Dubai Forums Dubai Expat Forums Dubai Expat Help Forum

Hello in here, this is my first time on the forum and I need some guidance. My husband is a comouter engineer here in canada, and is thinking about finding a job and moving with our 2 sons 7 and 9 to Dubai...i have lots of questions and concerns....like the cost of living over there, and the schooling and activities for my children there...anyone have any advise....should i stay or should i go ????

is anyone going to answer me ???

let me give you some digits that I know of.
2 child in a primary school will cost you 2800dhm
And for a family of 4..you might need a 2rm flat atleast.
That will be about 60k-70k dhm.
Petrol and electric/water bill is dirt cheap.
Car is cheap..but then again I am from a country whereby car is reeeally expensive.
Grocery will cost u about 2000dhm a month...if u cook alot..

thanks a lot for the info. Any feedback is greatly appreciated right now. I am more worried about the basic stuff right now....getting there, finding a place to live, getting the kids in school, and what there is to do once we are there! see, we are used to a big house, big yard and a pool in the yard....its a big adjustment going into a 2 room flat, but if there is really lots to do over there, we would never be in the flat anyways!!!

thanks again

well..I am about to arrive there.
I hope you do well too.
God bless.

WE KILL INFIDELS!!!




joke





only Americans

well glory, I guess I have nothing to worry about then! cause i am candian not american! do you kill our kind too??

so tell me, how long have you been there? If we had no children, i wouldnt even think about it twice, my bags would be packed.....but its the kids I am worried about. would you have still moved there having 2 young boys ?

Canadians rock!

I myself don't have any kids, seeing as i'm only 18, but if i did i wouldn't bring em here. i wouldnt deny them a normal childhood.

OK....now you have me worried!!! what do you mean by a NORMAL childhood?? what is so diffrent in this place that would make their life different from being in Canada ?? OK granted, the weather is a little bit different....the culture is also very different....but I thought that it was a great place to work and bring up kids! we are planning on being there for 2 to 3 years MAX....according to my husband, we are to move there for 2 to 3 years to make money and then come back to Canada.....how realistic is that? or is he just trying to blindside me into getting out of this artic country as he calls it!!

Well Fattymelon.....THANK-YOU

Its just that its a very scary thing to sell my house, pack up the kids and all and move half way around the world blindly! my husband of course talks great things about Dubai...but then again, he is the one that wants to go!! he says its a great way to make a load of cash and come back here in 2 or 3 years...so the kids can go to highscool and college over here...and we can have more cash to live a better life...he is an engineer and thinks he can land a great job there....make some x-tra cash, enjoy the beauty of the country and then come back home....now, how realistic is all this or is it just a mid-life crisis????

Fatty melon lies!!!
in fact, he hates this place so much he fleed to another country!
Dubai aint to bad, i just wouldn't bring my kids here, then again i'll probably never have kids cause i've been sack whacked so many times.
Dubai is highly over-rated, good but not as good as everyone preaches

Its ok for kids . The Arabs love children and so they are building this city with children in mind. All the living area has beautiful gardens and swiming pools. Weekends are longer here so u get to spend more time with your family.

IT SUCKS
see, we dont even have week ends now!

I agree with the one of the previous mails. Visit the place first! Don't just uproot yourself and your family without investigating the situation properly. I know to many people who have been lured out here only to end up without a job, not earning what they were told they would be, not the perks they expected.... etc. Although having said that there are countless situations of the oposite as well.

The computer industry here is very oversubscribed by cheaper Asian labour, not that there is anything wrong with that, they are just prepared to work harder for less money.

If anyone tells you living and working in Dubai is a walk in the park they need their head read!

Does your husband have a job offer or not? if he doesn't he is not allowed to work on a visit visa, you may not open a bank account, neither may you rent a property leagaly without it!

If he does have a job offer is the company reputable? are they registered? have a lawyer go over a copy of the contract (prefrably a local UAE lawyer) - in the UAE the Arabic version is the legal version, the English one is not worth the paper it is written on!

I agree with the one of the previous mails. Visit the place first! Don't just uproot yourself and your family without investigating the situation properly. I know to many people who have been lured out here only to end up without a job, not earning what they were told they would be, not the perks they expected.... etc. Although having said that there are countless situations of the oposite as well.

The computer industry here is very oversubscribed by cheaper Asian labour, not that there is anything wrong with that, they are just prepared to work harder for less money.

If anyone tells you living and working in Dubai is a walk in the park they need their head read!

