I didn’t quite reach a 50% saving rate in 2018. I’m still quite pleased with the rate I was able to achieve. If it weren’t for over $4000 of medical and dental bills plus 2 1/2 months in Thailand where I earned almost nothing I would have easily saved over 50% of my income. I think a 47.4% saving rate is pretty decent for my level of income.
Last year was my first year of what I’m calling my semi-retirement. I worked roughly 7 months and had about 5 months off. I consider the first year of semi-retirement a success since I was able to save a big chunk of my income while having several months off and trying out living in Thailand. My semi-retirement plan is to work my tax job during the tax season and then work a couple of document review projects to boost my income when the projects fit into my travel schedule. I’ll continue the semi-retirement plan until I have enough money to completely retire or find something I like to do that makes sufficient money for me to live and travel. I might write a separate post about semi-retirement later. For now, I want to get back to the actual subject of this post.
My savings in 2018 consisted of $6500 to my IRA and $11499 to my work 401k. My income from jobs and net self-employment earnings was $37962. I also contributed $400 to my solo 401k and invested about $2700 in dividend stocks. I’m not counting the solo 401k or stocks in savings since they were offset by some credit card debt.
This year I will likely have a much lower income. My income was significantly boosted last year by working lots of overtime during the tax season. I don’t think there will be nearly as much overtime available to me this year. With the reduced income it will be quite difficult to match my 2018 saving rate this year. I do think I will be able to reduce my expenses a fair bit this year so it might not be impossible for me to save that much. If I get close to saving as much money this year as I did last year I will be happy.
December’s income was decent. The income was mostly from a couple weeks pay from a document review project. I did make a little from other sources. Job income remains my biggest source of income. I’ve got a long way to go before I can pay my expenses from non-job income.
Online income did finally come back a little. This blog didn’t make a lot of money last year. I’d like to change that this year.
My dividend income reached double digits for the first time. A lot of my stocks paid dividends in December. Not as many pay dividends in January so the dividend income will be down this month. I’m purchasing more dividend stocks as I have extra money to invest. At my current rate it will take a long time before I can go from double digits to triple digits.
I have started my tax job. With the way the paychecks fall I will only get one paycheck from them this month. I also will have three day’s pay from the document review project. That should result in this month’s income being very close to December’s income. I’m hoping it will be just a tad higher. Since I will be returning to Thailand as soon as the tax season is over I need to make and save as much money as I can the next 3 1/2 months.
My December expenses were reasonably low. I expect my monthly expenses will stay around this level for the next few months.
The rent was for 10 nights hotel in Kansas City while I was working on a document review project there. It also includes $125 paid to my mom for staying at her home. The next few months my rent will be very low since I’m staying at my mom’s house and she is only charging me 1/2 of the utilities as rent. I offered to pay more, but half of the utilities is all she wanted to be paid.
Transportation was mainly gas for my car. I drove between KC and southern Missouri several times while working on the document review job. I also had to pay a little over $50 for personal property tax on my car. This month I will only drive to KC one time and otherwise will be working from home so the transportation expense should go way down.
My food expense was about the same as always. It should go down a bit this month since I will be eating at home more often. Spending about $150 a month on food is pretty reasonable so I won’t sweat this expense category too much.
Travel was for taxes and fees on a round-trip airline ticket from a small regional airport near my current home to Shanghai, China. From China I can buy a round-trip ticket to Thailand for less than $200. I was going to delay buying a ticket to Asia then I saw a deal for cheap award flights on Delta from the U.S. to China. When I was able to find a ticket allowing me to start from Springfield, MO I decided to go ahead and get the ticket. The ticket was only 34,000 Delta points which is about half of the regular price.
Being able to leave from Springfield means that I don’t need a domestic positioning flight like last year. For my Asia trip last year I had to buy a positioning flight from KC to LA and also got a hotel in LA for the night since I wanted to be in LA a day early to make sure I didn’t miss my flight due to a delay from KC. Not needing a domestic positioning flight will save me a little money and time. The combination of the low cost of the ticket and the convenience of flying from a nearby airport on one itinerary was enough to convince me to go ahead and book my Asia flight now. It is unlikely there will be a better deal for my circumstances before I leave for Asia.
Phone was for almost two months of Google Fi phone service. When I paused my service in Thailand they didn’t be bill me for the almost full month I had used at that time. After I resumed service they billed me for that almost full month and the new month. This bill will go down to about $25 this month.
