If you’re thinking about going to live in Bangkok full time, you need to have a good idea of what your monthly expenses are likely to be. Here’s a rundown of what you get for your money in The Big Mango
I’ve put together a quick guide about how much money you need to live in Bangkok, giving a rough idea of what to budget for rent, food, bills, transport etc. There’s more info on the site about the areas of Bangkok to consider living in, why you need to be near a Skytrain or MRT stop if you can manage it, and the best sites to look on to help you find your own Bangkok Apartment. The guide is a work-in-progress, so all comments are welcome. Don’t forget the classic Travelhappy article Finding long term accommodation in Bangkok.
If you’re looking for info on what budget you need as a traveller in Thailand, see How Much Money Do I Need For Thailand, along with the other articles How Much Money Do I Need For Vietnam, How Much Money Do I Need For Laos and How Much Money Do I Need For Cambodia. These are all useful rough guides as to what you’ll can expect to spend day by day travelling through each of these countries.
prplace.com is great for cheap accommodation… I stayed their during my first year in Bangkok and at 7/8k (back then) a month it was a steal.
But really, the day I moved into a nice pad, in a nice area (Sathorn, 35k+) was the day I really starting to enjoy living in BKK…. most expats I know tend to spend quite a bit of time at home, and to have nice surroundings you can go back to after dogging tuk-tuks etc. from a day out in crazy bangkok, makes such a difference.
Living in Bangkok on 25k for the average westerner would mean very little social life – A meal with a date, cinema tickets, popcorn and a few beers in a Thai style pub afterwords will easily set you back 2k – If you can’t go out and enjoy yourself, what’s the point?
I guess it boils down to how much you like your social life. If you enjoy going out and enjoying yourself with friends a few nights a week (which is why the majority of expats live in bkk), you need at least 100k.
For sure Chris – good insights. I’m a big fan of creature comforts too at home. You can drop a ton of cash in Bangkok if you like. Mostly though I get questions about how cheaply you can get by – the bare minimum. Definitely agree that if you plan to be in Bangkok long term – ie more than 6 months – you need to have somewhere nice to live and some spare cash otherwise you might go a bit crazy.