Oyibopeppeh

Grass is greener?

Keeping up with the Jones's?

Patsy Stoned

Dear God..you think we can be sarcastic!!!..Just wait until the "yummy mummies" disagree with something you say or don't like the way you bring up your children......we are pussycats in comparison darling!
Oh AND you will get a lot more realistic help and advise from us ...or you would have done..

LMMB2012

Well that is why I posted on this forum in order to get "realistic" advice as well as other forums however the answers in the main although not all gave me no answers to my questions..including yours!

If you are a regular poster and are familiar with the style and wit of another fine funny/sarcastic comments are great and I too have been known to make some if however you are unfamiliar with a person who has posted it would be the decent thing to answer them or if you don,t like the sound of their post don't bother.

With regards to "Yummy Mummies" etc I think you will find that the playground mafia is present the world over.

Thank you for all those who took the time to give useful answers.

Johnnyboy11

I think you've had excellent advice on here - Accommodation and Education allowances are the key since they will likely cost QR12k/m and QR15k/m respectively.

A few other factors to bear in mind. You'll pay UK Income Tax and NI on everything you earn out here, including allowances. Unless you complete a full tax year, i.e. until 6th April 2014. This is more diffucult to achieve than you might think, since job security is zero and Doha is not everyone's cup of tea. A lot of expats leave prematurely, I'd say 50% in my experience.

Remember to factor in other missing perks from the package, like a pension, sickness cover, life cover, medical cover (except Dr Nick at HMC), flight costs for visits home etc.

[J]

Patsy Stoned

all of the replies here were helpful and realistic darling everybody took the time to answer you. Where was the sarcasm??

norsk

didn't get the answers he wanted i guess...

Autonomy

Have a look at http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762609

The Is It Worth It spreadsheet -not sure if it'll help you or not - but we do try to be a helpful (if at times spiky) bunch....

co durham boy

That's the main problem with new posters wanting information , they want you to reinforce their dream .

When you tell them that the place is shite , dirty or riddled with corruption it blows a hole right through the whole thing. It's easier to believe that everything's going to be ok when the sun shines everyday in a place where there's no crime and everyone has a swimming pool ....

Sometimes people are desperate to escape their own lives for the wrong reasons and make ill informed choices and ultimately fail in this part of the world .

Asking " Is this enough " is rather a blunt silly question to start with and the advice given was pretty good considering .

Most people will give good honest down to earth no holds barred advice on this forum , the trouble is there's not many who like to take it on board . No wonder there's so many people who make fu** ups in The Gulf .

norsk

You're right of course, but I remember what it was like before I made the move out here. It's not easy being told by strangers on a forum to reconsider..Once you're on here asking questions you must already have committed in your head right??

In my case on one hand I was excited (something new and different) and on the other I was bricking it (I was going to KSA after all). The funny thing is that the more I thought about all the crap I was going to leave behind in the UK, the more I convinced myself that it would be okay! The other factor in my head at the time was that even if KSA turned out to be a disaster then I could use the fact that I was on the ground in GCC to move on. Little did I know what I was letting myself in for. :-)

One good thing came from KSA. It has been permanently removed from the list of possible locations to work in!! Oh and obviously my little stint in KSA has made Dubai seem like the real world. Things actually work here. There is the red tape and silly things going on, but all in all if you've only ever been an expat in Dubai you have nothing to complain about....

[Spent a weekend in Doha a couple years ago. Drove down from Khobar. It was enough time for me to place it way way down the list of my preferred work locations]

Alexa

Spot on!
Just yeaterday a friend came to visit. He is considering work in KSA...so I gave him the low down...to everything I said his answer was "But..........."...ah well! Some people just have to learn the hard way!

LMMB2012

I had read through this forum so was aware that many people were only in Doha mainly for financial reasons therefore I wanted to know if that salary sounded "enough" to have a fairly good lifestyle, as obviously would not want to make the massive move if not financially rewarding. I had also read through other forums. I also made it clear that some posts were not sarcastic. Also I think posting comments of mine that I have made ( where no names were mentioned) from other websites and posting on here is below the belt ...particularly when some of the sarcastic comments were not specifically related to this thread.

It is also objectionable to assume everyone thinks the same when they have not even met them...living the dream ...I hardly think that any sane person would uproot their three young children and move across the world without trying to gain as much information as possible. I of course will be travelling to Qatar before deciding. Many Thanks for all your replies.

Patsy Stoned

Whatever darling.

Alexa

Do all you non Dohaites understand now why Doha is pretty crap?

Patsy Stoned

Come over for the weekend darling..we will do brunch et al..

Alexa

Will be coming over a few times towards the end of the year....Brunch with THE Patsy Stoned would be incredible, to say the least!