Making money in Thailand seems to be the new thing the cool kids do. Lots of tossers, oops I mean digital nomads and backpackers are making there way to places like Chiang Mai and Bangkok looking for ways to make money and sustain their lifestyles
How do I earn money in Bangkok?
I work as a full-time gigolo, only joking, Bangkok couldn’t afford me. On a serious note, one income stream I have is my website, it may look like a badly put together blog with information randomly scattered around, but it generates well.
Alongside that, I have 5 eBooks I’ve written and sell on Amazon, I run a few niche websites, I am a forum manager for a popular poker site (I used to play pro), and I am content writer for several businesses. It’s odd that I am a content writer when my website is riddled with basis spelling mistakes, bad grimmer and terrible punctuation, but this is a hobby and I am too lazy to spell check or even proofread.
I tend to work on average around 15 hours per week and I save well over 60% of my monthly income. That’s not hard when you only spend $800 a month living in Thong Lo. More to come on that in a future blog post (in about 2 weeks).
Other ways to earn money in Thailand
There’s a lot of good ways and plenty of bad ways to make money in Thailand, they include:
Freelancing – From writing, translating, coding, developing apps and anything else you can do from a laptop, you can do in Thailand. You would ideally want skills in one of the above to give it a shot before coming over. Most people go into writing but I feel it’s totally saturated now with many Asian writers who will work for pennies, so it’s better choosing another route.
Digital nomad- Start your own blog about something, create an e-store, write a eBook, become an affiliate marker or anything else that can make you money online. Here is a interview I did recently with a digital nomad in Thailand.
Chef- Can you cook good quality food and manage a kitchen? Bangkok is also looking for chefs.
Poker – I know several poker players who live in Bangkok and make a decent living. Some making $5,000+ quite easily. However, if you have never played poker before there’s a good chance you will never make money now. Rake too high, games are solid, GG. Here is an interview I did with a poker player living in Bangkok.
Exporting – Thailand manufactures a lot of stuff that you can sell back home for a huge mark-up. You would need a connection and some savvy businesses skills though. Clothes, seatbelts and luggage are just a few things you can ship over and make a decent profit on, or even act as middleman for businesses back home.
Gigolo- Go on Thai Craigslist and you will see western men pimping themselves out. I don’t know how much the pay is nowadays (2-3k a pop I guess), but a friend of mine who did it before and he was making good coin. He did go a bit insane after though.
Teaching- I would rather slit my wrists, be force-fed my own shit while being dragged through HIV infested cut glass with a hyena chewing on my balls before I ever became a school teacher in Thailand, but hey that’s just me. Seems to be the most common job going and you don’t need much other than a degree and a white face. Here is an interview I did with two teachers living in Thailand.
Start a business – LOL, good luck with that and enjoy failing. Not to say you can’t start a business in Thailand, because you can and they can be very successful. It’s just very difficult and there’s a lot of laws that really make it tough. Just Google for more information, what do you think this site is? A useful resource for people who want to move to Bangkok? Get the fuck out of here.
Scam – Not something I recommend as it’s not nice but scamming seems to be an option some people take when they are down and out in Thailand.
There’s a lot of other options to such as Forex trading, stocks and modelling (I did it) but don’t think you can get a regular job like back home. Nobody is going to hire you and pay 30,000-60,000 baht per month when they can pay a Thai who can speak the native tongue for 12,000 baht a month. Normal jobs are not open to western people in Thailand, you need a special skill that a Thai person cannot do in order to find a regular job.
Remember you need a visa to work here when you’re working for a business. Freelancing work is fine on a tourist visa. You can find more ways to make money in Thailand but they ain’t so great. Unless you’re already earning money digitally or have a great idea with plenty of money behind you, don’t think about coming to Thailand and having lots of job prospects waiting. Chances are you will only having teaching English as an option, but luckily there are plenty of jobs out there for that.
