Make Money in Thailand; End Financial Stress Forever in Thailand

By M Schwartz

From the writer @ StayinginThailand.com

If you live in Thailand or you’re planning on it, this will be one of the most important books you will ever read. That is obviously a bold statement, but I proudly stand by it.

You can live a great life on $2,000 USD per month in Thailand. As luring as this may seem, making that amount is easier said than done. Most people who attempt to live the dream fail. I have lived in Thailand for many years and I’ve flourished here. More importantly I have made it a point to uncover how every successful expat I have ever met in Thailand has actually done it. This book exposes every last secret to success in Thailand. There is no way that you can read this book and not figure out how to make $2,000 per month; it’s just too darn thorough (4-5X as long as any other book on the subject), and there are too many viable options and tested methods. I’ve literally poured my soul into this book. If you possess any sort of entrepreneurial spirit, you can carve out much more than $2,000 per month over time with the techniques I exhaustively cover in the book. But even if you don’t have a knack or passion for business at all, I can still get you to $2,000 per month.

Some of the information in this book actually hurt me when I wrote it; the information was so dear to me and so important to me that I cringed while questioning whether or not I should even continue the book at times. Will I be competing with some of you? Will some of you beat me at my own game? Will some of my very best friends hate the fact that I’ve exposed every step they’ve taken to make a great living? Maybe, but the way I figure it, there are more than 60 million people in Thailand, so there is plenty of room at the top. Either way, this book is the very best I have in me; I have been obsessed with making it perfect and I have left nothing of importance out.

It’s almost impossible to find good information on the subject because anyone who has done well for themselves in Thailand knows they’re better served keeping their mouths shut about their secrets to success. I haven’t just crossed that line, I’m demolishing it, and not only for me, but for all the people I know who have it good here. I am outing each and every one of their strategies. If that makes me a whistle blower, then so be it.

I know there are people out there who could live such a better life than they currently do in their home country if only they were able to make a suitable living in Thailand. There are also a tremendous amount of expats who love Thailand and try to make it here, but wind up going back home after a year or two because they just couldn’t find a good enough job. I know the scene here; I have written one of the most successful Thailand related books and I’ve been here for a long time. I can say without any hesitation, that this is the most important book anyone currently living in Thailand on a budget, or anyone interested in living in Thailand could ever buy.

I don’t care if you’re 20 or 70; I know people of both ages and everything in between making well over $2,000 per month in Thailand and it’s all broken down systematically for you in this book. If you’re retired and you just want to supplement your income for a little extra entertainment, I got you! Whatever your situation is you’ll have a winning plan by the time you finish reading this book, and I’m sure you’ll be plotting, note taking, brainstorming, and number crunching as you read through it.

If you buy the book, you can feel free to email me with questions; I am diligent about answering all emails.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M Schwartz
• Release date: Dec 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301359486

M Schwartz

M. Schwartz is an expert in all things Thailand. Having seen and done it all, there is nobody more equipped to teach about a successful ex-pat transition to Thailand.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION

A Bit About Me

My name is Mike and I am here to tell you everything you need to know about making a living in Thailand. I had a very stressful, yet profitable run of businesses in the U.S. before I decided that the stress levels in the U.S. were far from ideal. After liquidating everything I had left from my impossible business and my broken relationship, I bolted to Thailand without much of a plan. Any initial ideas I had to get something started were quickly thwarted by Thailand’s complex business laws and procedures. So I remained patient and stuck to a low budget while soaking up knowledge from anyone who was doing well for themselves and couldn’t help but share a few tips at the bar. Soon after, I started putting some of their strategies into use for myself, making improvements along the way using my own business experience.

I am a compulsive and serial entrepreneur. In the last 5 years I have tried just about everything imaginable and I have never stopped befriending and learning from the expats in Thailand who have done the very best for themselves. I have crossed paths with many forms of sustainable income streams in my time here. I could have just stuck with the first thing that worked, but instead I chose to experiment further and to try and stack a few income streams, a tactic that I highly recommend. The results of my investigations, experiments, and experiences are profound. I’m easily making enough to live in a high priced American city, and yet here I am in one of the cheapest and most beautiful places in the world. Meanwhile my brain is currently jam packed with a tremendous amount of information relating to expat income streams in Thailand. I currently know enough to steer anyone with a decent work ethic to success in Thailand, and I will pour every last drop of it out into this book.

If you like what you read here you can keep up with me on the blog, http://stayinginthailand.com/.

Establishing the Right Mentality

I love living in Thailand and I have nightmares about having to live back in the U.S. Once I carved out a suitable living for myself here I instantly became healthy, happy, and 100% unstressed. It’s the same for anyone else I’ve met here; once you’re easily making more than you need to spend to in order live well, life is really good here. Back home, no amount of money is enough and there’s nothing you can do to avoid stress. We all know it’s true and anyone who thinks differently never would have made it this far into the book.

