Dubai salary query

[Caps44]

Hello.

I’ve been looking through threads to get an idea of what salary would be enough to move, but also save.

We are family of 3. DS would be starting year 2 in September.

DH is in a process and the offer is:

70k AED a month (this figure includes housing, car allowance), They will provide 30k AED a Year for school fees. They will also provide annual flights home, medical insurance, plus relocation assistance (I’m guessing 30k).

Reading some posts, people saying 65k including is not enough…and my numbers say otherwise.

Monthly Costs:

Rent for 2 bed apartment - 15k
School fees (in addition to the 30k annual help) - 5k
One car plus Utilities - 5k
Groceries, eating out - 15k
Misc - 5k

Am I missing something, as this would allow 25k to be saved.

I appreciate there will be no pension.

Many thanks.

Personally I think that’s more than enough to live on, but I don’t think you’ll save as much as 25k. I also don’t know your ‘baseline’ of what kind of lifestyle you are expecting - don’t say ‘normal’ because everyone thinks they are normal 🙈

Will you need childcare? Will you need 2 cars? What areas will work for you to live in for both the school you get into and work.

Also a lot of costs like rent are a full year up front, so take that into account initially.

@happymelissa- thank you for the reply.

Would be one car.
i put 15k AED a month for grocery shopping and restaurants. In London we spend around £2.2k a month.
So I’ve set aside £3k (15k AED).

I won’t initially work, so no need for childcare initially.

Initially probably live near DIFC. But all things being well, I would like to buy with a mortgage, as monthly payments would be similar.

If you’re budgeting based on London costs you’ll be absolutely fine. Just beware of lifestyle creep.

The two things that cripple most people unexpectedly are rent and school fees. Both go up every year or people budget based on ‘cheap’ areas they then don’t want to live in.

I also think on many of these ‘could you survive on this salary’ posts the responders are often trolls or assuming a certain lifestyle. Does anyone honestly really think they couldn’t support their family on over £10k a month?? Whether they’d get the lifestyle they want is a different question.

Although I will concede that every additional child is extremely expensive, so having only one is helpful!

Thanks again @happymelissa .

I just wanted to make sure, as I’ve read threads were people ask similar questions, yet people come and say it’s going to be tight etc….

But that has reassured us.

If you wanted to live in a villa in an expensive area, run two cars, school fees weren’t covered or you had multiple children then 70k might be tight.

People live on all sorts of salaries in Dubai, 70k is great. It is true that costs have gone up a lot recently as many more people want to move there, so that skews some answers too.

Hope everything goes well for you!

We’ve always lived in apartments….and all the ones in the 15k price range are almost double the size of our apartment in London. For 3 of us, is ideal.

It also feels that 10 years ago people went to Dubai with the main purpose of saving money and coming back.
Now the reason is leaving for quality of life, safety, and people are happy to move just to change and are no longer interested in saving.

It's absolutely doable, and you most definitely won't be suffering, but you're underestimating in some areas and I don't think you'll find you save anything like 25k unless you're willing to restrict lifestyle much more than your food/restaurant budget suggests. 15k on groceries and eating out is a lot and if you plan to be eating out all the time, other costs will inevitably creep up as well.

Car plus utilities will almost certainly be more than 5k, unless you will be coming with the cash to buy a car up front. Electricity/water in the UAE includes a 5% tax (effectively council tax) which will work out as 750 alone if your rent is 180k. I would allow 10k for car plus utilities (assuming the latter includes mobile phones/internet as well, and you already have your phones).

What are you using for your price range for apartments? Be aware that there are a lot of inaccurate listings. You can definitely get decent 2 beds for 180k a year, but it's possible that you can't get a 2 bed in the area you want for that much (and I'm not familiar enough with downtown to know). Allsopp and Allsopp provide information on what actual rental prices have been (ignore renewals as they will be artificially low because of rent control so only look at 'new' contracts). Check here: https://www.allsoppandallsopp.com/dubai/properties/property-data-hub/lettings/in-areas-community-downtown%20dubai--downtown%20dubai/2-bedrooms-or-more/2025-02-27-date-or-more

Only needing to top up 5k for school fees also seems unrealistic. Do you already have a school place at a school charging at that level? In terms of budgeting, be aware that some employers will expect you to pay and then claim back i.e. you need to have the funds to pay (my employer does and requires a receipt before they will reimburse, although DH's employer just needs the invoice and so you can get the money up front). How will you manage travel to work and school pick-up/drop off with only one car?

