GBP vs THB

[Big Boy]

I, and I'm sure many old timers will remember when the exchange rate always seemed to be around 40 Baht to the Pound. OK, we've had a few rosy years, but nothing lasts forever. In my head, anything over 40 to the pound is a bonus.

[HHTel]

Yes, BB. That was before the crash when petrol was 7 baht a litre, cigarettes were 15 baht a pack and you could get a beer down Phatpong for 30 Baht. A villa with a swimming pool on a rai of land was around 2 mill. A 'girlfriend' would cost 500 baht a day. I could go on....

The few 'rosy' years lasted for 12 years or more. Exchange went into the 90's for a while but I remember it being around 73 for quite a while.

Prices have gone up around 4 fold and the pound has almost halved against the baht. That means anything bought now, is 6 or 8 times the price I paid when I arrived in 2000!

[oakdale160]

I've just read a series of forecasts by UK 'experts' Its all just guesswork. An arbitrage currency dealer I know in HK will not make a prediction feeling that the motives of other nations are unclear. But all 'experts' are agreed that there will be a drop. My guess, and this by a guy who guessed that Remain and Hillary would win, about 37

[buksida]

Prices have gone up around 4 fold and the pound has almost halved against the baht. That means anything bought now, is 6 or 8 times the price I paid when I arrived in 2000!

That is the crux of the matter, it is not all about the falling pound. Anyone that came here in the 90s will have noticed a tripling of prices since then for pretty much everything you buy here now. Thailand is no longer a cheap country regardless of the currency you're using.

[Big Boy]

For me, even my meagre GB pension outweighs that 3 fold increase, so inflation has happened to a greater extent in the West also

I agree, if living and earning within country, inflation is well ahead of incomes, but the value of the £ doesn't really come into that. I have also noticed quite a few inflation bursting price increases here in the last 12 months (I won't mention specifics because it upsets some members).

One thing I have noticed in recent weeks, which helps the weekly budget, Bluport and Villa Market are no longer expensive when compared to Tesco prices. I have about a dozen regular items inside my head that I use as a comparison when shopping. I also regularly see 120 Baht/small bottle bandied about as the cost for drinking in some areas of town, whereas other areas charge 100 Baht or less for a large bottle. We often hear about the Hua Hin surcharge - you can mitigate the surcharge with a little effort. So shop around, exchange rate fluctuations/inflationary increases cans be recouped in other ways. After STEVEG's advice, I am also using Transferwise for currency transfers - again that considerably softens the blow, when compared with bank transfers that I had been using.

[StevePIraq]

Great start to the New Year as the GBP drops below 40.5 to the THB. And there I was yesterday reading an article from high flying financial types who were predicting a 12% rise in Sterling's value this year.
The optimism was short lived.

They were not forecasting a 12% rise against the Baht, it was against the US$.

[lomuamart]

I never said that the gains were against the THB although re-reading my post, I can understand that some might have taken it to mean that.

[STEVE G]

I, and I'm sure many old timers will remember when the exchange rate always seemed to be around 40 Baht to the Pound. OK, we've had a few rosy years, but nothing lasts forever. In my head, anything over 40 to the pound is a bonus.

I'm sure that many already established in Thailand will battle on at rates below 40 to the pound but I can't imagine anything like the numbers that have retired there in the past will do so in the future. The cost of big budget items like condo's, houses and cars just won't look attractive enough to attract future retiree's particularly when you consider the ownership issues with property, it's one thing to take a risk with tens of thousands of pounds but quite another when it gets to be hundreds of thousands.

[oakdale160]

I just checked the Euro to Baht historical exchange rate and the depreciation has not been so severe as the GBP/Baht rate. So the Scandinavians and other Europeans are not so affected as British retirees.

[Norseman]

In Scandinavia it's only Finland who uses the Euro Currency.
So we have also been hit hard.

[oakdale160]

Thanks for that info, I knew that Norway was a non-euro country, so Denmark and Sweden are still on their Krone currencies. too?

[Norseman]

That is correct. They are all Krone currencies, SEK, DKK, NOK and ISK

[oakdale160]

Sorry if I have taken this thread slightly off-topic, but the situation of other European ex-pts is related to British concerns.

[T.O.M.]

In Scandinavia it's only Finland who uses the Euro Currency.
So we have also been hit hard.

Finland is not part of Scandinavia.....
The Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Those 3 countries together with Finland, Iceland and Faroe Islands are known as 'Norden' = The Nordic Countries

[buksida]

Please.