I thought the package excluded accommodation.

Anyway, it's difficult to say what is the norm. It depends on what business you are in. I've heard some wildly varying figures. The best thing is to find out how much you can command then do some research on cost of living. There are plenty of sources out there, and if you come back on here and ask, I'm sure people will point you in the right direction. (In TA5's case, to the moon)

As for a boom - well property prices are certainly booming! It is REALLY expensive to live here.

we were in the process of going to Dubai last year or so and were looking at :

320,000 dh per year
3 bed house provided
car provided
return flights provided
medical and dental provided
relocation costs provided.

we didnt go as we prefer here much more but I did have many people telling me that even with all that provided we'd still go through our money.

depends really on what you're used to having in the UK and what you're willing to make the move to Dubai for - if you're used to a nice 4 bed house, good income, 2 nice cars, foreign holidays, golf club membership, wife not working, kids at decent schools - then what we were offered above is the minimum you'd need for that.

I know of people on less - much less - but to be honest they had a better life in the UK by far.

It takes a lot of cash to live and ENJOY Dubai... IMO

They must have been the kind of people who spend money like it's going out of fashion! Dubai's full of those... the number of people living supposedly "affluent" lifestyles, but who are actually up to their eyeballs in debt in order to maintain the illusion of that lifestyle, is staggering.

Seriously, with a monthly salary of nearly 27K and almost everything else provided (including, crucially, accommodation) you would have been sitting pretty out here. You could have put at least 50% of that into a savings account each month and still had more than enough left over to have fun with.

Give it another year or so and there *will* be a correction, at least as far as apartments are concerned. The number of "luxury apartment blocks" being built is out of all proportion to the number of people moving in to Dubai who will actually be a in a position to afford to live in them. For all that the government trumpets the number of expats coming in to the country, a good 75% of them (he said, plucking a number out of the air) will be labourers and service industry workers who will get paid peanuts and live in Sharjah.

[QUOTE=GarethR]They must have been the kind of people who spend money like it's going out of fashion! Dubai's full of those... the number of people living supposedly "affluent" lifestyles, but who are actually up to their eyeballs in debt in order to maintain the illusion of that lifestyle, is staggering.

QUOTE]


you're so right - seems like almost anywhere else in the world you emigrate to have a better standard of life in general and better wages are a bonus - Dubai still seems to instill in people that they're gonna live like princes and even if not paid like that as you say they get into debt to do so and keep up with the Jones's.

GarethR you never said a truer word

Aye....

Agreed.

I used to have a guy share my apartment who would spend most his money on Drink and hookers.....the rest of it he would waste.

Saying that, i took a pay cut to go out there, but was still on a very very good package, however, even taking the tax free living into consideration, i was still worse off as it is very easy to get sucked into the culture of going out on the piss all the time...VIP bars and £100 bottles of vodka.


not big nor clever

He would only buy them drinks????