AIBU in thinking I can afford to move to Dubai?

[Partygirl2021]

I’m a single mum of a 15 month old, divorce should be finalised in a couple of months. It was always my dream to move abroad and Dubai is my first choice. My ex always refused to relocate. I earn £46k in London in a resourcing job. AIB unrealistic in thinking I could afford to live there? I know accommodation and school fees are high but I would love anyone’s experience.

The passport is held by the employer because otherwise your maid could skip off (having been brought over, x rayed, visas, vaccinated etc, at the employers expense) with the family jewels etc

Taking their passport away so they can't "skip off", or leave easily, smacks of control and not exactly working completely freely to me.

If course there are problems but name a country that doesnt.

Nobody has suggested otherwise, But one would hope that any person of reasonable intelligence could see the difference between an imperfect parliamentary democracy even one with a craven buffoon as PM and a monarch's son who is resisting attempts to interrogate him over his links to a notorious paedophile and a dictatorship where the key roles in government are shared out between a couple of influential families who have absolutely no accountability to their judiciary, police or a gagged media, who keep control over their overwhelmingly foreign population with the threat of deportation, whose appalling human rights record is well-recognised, and who increasingly routinely harass, impose travel bans on and imprison their own citizens who want to introduce democratic reforms.

She was not a slave because her passport didn’t sit in her handbag

If you hold her passport so she can't leave, she's a slave.

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/23/migrant-domestic-workers-uae-beaten-abused

Why would you have someone you thought given half a chance would skip off with the family jewels working in your home and around your child?
Why, if they are so free and happy, would they be a flight risk?

[quote goody2shooz]@WTAFIhavelosttheferret yes. she had her own (en suite) room, I haven’t seen a house in Dubai that doesn’t have a maid’s room, and a return ticket is part of the contract. Paid for by the employer not the maid. The passport is held by the employer because otherwise your maid could skip off (having been brought over, x rayed, visas, vaccinated etc, at the employers expense) with the family jewels etc. You may not like the idea but it makes it much easier to keep tabs on your population. Different countries, different rules. Friend’s bil was deported with 24 hours notice despite having lived there for 30 years - I’m sure a lot of British people and MPs would like the power to do that here with undesirables. Any non- Emirati can be deported within 24hours if the authorities wish.[/quote]
I can't believe I'm reading someone defending the practice of confiscating employee passports! Fucking hell.

Do you need the dads written permission to apply for a visa for the child? It's likely you do.

The UAE population is 10m. Every resident above 16 (?) can get a vaccine tomorrow if they want it. They've administered 2.6m doses. Yes not as many as the UK but more in proportion to population by a long way. Basically if you want a vaccine in the UAE you can pitch up and get one. The numbers aren't higher because people don't necessarily want to get vaccinated - it's a young population who usually aren't high risk themselves for Covid and generally not living with older family members who might be. That said this is Sinopharm not Pfizer.

AED 20k monthly all in for a mother with one child would be pretty miserable in the UAE. There is no UK benefits system that you can rely on in an emergency. School plus nanny (as no after-school care) plus basic rent would take up at least 13k of that before you even start on other bills. That might sound like a lot for people in the UK working with high childcare but all utilities are expensive (my electricity and water is regularly above £500 a month and two phones plus internet costs £200) as is food and after school activities (I pay £35 a lesson for group swimming lessons for example) and there is no safety net at all (best bet for a Brit is to head to the UK). I spend about £1000 a month on groceries for a family of 4 and whilst I'm not adding lentils to my mince, equally I'm not living the highlife and buying organic. You could survive on AED20k but it would be a worse life style than £45k in the UK (well outside London at least). For secondary school fees jump and it stops being even doable at a push in my book.

Lots of people (including families) live here for less but they're usually from communities where the school fees are far lower, they're willing to live in studio accomodation with a child (I assume the OP wouldn't want that) and the amount they need to save to retire is relatively low. My nanny for example gets paid £900 a month with free accomodation and has saved enough over 10 years to put her daughter through university, support many family members, buy a house outright and become one of the largest landowners in her village. You couldn't do that on the same money in the UK.

[quote Fufumuji]She was not a slave because her passport didn’t sit in her handbag

If you hold her passport so she can't leave, she's a slave.

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/oct/23/migrant-domestic-workers-uae-beaten-abused[/quote]
I completely agree. It's a horrific practice. But as you can see this isn't 'the UAE' this is the people who live there and in this case it appears to be a British national. UAE law makes this illegal.

