DXBtoDOH

https://www.thenational.ae/business/...years-1.665613

"‘We never go into a normal shop anymore and we spend Dh140 to cover groceries for one week or 10 days,” he says.

Other shopping tips include taking advantage of promotions and free samples, never buying coffee when you are out, and utilising your freezer more to make produce last longer.

For driving, he never uses Salik toll roads, always drives under the speed limit to avoid fines and says buying a car is preferable to leasing."

Wow. Even cheaper than me

Nonetheless, intriguing article. I don't quite buy all of his claims; he's fudging the truth a bit here and there methinks. I liked the way the article started out sounding as if he'd become financially independent in only two years and then towards the end it's revealed he had a lot more other assets.....

Miss Ann Thrope

If only I'd figured out that you could sell this survival advice to people I could have retired at 49 rather than 53... One year of unemployment taught me all I need to learn about how to manage expenses.

As the two self-confessed tight-wads on this bored, are we just trying to refute some stereotypes?

DXBtoDOH

I think we're creating our own new stereotypes

UKCityGent

I actually had read that story this morning and thought what a load of horses ..


I think him trying to sell early retirement courses have now replaced his original job !

Dubaiexile

How does knowing the rules reduce what you pay on your rental??

Lots of statements but not a lot of fact

scot47

The 500 Riyals a Month Club in Jeddah when i worked there used to steal toilet paper from the staff toilets. And teabags from the staffroom.

DXBtoDOH

Many agree to rental increases beyond the RERA regulations or even in a declining market simply because they don't want to face the hassles of moving. A surprising number of expats know nothing about RERA regulations and just accept what the landlord tells them, including eviction notices submitted a few weeks before the end of the contract. So he has a point there - he stuck to his guns.

However, the example of his property in JVT must have mitigating factors. I suspect it's a 1-bedroom villa because I remember viewing one or two at the nadir of the property market circa 2010 and they were going for 60ish. If he bargained hard then he could have snapped up one for 55k. Still, going from 55 to 63k in six-seven years of mostly rental increases is pretty impressive, but I wonder if it's one of those property types (1-bedroom villa) that the RERA calculator doesn't have a neat calculation for so it's treated the same as a 1-bedroom apartment in the same area and he took advantage of that. So what worked for him wouldn't have necessarily worked for people with more conventional 2-3 bedroom villas or bigger apartments in established areas.

Anyway, I'm shocked someone as cheap as him allowed himself to rent a property in a district cooling scheme and a villa when he could have gotten an even cheaper studio in Sharjah

weasel decentral

Aside from the fact that he inherited property, which seems to be the main cornerstone of his 'retirement', it all seems such a miserable penny-pinching way to live your life.

scrubbedexpat141

I love people like this.
Two years earnings and can retire...to charge money to tell people how to find grandparents who give you property meaning you can retire.

Shirt is terrible too.

DXBtoDOH

Collar is floppy. Needs stiffeners. Probably too cheap to have it properly laundered and ironed

Millhouse

wait until she falls pregnant - he'll soon realize that granny's BTL and his part-time speaking gig won't pay the school fees .

""I’m currently working on three different companies and I wake up at 5.30am because otherwise I would not have enough time to achieve everything I want.”"

and what's this shit - sounds like work to me.

scrubbedexpat141

The whole thing is a shit show.

I'm not buying a word. He just saved shed loads of money in two years, enough to allow him to do something different and be backed financially.

If you're 40 and live another 35 years and saved 70% of your $10,000/mth income over 2 years you're saying you can end up with 24mths x 7,000 = 168,000 USD.
Divided by 35 years = 4,800 / year
Monthly = 400 bucks a month.

Assuming no interest gained but also no inflation.

It's just tosh.

co durham boy

Blokes just a wanker

mission

best comment so far

UKCityGent

Does anyone live Dh140 for 7-10days of groceries, I assume for a couple ?