Autonomy

After the worldwide success of the now out of date Lush Index and as I have some time on my hands currently...

With all the posts regarding "I've been offered a job in UAE and have no idea if it's worth it, but it looks *amazing* - Is It Worth It?" where after the poster throws up a random amount of numbers and asks us... Is It Worth It?

Well, I thought I'd try to rationalise this in a spreadsheet. It's probably been done before. It's simple and not 100% accurate - that's not possible. But I've had a bash at it...

Maybe you guys can have a look at it:-

does this all add up?
are the figures and assumptions reasonable
does it give a reasonably accurate answer to Is It Worth It?

Try it on your own package and lifestyle - does it work?

If anyone would like to help crowd source a decent spreadsheet - let me know your thoughts or changes (or indeed let me know if its a pile of crap and bin it).

If anyone is an excel demon and wants to improve it - be my guest and repost it here...

If we think it mostly works - I'll get a mod to make a sticky for it...

Let me know,

Auto

PS - to attach it - the file needs to be xls format not newer xlsx

Oyibopeppeh

Good job!

littlejimmy

Cracking idea.

al dente

Pretty impressive. Will run through it myself later on!

weasel decentral

Nice job, I expect thread creation and postings to drop by 50% now

Oyibopeppeh

Nah. The newbies will still expect a tailor made response

mummy2dolly

I've just had a quick look and comparing that to our monthly budget the food and petrol amounts are on the low side..... I use about 800dhs a month alone on petrol with living out of town and the school run, and I would say our food budget is 1,00 dhs per person per month.......

Also no mention of beach club/gym membership? Is this classed as 'other' entertainment?

edit: aaah..... just spotted the side column with budget, medium, bling........ I don't think we're particularly 'bling' though......

Autonomy

All good info - gym is a decent one to add.

Food per person per month - top end 1,000+

Don't take bling too personally...

Thanks for the feedback - will incorporate later if there are other suggestions

csdf

If you also want to add Abu Dhabi specific things, then electricity and water will be lower than the amounts you have. I live in a villa and at the peak of summer the bill is about 1500. In the winter it goes as low as 150. You should also remove the "residency tax" which doesn't exist for people renting in Abu Dhabi.

Autonomy

I did want to add Abu Dhabi (and Doha at some point)...

Any other changes - certainly in accommodation examples... the four listed in the welcome tab - what would AD examples be:-

Family Set Up Type

Single person, no kids, 20 - 30 year old 1 bed apt
Working couple, no kids, 25 - 40 2 bed apt
Couple, 2 kids 3 bed villa
Larger family, teenage kids 4 bed villa upwards

scrubbedexpat141

Amazing, but depressing;

-2,857

Perhaps a slot for average monthly bonus for those of us in a sales type role?

scrubbedexpat141

Playing with bonus figures makes it look better; 10,476

Also, is it worth having the positive / negative figure as the remaining amount left to be able to save rather than have it included?

Acutally, I guess you can just leave blank and then decide what to save from the left overs....

Autonomy

I guess you saw the bonus bit in the package section...

I put in a saving (and pensions !) section in expenses as some will try to guarantee a minimum saving portion and if need be will reduce other costs if it's negative balance. Or just slap zero in savings and be done with it

csdf

Not sure about this as I only have the direct experience of my own place, which is in the last category where the price range is 200,000+ on-island, and probably 140,000+ off-island.
I don't think there's such as a thing as a 3-bed villa on-island, but you might find it off-island and there are certainly (legal) partitioned villas with 3 beds.

scrubbedexpat141

Sorry, was me being a div for a minute.

Playing with the savings bit is simple...as is the bonus.

My work spreadsheet gives me monthly average and total for bonus so using that it makes more sense.

Awesome spreadsheet, thanks mate.