Rather than asking whether you can afford it, first ask whether you would actually want to live in Dubai. Have you actually been to the place?

I have, and it's fucking hell on earth. Nothing would make me want to live there.

@mummytolittledragons

Do you need the dads written permission to apply for a visa for the child? It's likely you do.

Yes. It's been mentioned a few times. They need to know that anyone with parental responsibility has given consent to residency. That said, if you have a UK court order approving the move, that can normally be used in place of express consent from the father.

But as you can see this isn't 'the UAE' this is the people who live there and in this case it appears to be a British national. UAE law makes this illegal

Technically illegal but culturally acceptable and still prevalent.

[quote goody2shooz]@WTAFIhavelosttheferret ‘so she was modern day slave then’ is a huge insult to people who are or were slaves. That maid worked from 8.30am to 7pm with 2 hours off midday. She had plenty of food, her own phone provided, as well as uniform. She was not raped, beaten, deprived of food or medical care, decent clothing, bedding, made to work while ill or under extremes of weather. She asked to continue to work for the family ‘until my daughter finishes school’.
She was not a slave because her passport didn’t sit in her handbag.[/quote]
Depriving someone of their passport is exactly what makes them a modern day slave.

We were expats for a while and one of the reasons we came back was that we didn't want our children growing up in a world or entitlement and a lack of reality where they could se something like the example that you have quoted as either acceptable or normal.

It’s crazy expensive there so you may think you’re on good money but it doesn’t go far out there with school fees and flights to visit home and rent etc

@WTAFIhavelosttheferret

Depriving someone of their passport is exactly what makes them a modern day slave.

Agreed. We've had our driver/house keeper for over 3 years now and I've never laid eyes on his passport, let alone hands on it. If that's what you feel you need to do, then you seriously need to consider whether the person you're employing is a good fit for you and whether you're treating them with enough respect.

I don't understand wanting to move to a place where women are literally second class citizens. I mean, literally, second class citizens. Everything will be harder because you don't have a male in tow to be the legal head of your household.

I remember reading about the Dubai porta potties on Tattle Life, horrifying

That’s is soooo wrong please don’t waste time it’s good not soulless.

@cheongfan Bruh 20,000 aed is like 4K that would be under the poverty line you need more if you want to live in Dubai.

@Yousef123 Was that meant for someone else? I'm suggesting AED40k is what she would realistically want (all in). It was someone else who was saying AED 20k was doable.

@cheongfan probably but even 40k is low in aed

I live in the UAE. For a single mother with one child AED40k is enough for a decent life and to save a bit. For the majority of people here that's a fortune!

How much would you say is the minimum you'd need?

@Cheongfan

I'm not sure why someone's suggesting AD is cheaper than Dubai. I live in AD and am moving to Dubai. Dubai is cheaper for pretty much everything except that the top top end schools are more expensive in Dubai.

I forgot who said it but how much is a four bed house to rent in Surrey that it's cheaper than Dubai? I can't find anything in Dubai for much less than £20k a year (AED100k) and pickings get slim below £30k (AED150k). If someone knows a nice family area for less than that I'd love to know.

OP as others have said, the key thing is package. You'd want to realistically double your current gross (all in) in my view to have a comfortable life. You can do it for less but I look at costs very closely and we would be really tight on less than 40 (although we have two DC so it would be easier for you). We are not big spenders at all but if we were only able to earn your current salary I'd not be here.

They changed the law and you don't go to prison for debt anymore.

A single parent can sponsor their child but then they are able to in Qatar too (and have been able to for at least 10 years). In Qatar it was more difficult than the normal sponsorship process though and I suspect very difficult if you weren't married at the time the child was born.

Most people I know do get housing allowance though - you don't pay end of service benefit on housing so sensible employers will give it and reduce base pay. I agree that packages are slimming down though. No guarantee of getting education (or education that goes close to the fees), family medical, or family flights.

Look at some of the communities on Al Qudra Road - not AR1 or AR2, but some of the others. Ours is technically a 3 bedroom + study + maids room but the study is easily big enough to use as a 4th bedroom/guest bedroom if you wanted.

Otherwise places like JVC, Mirdif will definitely have things for under AED100k.

OP
I see the Dubai haters are out in force here, most of them never having lived her, let alone visited.
Join the Facebook groups
Mums in Dubai
Brits in Dubai
British Expats Dubai
There you will get a balanced and realistic view of life. There's lots of single parents here obviously and I'm sure people can point you towards appropriate groups and support.
Wishing you all the best. Our children all grew up in Dubai and all had fantastic childhoods.