Sine it’s cheap enough to live well in Thailand I am positive that you can make it happen for yourself if you give it a fair shot. The type of person who fails to make enough money to live well in Thailand is the type of person who never would have bought this book in the first place. We’re not asking for the world here; in most cases we’re just trying to lock in between $1,500-$2,500 because that provides us the security we need to live without any financial stress and with plenty of quality. That’s barely a mortgage payment back home, so we can make it happen. Patience, careful planning and downright frugality are key in the beginning. You are trying to build a life for yourself here, one that will pay off in a big way once you experience even the slightest bit of financial prosperity. This should excite you, not scare you. This is your chance to see what you’re made of and to see what you’re capable of. I will give you all of the tools, ideas, and knowledge you need, but you’re going to have to provide the passion and the determination.

Once again, we are not reaching for the stars; there is no need to do that in Thailand! We are simply trying to make an amount of money that is very conservative and very attainable. Once we have safely hit that level of financial security we can always build on it from there, but not in a way that would risk what you’ll already have attained. There’s just no reason to work 60 hour weeks guns blazing or to sock a chunk of your savings into any one idea. In the U.S., I get that type of thinking; and I’ll use a baseball example to further illustrate the point. In your home country if you hit a single with a job or business, you live a terrible life where you barely get by and the slightest hike in gas prices numbs you to the bone. If you hit a double, you probably take on debt immediately and your stress levels hit all time highs just to maintain the current income levels you were fortunate to hit. So in the U.S. it’s almost worth the risk to try and hit home runs, because basically every other type of achievement doesn’t really get you out of the stressful messy existence. It’s totally different in Thailand. You can hit a single here and be just as happy as a guy who hits a triple. Mild success is fantastic in Thailand! That is all you need to be free from the kind of stuff that just takes away your life from you. I don’t want to downplay ambition, because I do think it is a great quality to have. However I do want to emphasize the importance of financial security in Thailand because I believe it’s more important than any long odds/high risk big money potential. So once you make it to 1st base, and you will, don’t be in such a rush to steal 2nd and 3rd. You can absolutely build on your successes, but do so slowly and incrementally, and never in a way that risks the foundation of security that you initially build for yourself.

It’s important to fully grasp the distinction here in the way we must set and chase goals. You’ve been brainwashed into thinking that you must be all that you can be every minute and that any wasted time not getting the most out of yourself, your talent, and your potential, is a sad waste. I used to subscribe to this way of life and by and large everyone respected it. Now I have come to a place where I think it’s extreme and misguided. When someone actually sets goals for their life, it’s quite sad that their first goal wouldn’t be 1) happiness and 2) high quality of life. People back home don’t have time to worry about those two little things as if they’re insignificant and they can get around to those one day. It’s such backwards thinking and it never works. People think they’ll pour their heart, soul, blood, and sweat into a career or business for as long as it takes for them to have enough money to be happy. But what winds up happening is they trap themselves in a permanent state of being overworked and unhappy, while they never actually reach a level where they feel that they have enough money or are easily earning enough money to where they can stop reaching as far as they can for more. Leave this attitude on the plane with you when you come to Thailand. No stress, financial freedom, and plenty of free time are the ingredients you need to live a fantastic life in Thailand so why set your goals any higher than what it would take to get there? Again, we can always build out slowly and steadily for the fun of it and because extra cash is never a bad thing, but let’s first focus on hitting that single!

The Book’s Setup

First I will concentrate on giving you all of the notes, tips, and information you need to make just about anything work for yourself. Then I will give you specific, tried and true options. You must read it all! I specifically chose not to make this book some gimmicky list of 50 things you can do to make money because a list like that would be useless to you. A list like that is destined to have so much unnecessary fluff because it has to stick to its simplistic setup and approach. And if all I do is tell you a little about what people to do to make money I’d be getting you to step 2 out of 20 at best. I need to give you information that will make almost any option practical and realistic to you. I need to give you thorough breakdowns of how to do and what to do. That’s why this book will end up being 3-10X longer than others on similar topics. This is not a book for skimming and for skipping around just to find some cool ideas. Again, a book like that would be a failure to you. This is serious sh*T; we’re talking about careers businesses and setting up a life. This isn’t a joke and I consider it my responsibility for giving you as much as can possibly be expected. I am not going to give you some half assed list of things to do. I am going to give you EVERYTHING. But in order for you to really understand and even see all of the options; you’re going to have to read this from beginning to end. The first half of the book is essential in catching you up to all of the modern techniques and practices that people are using these days to succeed. These techniques and practices are of great importance to any expat. You must become resourceful as it’s unlikely that anyone will help you or that you’ll be handed good or even half way decent opportunities. You’ll need to find your own way to make things happen for yourself. The second half breaks down all of the options that you have as we use many of the techniques initially discussed to reach our goals.