Health was for the January premium on my new health insurance. My health insurance premium for this year has gone up about $125 a month. Last year, subsidies were enough to pay my entire health insurance premium. With the rate hike that is no longer the case. I didn’t get much use from my Marketplace insurance last year. I had one doctor visit that I had to pay out of pocket for and then they paid a little towards my prescriptions. If I understand my health insurance coverage correctly, my new policy is a little better. It will allow me to have doctor visits for free or a low co-pay rather than being out of pocket until I hit my deductible like last year. Since I’ve moved I will be visiting a new doctor so I might have a few visits getting things checked out this year.
My student loan payment amount has adjusted from $0 to $132 a month. Since I’m on income-based repayment my premium went up due my higher income in 2017. The total of the required payments will still be less than I voluntarily paid last year so this isn’t really a big deal.
I’m pretty happy with my December expenses. How was your month?
Since I’ve been back in Missouri from Thailand for about a month now I thought I would share and update of what I’m doing now and what I have planned.
I am currently working on a document review project in Kansas City. I started working on this project Monday of last week and my last day on the project will be next Friday the 28th. The Monday after that I will start my seasonal tax job. I’ll be getting my first paycheck since August this Friday. It will be nice to have money start coming in again.
My job has offered a remote option the last few years, but not for employees that live in Kansas City. Since I broke up with my ex-girlfriend in March of this year and we’re no longer friends the tax job was the only reason for me to stay in KC. I didn’t especially want to stay in KC so I asked my boss if I could work remote from southern Missouri. The answer was affirmative and I have now moved to a small town in southern MO.
I will be living with my mother. This gives me the benefit of low rent and no lease. Of course, it also gives me a lot of time with my mother which is mostly a benefit.
I do plan on returning to Thailand next year as soon as my tax job is over. Thus, I didn’t want to sign a lease anywhere. Renting from a month-to-month place would have been expensive and most of them aren’t great. Moving out of KC and in with my mother should be a great solution to that problem.
The lower living costs plus the lack of a commute should allow me to save quite a bit of money from my tax job. This will hopefully allow me to visit Thailand longer next year. I’m also looking into ways, such as teaching English, that I can earn money while in Thailand.
I’m not sure what my long-term plans are right now. All I currently have figured out is that I will work my tax job and then return to Thailand. I don’t currently think I will ever move to Thailand full-time. I may just split my time between Thailand and the US the next few years. I’ll see how things go with my Thai girlfriend and hopefully figure out my longer-term plans sometime next year.
Now that I have spent a little over one month in Thailand I want to share my thoughts on how I like living here so far. This post will share what I consider to be the three biggest pros and cons of living in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Pros of Living in Thailand
1. Cost
Living in Thailand can be pretty cheap. The biggest savings is on rent. I’m currently living in a studio apartment that rents for 10,000 baht (about $305) a month when rented month-to-month. This apartment is nicer than the basement studio apartment I was renting in Kansas City for $435 a month. My KC rent included water and electricity whereas I have to pay for those in addition to my monthly rent here in Thailand. Factoring that in I am saving about $100 a month on rent. If I were to sign a three month or six month contract I could save even more on rent. I could also save quite a bit by moving to a smaller, more basic apartment. While apartment hunting I found a couples apartments for as cheap as about $170 a month that would have been acceptable. There are apartments even cheaper than that. I didn’t look at the cheaper apartments since I found plenty of nicer apartments that were still less than my monthly budget for rent.
Food is also pretty cheap if you buy Thai food. If you eat at Western style fast food restaurants or fancier restaurants the savings is much less. I’ve found that American fast food costs about the same or maybe even a little more than what I usually paid in KC. This is because I was usually able to use coupons or get app deals back in KC and I don’t think they have those here.
Those are the two biggest potential savings for the expenses I typically spend money on. I’m guessing I’ll end up spending about $800 this month compared to usually spending $1000 or more in KC.
The cost to travel to and from Thailand and obtaining a visa also has to be factored into the cost of living in Thailand. Adding those in Thailand is still cheaper than KC. It isn’t a huge difference though.