A killer can be activities for kids - this is an area which seems to be higher than London from what I can work out. What activities does your DD do? Similarly you haven't budgeted for clothing (including school uniform which will probably set you back the best part of 1.5k a year), the cost of your annual holiday (the flight is a tiny part of costs for this), anything for haircuts/beauty stuff (I don't spend much on this but I'm very unusual and still do the mumsnet haircut!), or anything for ongoing kids expenses like birthday parties etc. I know you have the 5k misc but that won't touch the sides unless you're budgeting a lot. A lot depends on how much you want the Dubai lifestyle that comes with a certain amount of keeping up appearances.

As I said, you won't be on the breadline by any means but I'd be shocked if you manage to save anything close to 25k a month. I am reading a fair amount into the idea that you want to spend 15k on food and restaurants though.

Have you looked at actual rentals? I think your rental estimate is low. We paid more than that for a 2 bed apt in the marina almost 10 years ago and costs there have sky rocketed.

@ytemussel @NoKidsSendDogs thank you kindly for your replies.

The 15k I put aside for groceries and eating out (Wagamama + Joe & Juice once a week.

Currently in London our grocery shopping, Amazon deliveries, 1 mid range restaurant a week, maybe a burger also etc, Boots stuff comes to 2.2k. It’s basically all our monthly costs.
Hence why I put aside £3k (15k AED) a month.

School fees - I have assumed 90K AED a year, so 60k from me, 30k from employer, hence the 5k AED a month.

i looked on Bayut for accommodation. Marina and JLT for a 2 bed is 160-200k, so I have gone with 180k a year (15k a month).

I was assuming car is 3k ( lease) and utilities 2k a month.

i also put 5k aside for miscellaneous, kids activities etc…

But worst case I would like to think 20k a month can be saved,

My bad on the school fees - getting annual and monthly mixed up.

Bayut is full of false listings. Be very careful.

How do you plan to manage on only one car? Will your DH be taking the metro to work? If so your budget for rent is too low - prices skyrocket within walking distance of a metro station (which is a much shorter distance than London because of the heat /lack of walkability).

I think partially it depends on what you mean by 'save' - I don't count short term savings eg if I'm putting money aside for a summer holiday, I think of that as expenses not savings. For us, (admittedly 4 kids) that works out as about 3k a month all in for a trip to the UK once you include car hire, accomodation, treating family etc.

But ultimately it's your call and you're not unusual in the assessment you're making - just don't be one of the crowd then complaining about how much more expensive it is than they thought!

I keep a very close track of expenses - I know how much things cost here. But you won't be on the breadline on the salary you're talking about.

I've been thinking on this more than I should 🤣

Let me give you an example - your car an utility costs:

I'll assume you actually need 3k to lease the car you want. That would probably get you a decent sedan. You can go lower, but I suspect after a week of doing the school run in Dubai traffic you'll be planning to upgrade to an SUV, and you don't seem to be looking to live a particularly frugal life.

On top of the car, let's say AED 750 a month for petrol, and 500 for Salike (tolls - based on there being one pretty much unavoidable Salik gate on the school run if you're planning on living in central Dubai - 4xAED 6 a day each school day for Salik), and AED 250 a money for a metro pass for your husband (although note my comment on rent if you leave walking distance to metro station). That's 4,500 not 3,000 for transport.

Utilities - AED 750 for municipality, AED 750 for two phone contacts (assuming you have the handsets) and internet (and those are basic packages - ours cost double that). Another 1,000 average for actual electricity and water. You may end up renting 'chiller free' which would bring those electricity bills down, but that will likely push the rent up. So that's 2,500 not 2,000.

Your car and utility costs will be 7,000 not 5,000.

That's only an example, but the same thing is persuasive throughout your budget.