This is not a story, there is no plot, and there are no twists. So I am not going to waste any more time selling you on Thailand or on expat living in general. If you are reading this now you are probably already sold on the lifestyle so now it’s just a matter of making it sustainable. This book focuses only on making money in Thailand and we’re going to get right to it. Please bear with me, by the end I promise you will have learned a lot and you will have an idea or two in mind that you are falling in love with. I’m not going to force feed the idea to you, but you can expect that the light bulb is going to go off on a few occasions as you’re reading. You may want to highlight or take notes. One more thing; save your judgments for the very end. I know what I’m doing here, we have a decent sized road ahead, and we’re going to start with wax on and wax of, but by the end you see things clearly and then I welcome your judgment.

Your advantages are obvious and you must exploit them

1) In many situations food and rent is about 75% cheaper in Thailand than it is in your home country. If someone back home is willing to do a small task for $100 USD and you’re willing to do the same task for $50, you actually get paid double what the other guy would in terms of spending power for your current place of living. That’s huge; you can undercut someone by 50% and still get further with your cut in Thailand than your competitor would where he lives. This creates many options. You must really let this sink in. If you commit to living in Thailand you must stop thinking in terms of your previous salary expectations. Making $36,000 USD per year in California isn’t enough to get by let alone live well. But it might as well be your goal in Thailand because that amount is enough to cover everything you could ever need and more. IF you were living in California and your goal was to earn 100k per year, a goal of 20k per year in Thailand would be equally as ambitious. Get used to this way of thinking.

2) Your nationality and your skills for writing and reading in English can open doors. If there are companies in Thailand in need of native English speakers you are a necessity. And you are also an asset to companies who want to buy products and services from Asia. Companies in Western countries will trust you significantly more than they would trust a Thai or Chinese company sales representative.

So that is what you have going for you in Thailand and you must aggressively use these attributes. You should have some confidence because these two attributes are all you need to get in the game. Having the stones to come out to a country where some people perceive the deck to be stacked against you says something about you. It says that you’re willing to take risks in the pursuit of your personal happiness. This bodes well for your prospects of being able to land a suitable income.

CHAPTER 2 - SETTING GOALS AND BUDGETS

Let’s examine what it will take to be able to live in Thailand. You can use this section as a guide for setting goals and so you know how much you will need to get by while you set up shop. Until you have guaranteed yourself a consistent income you’ll want to stick to the lowest end of the budgets unless you have massive savings. The less you spend the more time you give yourself to get something going. There is no bigger shame than when someone has to quit in the middle of building something promising due to a lack of funds. None of the options mentioned in this book are going to require significant investments, but some will require time. And money buys time so watch your spending until you’ve made it!

Expected Budgets

You should use the following budgets as nothing more than a guide. Everyone is different; some people can find happiness and meaning in life on far less than others. Some cities in Thailand are obviously more expensive than others. Some people have baggage to bring into mix such as pre-existing medical conditions or child support payments. The following three budgets are just general to all of Thailand, so you can adjust accordingly based on the location you choose; Phuket and Bangkok are the most expensive places to live, while Chiang Mai is probably the cheapest place that you’d consider. This is also strictly spending money, so any savings money would have to be in addition to the following budgets.

Budget 1) The minimum required to live with any type of quality. This wouldn’t be ideal and it would be tight, but it would still beat the quality of life for many people in your home country. It’s still double what the average Thai makes, but it’s really about half of what it would take to live a fantastic life here.

Budget 2) There still isn’t any luxury in this budget, however you’d feel the bump up to 15,000 for entertainment; you can have fun for that amount. The bump up on the rent will also go a long way to adding comfort and space to your life. And a Thailand travel fund makes an appearance as well which will also add a couple of enjoyable trips each year. We still don’t have room for large purchases, so you’d have to go a month without entertainment to buy a television or a laptop. So we’re still a little tight here, but at this level you can tell there isn’t a lot left to go before you’d have everything you’d ever need.

Budget 3) Now we’re getting somewhere. The following budget puts us into a rental that you would be happy to invite friends to. There’s enough in the entertainment budget to partake in just about any activities you can think of. Travel budgets are appropriate as well. We’d still have the problem of having to take it easy on a month where you have a major or unexpected purchase, but other than that life is good here!

Budget 4) This is it! This is the budget that allows you to really live it up in Thailand. You might not be living like a King on this budget, but you’re likely to live better than almost anybody you know from your home country. It really gives you everything you need.

