Cost of Living

[Micha]

Hi Guys

Hopefully I am posting this in the right place!

I will be moving to phuket with my partner and we will have a new baby. We are planning the move in about 12 months.

I was wondering what the average cost of household utility bills are e.g gas, electric, water, phone and internet.

Also a rough guide to an average food shopping bill... I know thats a bit like asking how long is a piece of string, are supermarkets fairly cheap?, for basic things i.e rice, meat, pasta, fruit and veg etc...

Thanks in advance!

[faultytowers]

Have a read of this thread , it covers quite a bit about moving to Phuket etc and may answer some of your questions.

http://www.phuket-info.com/forums/ex...ng-phuket.html

Also , I'm curious about why you're moving there , is it work related ?????

[Micha]

We had a plan to travel around the globe and Phuket was one of the places on our itinerary, we have currently been in egypt for 2 years and as we wanted to go back to the UK to have our baby we thought that would make a great destination to stay a couple of years before moving on.

Thanks for the link!

[K2]

You will alos need to research into visa situation as living here for 2 years is not so straight forward given new regulations.

[Micha]

Thanks for that K2, do you have any idea where I would be able to find information on the new regulations for a visa? and can you do it once you are in the country or do you have to arrange it before?

[LivinLOS]

The Thaivisa forum is a wealth of this kind of info..

Long answer short.. Its getting much tougher.. Neither of you really qualify for any long stay visa (not over 50 or not married to a Thai or not working) although you might get lucky with a friendly consul (hull) for you in the uk which will issue a non imm O valid for a year and requiring visa runs every 90 days to a neighbouring country.. If your US based husband / boyfriend cannot find a friendly consul (houston ??) he may be reduced to begging for 60 day tourist visas in neighbouring countries (can extend by 30 days each time for 1900 baht) there are reports that some countries are not agreeing to these or saying they will give one but dont come back asking for more.

Either way its a lot harder now to simply reside here than before.. Do not assume you can just come and live and sort it out once here.. Thailand welcomes short stay tourists easily but longer stays have become much more problematic in the last 3 months.

[Micha]

Thanks you have been so helpful, we have been to many countries so far and have not experianced any problems, and our friends went to thailand about 4 years ago without a problem - I can see things are very different now!

If one of us was to have a job to go to I think this would be easier it would seem?

[LivinLOS]

4 years ago I didnt even do visa runs.. 1000 baht folded in the passport once a month and an immigration guy rubber stamped everything.. Then came the visa runs.. Now even those are only 3x 30 day stamps allowed in a 6 month period.. Tourist visa's are not just guaranteed any more and are getting harder to obtain in 'local' SE Asian countries.. The 3 million baht investment scheme has been axed..

Yes there are ways but bear in mind you may be flying down to Sing KL or Penang every couple of months for a couple of days.. I have no idea if thats easy or practical with a young baby.

If one of you had a full time job, and that full time job provided a work permit.. And the work permit paid more than the farang minimum wage (higher for USA guys.. IIRC 60k per month) then he would get a non imm B visa and extend incountry for 12 months at a time and you could qualify for a non imm O based on dependancy. No visa runs required and the ideal situations. Of course theres the small matter of finding the job.

The easiest angle is the one I mentioned.. Find a place that issues non imm O multi entry (even though they shouldnt) and get one each.. They are good for 1 year and you just have to do a border run each 90 days.. If you do a border run the day before the 12 months expires you get another 90 days so actually can make 15 months out of a 1 year visa.. Then quick trip back to your home country and repeat.

[Micha]

Thanks LivininLOS, I am looking into the visa thing in more depth now, any others with any advice on this or going through a similar visa application process keep me posted on the outcomes!

[dawsey]

As LivinLOS said, take a good look at the Thaivisa site. What hasn't been discussed there about visas isn't worth printing.