Cost of Living in Patong Beach Phuket

Hi,

In my latest trip to Patong in January/February 2014, I took closer observations of prices to estimate the actual cost of living in Phuket.

I spoke to people and believe you should be able to rent a basic clean (barely) room in a guesthouse for approximately 15,000 THB per month but don't expect it to be fancy. For an apartment, you can probably get a much better deal. I am sure you can find guesthouses much cheaper than this but I would expect them to be very dirty/noisy/have many issues.

For food, in Jungceylon for example, it cost approximately 150 THB for the average dish e.g. chicken and cashews with rice or Pad Thai. At an outdoor food court it cost 150 THB for pad thai. Food prices varied wildly however.

You could order a smallish serving of chicken and basil with price at strike bowling in Jungceylon for 75 THB. I am sure street food was very cheap but I did not order it during my time on that holiday aside from the outdoor food court at the beginning as I have a sensitive stomach.

If you are like me and are used to buying most of your meals, we will need to factor in approximately 400 - 1000 THB per day for food.

Going out is the real cost. Back in the west, you probably don't go out as much as you do in Thailand, so even though Thailand is cheaper you are spending much more overall. You probably need to factor in 500-4000 THB a day for entertainment which would only be a few beers a night at a bar or one really decent night a week. You probably need about 3000 THB minimum a day to party properly.

Visa runs will likely cost you 4000 THB per month.

You may need to factor in a few thousand baht a month also just for random stuff from the pharmacy, phone, internet etc.

Baseline:

10-15,000 Accommodation (if you imagine getting maybe a decent apartment for 10k)
12,000 Food (if you cook for yourself often or eat lots of street food this could be a lot lower)
15,000 Entertainment (this is very lean however so you might need to take from the food budget and give to this)
4000 Visa
3000 Other

= 52,000 THB / month

This is going out only once a week properly or only lightly a few nights a week- but it would be possible to live on this.

Party Lifestyle:

I would say to properly have a decent night you need say 3000-4000 THB, if you went out 3x a week lets say 10k THB, 2x a week lightly lets say 1000 THB each time and 2x a week you stayed in, I estimate you would spend approximately 12,000 THB a week so around 50k a month alone in entertainment. You probably couldn't keep that pace up forever though so maybe we can adjust it down to 30-50k.

15,000 Accomodation
15,000 Food
30-50,000 Entertainment
4000 Visa
3000 Other

= 67,000-87,000 THB / month and I imagine you would live a great party lifestyle.

High End Lifestyle:

If you want a new apartment and to go out every night and only eat at restaurants lets say then lets say:

30,000 Accommodation
30,000 Food
50-100,000 Entertainment
4000 Visa
3000 Other

=117,000-167,000 THB / month and I imagine you would live a life of relative luxury.

As you can see, the cost of living may be higher than expected. If you are a person who is relatively content to stay home and watch TV and cook for yourself then you will be able to reduce a lot from the budgets specified above obviously but keep in mind these do not factor in expenses such as flights home, buying new electronics equipment, motorbikes, clothes, insurance etc, this is a 'getting by' allowance I am looking to calculate here.

Thank you for reading!