CHAPTER 3 - RECURRING THEMES

Many of the businesses and opportunities we discuss will have overlapping concepts. Rather than tell you about how to get the most out of Facebook or how to optimize a website for search in every chapter it’s better I familiarize your with all of the major concepts right off the bat. This is general information, but it’s of crucial importance. It will really help to simplify all of the specific strategies and plans. You should refer back to these sections frequently because I will referencing them often.

General Concepts that will apply to many of the options we discuss:

1) Social Media

I hate Twitter and I don’t even like Facebook. But I’ve come to realize that it’s a necessary evil. The good thing about it is that it’s free marketing; the bad thing is that it’s time consuming and annoying to maintain. But chances are you need to have some established social media accounts in order to network, retain clients, or find new prospects. The sites have different uses and some may be more useful than others based on your position. Here’s a quick analysis of the sites you should keep in mind and the practical uses for them as they apply to many of the options we will discuss in this book.

Facebook - 90% of Facebook is people bragging and showing off, 5% is pure stupidity, and the remaining 5% is extremely valuable. Everyone is on Facebook and it’s free. You can also friend request just about whoever you want and you can certainly send a private message to anyone who hasn’t blocked you. You can have a page for you or for your business and they don’t necessarily need to be attached. The good outweighs the bad here, so I suggest starting a Facebook account if you haven’t already. Here are some tips for FB:

1) As it relates to making money, Facebook represents you. Too many people make the mistake of trying to be unique on Facebook. While I do suggest that you paint a vivid picture of yourself on Facebook, I strongly suggest you never approach subjects that can alienate any group of people. So don’t talk about politics at all unless you own a political blog! Don’t annoy people with pictures of food dishes unless you wrote a cook book. Never brag and don’t even be opinionated. Movies, music, TV, and hobbies aren’t offensive in any way and can go a long way towards making people see a real person. So you can fill out your profile by selecting those categories to express your tastes.

2) Sometimes Facebook is the only way to contact someone who might be of use to you. This in itself makes Facebook worth having. Whenever you contact someone on Facebook who doesn’t actually know you, always send a private message and always make it short and don’t be too formal. You don’t even need to friend request someone in order to chat with them through private messages.

3) IF you have a Twitter account you can easily sync it to your Facebook account; this helps you to kill two birds with one stone. Time is money so this is important.

4) Friend requesting works, but Facebook will limit you if they feel you’re requesting too many people. It’s better to send out a few requests a day so you don’t set off Facebook’s limitations. Even if you do get limited, you can usually start requesting people about a week later, so just consider it a timeout.

5) The best way to get relevant Facebook friends for a page is to add insightful comments on other page comment threads and to ask questions on your own page that will spark an easy conversation. So if you have a business FB page and you have 250 followers, if you say something like, it’s beautiful out today nobody will respond and therefore you really aren’t getting anything accomplished. But if you say, What city has the best weather? you’ll get a bunch of responses and everyone who does respond will be advertising your page (unintentionally) to anyone who sees their comments in their news feed (which is most of their friend’s group). For a business page, the best thing they can do is to have long threads under their comments.

6) Facebook ads are actually more cost efficient than Google pay per click, although the audience may be somewhat limited. So depending on what you’re selling or promoting you may want to give Facebook pay per click ads a shot. They’re really good about pinpointing who to advertise to. For instance if you sell bridal gowns and you advertise on FB, they will only display your ads to women who have recently changed their relationship status to engaged. This is very solid target advertising.

7) More friends are a good thing. It’s shallow and it sucks that it’s come down to this but in terms of networking potential the more people you have on FB the better. A simple question like, Do you know anyone who lives in Thailand? on your wall could eventually lead to an important contact. You might be surprised how helpful this can be. Let’s say two people respond to you and tell you they have a friend staying in Thailand. All you need to do is get the email address or Facebook info for the people they know and all of a sudden you have a contact. You can read more about what to do with these contacts in the Networking Section of the Book. Contacts are key.

Twitter - Like Facebook Twitter is 90% crap. But if you have a website, blog, book or book to promote Twitter is yet another free advertising technique. You’ll lose followers in Twitter fast if you don’t give them something worthwhile every now and then. Facts are underrated on Twitter. If you take an hour to compile a list of worthwhile facts for your twitter’s theme that’ll probably be enough to give you twitter ammunition for months. If you just tweet one interesting piece of information once per day you’re ahead of the game in Twitter. As stated before you should link to your Facebook account. If you have a website you can put a Tweet Deck plug-in on there for free which will allow means you’re updating your website every single day without even touching it and that’s a nice feature. With Twitter you can also follow people who you may learn something from and you may be able to get the attention of someone you’d never have the chance to off of Twitter. Twitter works best if you have a service. You give people information and you make it so they can find out all about your service with a minimal amount of digging on your profile. You build a report which can get you leads.

LinkedIn - For many people LinkedIn is the most important Social media site. You can use it as an interactive resume