Allowing 90k for school is a lot though. Is that you being cautious, or is it a particular school? The type of school that is 90k for primary comes with a whole host of other lifestyle costs that can be hard to resist. Of course no one makes you spend the same amount on presents for classmates birthdays, or on the birthday party for your own child, as others are, or on activities when your child's friends come round, or on the mum's night out, but it's not particularly fun feeling like the poor relation, and unless you are budgeting hard you will struggle to resist lifestyle creep.

@ytemussel haha….thank you again for your detailed replies.

First year (max), we will likely stay in DIFC (Sky Gardens), that way we only need 1 car, 5 mins walk to work for DH and rents seem in the region mentioned.

If everything is looking ok and we are happy and see life in Dubai much longer term, then we will look to buy a 2 bed apartment. Mortgage payments and service charge would be max 20k a month for a 10 year term.

Regarding school….i just had a browse around just to get an idea….most expensive I’ve seen is around the 100k mark, but obviously lower as well, so just put a conservative 90k.

There will likely be a bonus (4-6 weeks) so holiday money will come from that, however we have annual flights to UK on the employer and have a home there, plus no family there.

Car and Utilities, for Utilities I assumed reading threads that people said it would be 2k in the Summer months for an apartment, so possibly less in winter so averaged out at 2 to be conservative.

I will do some more calculations!

OP, gently, given that you talk about moving there for ‘quality of life’ reasons, have you ever spent any time in Dubai? It’s now quite a few years since I lived there (in the Marina), but we moved there from London, and the quality of life was exponentially higher in London.

Max 20k for mortgage payments and service charge, over a 10 year term, means max mortgage of about AED 1.6m. Doable if you can put 50% down (and prices don't increase much). Is that the plan?

2k for Utilities only if you mean electricity and water. What about phones and internet though? They're not in your budget and they're not small costs.

I think there is a lot not in your budget. I don't think you'll be struggling (at all) but I do think that you will find that you don't save much at all for the first couple of years at least.

That's ok, just go in with eyes open and don't spend like you easily have 25k to spare a month, or you'll get six months in and have credit card debt. It's a very common thing to happen.

Also you have to save in Dubai. There is no safety net - your DH can be called in tomorrow and be told he is out on 3/6 months notice (a week in probation), and you will likely need to repay education allowance and any housing advance. It may not happen to him, but it does happen, and more often than you might think.

@ytemussel I was working on 2m apartment, with 300k deposit, 1.7m mortgage will be 18k a month over 10 years. Again these are rough estimates on a 5% rate.

We are not extravagant spenders, so let's see. That's why I put 15k for monthly outgoings (excluding utilities, internet, petrol), just to be safe.

Also 5k on miscellaneous, for beach days or kids fun.

@TotalMaelstrom I agree, it's a big change. We travel there at least once a year for Winter Sun and have done so for the past 8 years.

I've lived in London for 40 years, but London is changing / has changed and honestly it's no longer what it was 10/15 years ago. We are fortunate to live in the NW3/NW8 bubble, safe and nice, but even so, it's no longer as safe as it was and cost of everything (school fees of 29k)...madness now.
Plus we don't any family here, where there we will be 1hr flight for them to visit us.

Yes - that is the only concern.....a big move with that kind of risk.

I suspect it's you saying it's for food and restaurants that threw me off! We spend about a third of that. I can see now you're more using it as an everything category.

It's a very good package and if you throw yourself into things you can have a good life in Dubai. Just be very careful of lifestyle creep. I know people who think they're not big spenders but then genuinely can't comprehend flying any airline than Emirates!

The aim is to maintain the same standard of living, but also save at the same time. Still debating it, but the numbers do work. Although I would need to come back for 6th form to at least have 2 years of Uni Home fees.

You have to come back for GCSEs to be sure. It's three years not two. But that's a long way off if your DD is year 3.

I believe you can switch status mid course, but as you say...it's a long way away.

It's very difficult to switch mid course and not recommended unless there are no other options (eg job loss). Some schools will accept but it will impact your child's grades.

Sorry - I meant switch from being an international student to a home student after the 1st Year at University.

Oh is that new? I havn’t checked for a while but I thought you couldn’t.