How to Retire On $500 Per Month

Living in BKK is another story, you can buy a decent house in a decent neighborhood for about 4 mil baht, which is cheap in my book. I have, due to the nature of my work, lived in nearby Salaya and commuted to shooting location and BKK with designated driver, prices of living there (only a 30 minute drive from BKK) are significantly lower than in BKK.

Also although the cost of living CAN be low, if you wanted to live cheaply and save money, you'd have to live like a middle class Thai person. That means no Starbucks (who the heck pays 80 Baht for coffee when you can get REAL thai iced coffee for 5 on the street). Even what we know as fast foods are somewhat middle/upper middle class.

The foreigners I know living in Thailand seem to live a pretty upper class lifestyle here in Thailand because their dollar goes a long way so I'm not sure how much they are saving. Then again, they're not hackers.

Even normal things that middle class westerners are used to could be considered luxury for the middle class Thai. Cable for example is pretty expensive compared to the cost of food and living and so is internet. Travel in the city can be dirt cheap if you stick to public transporation.

So again, you can stretch the dollar if you are willing to be fruga. Then again you can do the same if you choose to live in the states.

Check out this article titled 'An Experiment on Cheap Living from 1872' http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/05/23/an-experiment-i...

He didn't say that! He said he wouldn't want to waste his 20s and 30s there. Different people want to do different things with their lives. NZ doesn't suit his chosen 20-to-39 lifestyle.

http://www.thaifocus.com/phrases.htm also lists Thai words for "yes" and "no", and inter alia mentions a couple of yes/no questions in Thai.

http://www.peacecorp.gov/wws/multimedia/language/transcripts... seems to indicate that Thai even has a special word whose presence in a sentence indicates a yes/no question.

http://thailanguagehut.com/blog/blog/thai-question-words-so-... has many, many examples of yes/no questions in Thai, and shows how to answer them.

What is the basis for your claim that "there are no yes/no questions in Thai"?

(It does seem that binary questions aren't treated the same way in Thai as they are in English -- the conventions for how you say yes and no are different in different cases -- but it doesn't look at all as if there are "no yes/no questions". For that matter, even in English there are some binary questions to which "yes" and "no" would be peculiar answers. For instance, questions that implicitly make an offer ("Would you like one of these?") usually have to be answered more politely.)

I have also seen, firsthand, the spectre of death by infection being used as a kind of fortuitous (for healthcare companies) euthanasia (read: cost-cutting method) on infirm and elderly ethnic minorities. My girlfriend's father was pushed into hospice care, even though he was not ready to give up. (He'd been metastatic for 11 years.) The hospice nurses had sloppy anti-infection practices. (My girlfriend's an epidemiologist, so she knows what these are professionally.) There was a week's delay from the first symptoms of infection to getting a prescription for antibiotics filled, and by the time the script was filled, he was barely able to stay conscious to take one dose of the pills. Then there was a refusal to give him intravenous antibiotics, because it was against their procedures, so would need a doctor's permission. By that time, it was Friday evening, and the nurse told us we would've had to wait until Monday to get that permission. In the several days it takes us to figure all this out, the nurse is telling us, "He's actively dying," as if it was the cancer!

The whole thing feels like the time I found a cat with sepsis in its head, took it to the vet, then let them talk me into having them euthanize it. It knew something was up. Started yowling when we made the decision. The saccharine talk from the caregivers was the same -- purporting to be in the patient's best interest when it was really about money.

Then, there's the matter of my grandma, who was an Alzheimer's patient at the end of her life. She also died of an infection. As a youth, she was a waif, a socialite beauty of pre WWII Seoul, and even in her 70s, she was still waifish. She died fat, overfed by redneck nursing home nurses who didn't bother to prevent her bedsores. At first, my family tried to care for her in the home, but she needed to be supervised all the time. She kept on putting water on to boil, then wandering off. My dad's a doctor, a local healthcare insider, and for awhile she got better care because of his attention. He'd visit her every day and make corrections to her care constantly. But you can't keep that up. A week of inattention, and he gets a call that she's dying of an infection with the suggestion that, "it's just better to let her go." I only find out about this years later, when I am desperately calling my dad for advice about my girlfriend's dad and his infection.

I grew up in a small town, and my parents once mentioned there were people muttering about my grandmother getting benefits, because she was a foreigner, despite the fact that my dad was living locally and paying taxes in a high bracket for over 30 years.

More anecdotes, but not infection related:

Another friend of mine, born in England, just over 60, a vigorous woman who volunteered with a local fire department and ran an arts organization full time -- she had to pony up over $10,000 to get attention for a treatable ailment that was going to leave her blind. Apparently it wasn't covered. She'd just gotten her US citizenship two years ago, a day we celebrated, but the whole experience with US healthcare upset her, and for awhile she was talking about leaving and moving back to England.

Yet another friend of mine, a young woman of 25, fell from an atrium balcony. She came from a poor family, but she was basically a saint minus 3 miracles. Her family kept her on a respirator for a week, then let the doctors talk them into pulling the plug. Her loss still haunts me. The whole church was full of people from all walks of life she'd touched. The diversity of people she knew was amazing, and no one was there out of mere politeness. There were also 6 monks there who she sometimes worked with, also in tears. I thought the priest was going to deliver a dry, canned eulogy, but he even got choked up. I suspect if the US didn't have crappy healthcare, that wonderful woman would be in a wheelchair but still with us.

Getting a work permit is a bit tricky since I am not employed by a Thai company (requirement). The only other option is to setup my own company here which right away brings loads of administrative headaches with it (been down that road and got out rather quick).

I had a gym membership for a month with infinite personal training before 6PM ($12.50/month, high end gym), got a Thai-style massage probably 3 times a week ($7.50/hour, came with silver needle tea and large plate of fresh fruit), traveled a bit in Sichuan (short bus ride - 22 cents, longer one - under $10), saw pandas ($20 for a daytrip, everything included), shot a repeating crossbow ($1 or so), and bought an entire year's worth of clothing and a beautiful red leather suitcase (suitcase was most expensive thing I bought, $100 USD). I bought tons of gifts for family and friends, a set kangxi knives (swords), some crafts, and such. Total cost for all of that was under $100.

Total cost? Maybe $700? That includes all the shopping and luxuries, doesn't include air and lodging. I leave out air because I had a multi-stop ticket, but I think airfare was $1300 or so from Boston. Lodging in China is as cheap or expensive as you want. $40/night provides spectacular, though I had free lodging in a few places.

I ran the math a bunch, and told everyone who'll listen: If you're going to spend $2000 or more on clothing in the next 2 years (common for people who buy suits, for instance), it'd be cheaper to take a two week vacation to China or South America and get top quality and sometimes beautifully hand-made things than it would be to buy them in the USA. I only had one guy ever try my idea and report back, and he told me of getting shirts that'd retail at $100+ in the USA for $15 max, perfectly tailored jeans from scratch for $20, and top top notch suits for under $100. I think he overpaid - I got 3-4 pairs of shoes in China, nice leather shoes, $5 was the most I paid. USD has taken a bit of a hit since then, but I reckon it's still dirt cheap. I was in Chengdu mostly, great place with great people. Take antacids if you're going to eat the food though!