My parents were working in Abu Dhabi during 80’s and 90’s and I’ve visited them often and we all have visited Dubai often those days. We returned to Kerala after my father expired. Since I’ve seen the lifestyle in Abu Dhabi, especially the facilities that my father had due to his job in an oil rig, I was fascinated of working in Dubai and living my life in Dubai.
Fact is, I never tried for any jobs but by the Grace of God, job’s have come in search of me. The position and salary they offered were too good for my experience. The offers I got were from big companies. To take a decision of the offers I got, I contacted my friends, relatives living in Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi to know the expenses for a family to live there comfortably. Just fyi that I’m working for a US based software company in Kerala.
When the company, position and salary looked good to me, I only looked at one thing. How much can I save every month living a comfortable life in Dubai or can I save more than what I save here in India?
Contacting my friends, these are the facts that I found out about Dubai.
1) Range of One bedroom Apartment
-> AED 60, 000 - AED 85, 000 per year
-> AED 5, 000 - AED 7, 000 per month
2) Range of Two bedroom Apartment:
-> AED 80, 000 - AED 1, 25, 000 per year
-> AED 6, 600 - AED 10, 400 per month
3) Electricity & Water:
-> AED 600
4) Household Expenses(Groceries, Food, Eatout etc):
-> AED 1, 500
5) Car Loan:
-> AED 2, 000(If its a New Honda CRV)
-> AED 1, 250 - AED 1, 500 for a decent car
6) Fuel:
-> AED 800(Approx. Max)
7) Education for children:
-> AED 800 - AED 1, 500 per child
8) Phone Bills:
-> AED 500
Total EXPENSE per month for a family with two school going children in a ONE bedroom apartment in best case scenario:
AED 11, 250
Total EXPENSE per month for a family with two school going children in a TWO bedroom apartment in best case scenario:
AED 12, 850
I found that the salary I was offered by each company was excellent, but not good for a city like Dubai. I found that I cannot save even the money that I save here in India. Here, my wife is a house-wife and she is busy taking care of the house, kids and me. If we shift to Dubai, my wife will have to start working to support our stay in Dubai, forget saving.
What I understood was, these days a family should get around AED 16, 000 - AED 17, 000 to live comfortably in Dubai and save a decent amount. There are also options to cut down monthly recurring expenses like house rent. One got to share an apartment with another family. I was not interested in it. I also don’t see any point in working in a foreign country just for the sake of saying’I’m an NRI’, without being able to save decent amount of money. We go abroad for better savings and better living.
In all the offers that I got, I had to work 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. Here we usually work for 8 hours a day. In reality we might work for more hours. That happens wherever we are.
Also, there might be millions of artificial/materialistic ways to spend money in the middle east. There might be different ways to get luxury and pleasure in the middle east. But back here in India, we have lots of ways to spend time with family, in touch with nature. There are lots of ways we can cool, relax ourselves in India, gain back the energy and get back to work. "Its purely because, man cannot make what God has made.". India is a beautiful place that we being Indians don’t realize what India has on offer. We just think of ourselves and forget the harm we do to our mother land.
People who have gone to the middle east years before and have been there for years, its a reap for them now. But not for people who go there these days in search of jobs with the expectation of higher salary/savings. My request to each of them planning to work in the middle east would be to find the reality, see the benefits offered by the company, see what you gain by working in the middle east etc and then decide going there.
Please do not go to middle east just for the sake of getting an NRI account. Its worse than what you can imagine.
Your comments!