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How much does it cost for you and your family to live in Chiang Mai?
As noted by many expats, your cost of living will greatly vary on your standard of living. What I tried to do is to have a similar standard of living our family had in Dallas, Texas.
We are paying about $6,000 a month, including international school tuition, which is the largest expense. Excluding tuition, we are paying about $3,800 a month. This is about a quarter of our cost of living in Texas.
“Why the hell did you quit your job?”
I get this a question a lot. I know it’s a blessing to have a job that pays so well. And I worked so damn hard to get to where I was.
The simple answer: I wasn’t happy. I was an executive at a Fortune 200 company for eight years. Sure, I had a positive impact on others’ lives, especially in helping to improve the bottom line for the company and shareholders, as well as employing others (including personally hiring some people I am proud to say are my friends). The money was great – and I was very blessed to have been earning that much. But at some point the costs outweighed the benefits. The equation tipped the scale towards the option of walking away in three ways: freedom, time, and purpose.
