Cost of living
 

Hi , my husband has seen a job in Cayman islands and considering applying . It's $48.500 per year will this be enough for a family off 3 to live on .
I will probably get a job though to add to this .
many thanks

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Personally I would say that you will be able to live on that but only just. You would need to find work yourself which isn't as easy as it may sound. I have a friend who has spent the last 6 months living off a similar wage (a couple with a newborn) and things have been tight for them, luckily his wife has just secured work. It all depends on the standard of living you wish to achieve, if you are not one for going out and are happy to spend your free time as a family at the beach then fine. If you want to drink coffee with yummy mummies in yummy mum cafes whilst driving your (white usually) 4x4, as well as eat out a few times a month as a family then you would need to earn at least the same as that again.

https://caymanresident.com/move/cost...uple-children/

You would also need to arrive with 10k in savings to get yourself set up (house deposit, decent car, deposits for utilities)

T

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Thanks so much for reply and your helpful post.
I will probably also secure a job As well as my husband before we go also to be on the safe side so combined it would be $74 per year.
I also can do freelance work to top things up so should work out a lot more.
I'm just back from a holiday there checking things out.
We also have 20k savings to get things set up

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School fees for three children are already going to be in excess of $30,000 so it doesn't leave much left over!

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All expats require Work Permits that allow them to be indentured to specific employers for specific periods. For "freelancers", this would mean employment by an employment agency that would farm you out to their clients.

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Hi and thanks so much for your reply . Sorry for my text as it's not explained properly .
I'm a family of 3 in total. So I have just 1 child not 3 ! Lol
I'm hoping to work as a teaching assistant and school fees will be reduced.

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Garry I teach baby yoga to new mums , I would need to go through an agency for that?

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If you can secure a job beforehand then 74000CI is a liveable wage. You will be able to afford a 2 bed place (not on the beach unless further out), pay the bills etc etc, put food on the table, run a cheap (for island) car and afford the odd treat weekly. Some people who have secured jobs as teaching assistants I know of take a lower wage as child care is included which helps. However a work permit does not allow you to do any job once obtained, your hub for instance will only be allowed to work for the specific company that have hired him, he won't be able to switch companies without a new work permit and that is a long winded process involving proof that the job could not have gone to a local etc etc. In short your plan to top up the wages with free lance work may not be possible. Also the people I know who have (just this Sep) secured teaching assistants jobs have taken 6-8 months to secure the roles after arrival. You are currently the last to be considered for a role here being off island, when you arrive on the spouses permit you will be second from last behind blood line Caymanians, permanent residents (and arguably those that are easier to obtain permits for such as other Caribbean Nations). I don't want to paint a picture of doom & gloom as it is definitely possible for you to come over as a family and for you to eventually find work, just be aware it will not be easy to walk into a job and often people (my wife for instance) end up doing a job far below their capabilities as the cards are so stacked against expats here.

Re: Cost of living
 

Fefee. Your husband's salary of $48K is probably just enough for you all to live modestly: the CI dollar is roughly the same as the UK pound, but you should certainly not presume that you yourself will get a job easily, even a part-time one. TandD and I are both right about the reluctance of the Immigration authorities to make it easy for foreigners to get jobs. Yes, we have about 20,000 people here on Work Permits, but just about every one of them is resented by our generally anti-expat local rulers, and every one of them has to be indentured to a specific employer - unless he or she works for government. It may well be easier for you to work at a government school, and you should explore that option.

Cayman needs all the expats it has, but there exists some serious rhetoric spoken and written against their presence. Well, it's the way of the world, pretty much, isn't it? ("Why should foreigners come in when some of our own people are unemployed?" It's a perennial problem everywhere.)

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Good luck FeFee. Once you're settled it is a great place to live. Be prepared for the grocery prices! £9.50 for decent Waitrose bacon :blink:

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I have to say I've no idea how much Waitrose bacon is - $9.50 is an outrageous price, but I guess James is a lot more fussy about his bacon than I am! The American stuff is $3.49 per lb or something like that. (A GB pound is about the same value as a Cayman Dollar, these days.) Local meat is hard to find - except at the end of the week at Kirk's; only occasionally at Foster's. USDA meat varies in price as much as it does in England - depends on the cut and the quality. I never heard of the same price for everything. That doesn't make sense!

Jordan... FYI, we use pounds and ounces here, not kilos. Also feet and inches, and acres and square-feet, and miles. All very much under the influence of the USA, as in all the other English-speaking places in the Caribbean, to the best of my knowledge.