currently living in one of the nicer parts of NYC:

$1,800 rent, splitting a 2BR w/ roommate [$3600 total, 600 sq ft, modern but tiny - I have to rest my leg in the bathtub to take a shit]
$250 utilities (water, electricity, gas, internet - cold winter adds up)
$112 subway pass
$100 taxis a month (about 25 bucks a week when going out)
$80 gym membership (rather cheap actually for the city)
$500 food (about 125 week is my guess, groceries and eating out)
$1000 entertainment (dates, clubbing, bars, restaurants)
$200 misc

Total: $4,042/month

I could live a lot cheaper, but I'm enjoying the city. The biggest issue for me is just the sheer number of opportunities here. There are so many girls here that you could have multiple dates every night of the week. And that adds up, and going out I drop usually about $100 per night between cabs, drinks at various bars, sometimes dinner out.

I've been trying to scale down a bit but it's hard. This city is too good.

Quote: (03-04-2014 11:36 AM)Christian McQueen Wrote:  

@Rio:

Thanks for posting pics.

Digging the modern look.

Any reason why they have so many vacant units, but continue to build?

Christian its a huge fucking property bubble and investors keep throwing money at construciton projects under the belief that prices for apartments will keep going up. I live around Rio and went to several of the condominiums getting info on rent prices and sale prices. Some of these studio/1 bedrooms are going for 85k and up and this area is not even that close to the high end part of bangkok. Those prices are completely out of wack with incomes here where 1000 dollars income is a good solid wage. Meanwhile the rents are still relatively low. This suggests to me that investors are hoping to just make money off the condo unit when they sell and not make any profit or even opperate at a loss when renting it out. At some point this real estate bubble will pop and when blood is in the streets you will be able to pick up that 85k condo for 25-30k. It actually wasnt too long ago property prices crashed in BKK after the asian financial crisis of the late 90s so there is a precident already for a coming burst to the bubble in housing prices in Thailand.

@Bacon and Rio:

Interesting. Sounds like a time to snag one up possibly.

A lot of rich thais buy it when its still being constructed (my ex-gf family bought 10ish condos at noble remix). Even last year, they aren't finished outfitting it totally. I think the figure she gave me was 100-150k/unit (depending on the story level). They rent them out of for 1-1.5k/month. Stable, easy money from rich thais or foreigners

She told me prices at said complex jumped 3x in recent year.

Per her discussion, there are 4-5 major condo construction companies that offer great political clout (aka bribe to connect to BTS). These will maintain value quite nicely (over long run). The ones greater than 150m away from BTS will suffer the greatest downfall in price in coming years.

Edit- I agree w/Bacon, BKK is at a huge property boom in recent 24-36 months. I wouldn't be suprised at all, if there was a crash. One thing to consider, the mortgages are much different than in the USA (no NINJA loans, no 5% down loans). This makes an apples to apples comparison of the USA v BKK market very different. Just my limited 2c.

Link Farmageddon? I heard he got robbed once and went back the next day.

Isn't one of the other issues of ownership in Thailand is you need be a local or partnered with one? Or worse, married to one? Maybe I am thinking of a different country.

@Samsamsam- your partially right. To buy the land, you need to be thai. Individual condos/appts are a different story.