2. Weight Loss
I’ve lost a little over 10 pounds since moving here. This is from a combination of more exercise and eating less. Of course, if I exercised more and ate less back in the U.S. I would lose weight there too. However, I find it much easier to lose weight when I’m outside of the United States. I think it is a combination of fast food not being as widespread plus the fact that I walk almost everywhere I want to go. Since I’m not working and have plenty of time I’ve found it easy to get in a routine of working out when I get up in the morning. I also have been going for a swim most afternoons. I’ve had to give that up for a while due to a skin rash which is irritated by the pool chemicals. I’ve replaced the swim with going for a walk in the evening.
Even though I feel like I’m eating way too much fast food and I’m still drinking soda most days I have managed to lose weight anyway. Living here is conducive to me losing weight without even having to try too hard.
3. Women/My Girlfriend
This is probably the biggest pro for me. I met my girlfriend on the night of my first full day in Chiang Mai. We hit it off and have been dating ever since. In the U.S. a woman as attractive as her would probably be out of my league. Here in Thailand she is firmly in my league. And it isn’t just looks, my girlfriend has a great personality too. We’re still getting to know each other, but we joke and laugh a lot and always have a great time when we’re together.
If things were to not work out with me and my girlfriend I would have plenty of other options. I joined a dating site before coming to Thailand (which is where I met my girlfriend) and I received quite a few emails and notifications from other women interested in me. Since I immediately hit it off with my girlfriend I didn’t pursue any other women. Judging from the interest level I don’t think I would have had any trouble finding another woman to date. I could also date a much younger woman if I wanted. My girlfriend is age appropriate and I don’t have any plans to date a much younger woman even if my girlfriend break up, but it is still nice to know the option is there.
Attractiveness is somewhat subjective, but I find Thai women to generally be very attractive. Although I am only dating one woman it is still quite nice to be living in a place where I see lots of attractive women every day.
Cons of Living in Thailand
1. Heat
This is probably the biggest con for me. It is too hot and humid here. Although it is supposed to start getting cooler this month, right now it is still hot every day. Whenever I go outside I end up drenched in sweat. The heat makes it unpleasant to be outside. Despite the heat I do spend a fair bit of time outside each day since I walk to wherever I want to go. I probably spend more time outside here than I did back in KC. The heat also contributes to poor air quality.
The heat is still better than having to deal with the worst of winter. I am adapting to the heat somewhat but I don’t want to be hot all year.
2. Distance from U.S.
Another con is that Thailand is really far away from the U.S. It took me basically a full day to fly from the U.S. to Thailand. The trip actually wasn’t that bad and I’m okay with making the trip a couple times a year. The drawback to the distance is that I can’t make a quick trip to see friends and family. Those visits will have to be done during the part of the year I’m in the U.S.
The bigger potential pitfall of being so far away is that it would take me a long time to get back to the U.S. if there were an emergency. Also, a last-minute flight would likely be prohibitively expensive. My mother is in good health, but she is in her 70’s. If she had a serious health problem it would take quite some time for me to be able to get back to see her.
3. I Can’t Work Here
For this trip I saved up money to pay my expenses for the 2 1/2 months I’m living here. It looks like I will end up with plenty of those savings left over at the end of the trip.
The biggest cost of this trip isn’t the money I’m spending while here. I will probably end up spending less money on this trip than I would have spent if I had just stayed in KC. The big cost of this trip is all of the money that I am not making while I’m living here. I really can’t afford to have 3 or more months of the year where I’m not making any money.
There are some possible solutions to not making any money while living in Thailand. Lots of people living in Thailand make money by teaching English online. I have looked into that and may start teaching English once I return to the U.S. so that I can continue teaching when I return to Thailand.
Teaching English is just one way to make money online. If I could get this blog and my other sites making money like they were several years ago the income from them would easily cover my living expenses in Thailand. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make that much money from my blogs again, but I should probably start working on them more to see what is possible.
Summary
Overall, I’m undecided if I will return to Thailand next year. If I am able to maintain my relationship with my girlfriend while I’m back in the States, then I will definitely return to Thailand next year. If not, I’m not sure whether I will return. I’m having a good experience here in Thailand and I’m glad I came. That being said, if I’m only looking at cost I think I could probably have a similar experience in a country much closer to the U.S. There are a couple more issues I wanted to address in this post, but I think I will wrap it up here.
If there are any readers out there who happen to be in Chiang Mai, let me know, I would love to meet up.