Does your husband have a job offer or not? if he doesn't he is not allowed to work on a visit visa, you may not open a bank account, neither may you rent a property leagaly without it! If he does undertake any work whilst on a visit visa he has no legal status and no recorse if his employer does not pay him, he is likily to be fined and deported!

If he does have a job offer is the company reputable? are they registered? have a lawyer go over a copy of the contract (prefrably a local UAE lawyer) - in the UAE the Arabic version is the legal version, the English one is not worth the paper it is written on!

WOW!!! thanks all for the help. First off, my husband has already been sent there for a contract from his canadian job here....so he knows the place. also, one of his co-workers has left canada and taken a job with Emrites Airline...so he has first hand experience too.. now the plan is to go ONLY once he has a job offer and it has to be worth it. as an engineer, he makes decent money over here, so I imagine the pay would be even better over there. I also have heard of the PERKS that are included with the offer....portion of the rent, portion of the shcooling and the travel tickets to come home once or twice a year.

I think, first step is to get an offer and like you suggest, get the contract read over by a lawer. there are some arabic speaking ones here in canada, and we can get all the fine print read here BEFORE accepting. my only concern was is it really worth all that people have told my husband it is..like is there really money to be made in a deal like this!

thanks....you are all helping make my decision a little easier....all except for YOU KNOW WHO !!! Mr negative over there!! but its OK...he is only 18...i think i can excuse the immaturity in his comments. he is just out to have fun in life..not yet serious!!

The PERK aspect is a whole different ball game. In the days of yore the only way companies could attract employees was with the lure of big salaries and perks. It is very competative over here at the moment, many companies have reduced or even removed thier perks that they pay to employees. In most instances they will pay a subsidy, it is then up to the employee on how they want to spend it, which is obviously dictated by thier lifestyle and reason for comming to Dubai. If you want to come and save money you need to be prepared to sacrifice! Emirates are very good with regard to the perks they pay their staff as they are quasi-government.

You will find that once you are here there are litraly hundreds of ways they try to keep the money in the country and reduce the amount of earnings that are repatriated. As there is no tax you pay for every single little service that you would normally take for granted. You apply for a visa, they charge you for the typing, for the translation into arabic, for the processing, for the stamp in the passport etc....

The other big drain is SHOPPING, they make it so damn attractive and tempting to spend your money. During the summer months you litrally cannot spend much time outdoors, so many people simply head off to the malls or find indoor activities to occupy yourself and children - which comes at a cost.

Have a look at the following site : http://www.expatriates.com/classifieds/dub/

Have a look under the property section, this will give you a good indication of rentals you can expect to pay; although if you don't know the areas and locations it may prove a little difficult. There is now also a "private ownership" option in Dubai. According to Federal regulations expatriates may not own property in the UAE, to get around this legality they lease it to you for a period of 99 years. This is also a fairly good investment as the property can be sold when you decied to leave and you at least get to make something off of it. Paying rent

Schooling is also very expensive here and they put the price up on a very regular basis - basically milking it as much as possible!

OK....now you are talking more like i am thinking!!! i was afraid that it was all too good to be true! i told my husband i had a feeling that the perks he was talking about was all in the past to get people interested in going to Dubai to get things started....i was sure that the perks and all were a thing of the past since now EVERYONE wants to go there...they dont really have to wave the carrot infront of us to go there...they have people now fighting for jobs instead of having to give them incentives to go there.....well, i guess we will just have to wait and see what the perks attached to offer are all about. That is really the only way we can make a decision. he thinks that engineers are still offer a %of rent, a % of schooling and a %of every thing else on top of the great taxe free salary.

thanks a lot for your help. i am going to check out that site you linked to me.!!!

ps: if it applies, happy easter!!

Okay, only one or two comments. Like I said, there are still some companies that offer decent perks! So don't be too dis-illusioned. Wait for the offer to come back and then evaluate it.

Engineer.... when I hear the word I want to scream. I would assume that he is a mechanical, electrical, structural, chemical ... etc engineer?

Unfortunately any qualification that you have makes you and "engineer" in the Middle East! My assumption is that there is no proper translation for some qualifications so everything ends up as "Engineer", so you get traffic engineers, irrigation engineers, computer engineers .... etc... etc... etc.... The sad thing about this is that most of these are simply courses or at best 2 year courses..... so the title "Engineer" doesn't carry with it the same weight and authority as it does in the States of Canada for instance.

you can have a look at some of the schools ....

www.jpsdubai.com
www.jinschools.com
www.isbi.com/istd-viewschool/ 4328-Jumeirah_English_Speaking_School.html

Although if you type in Dubai and Schools - Google, you are bound to find a lot more. One comment on schools aside from the fees is to look at the curriculum they offer (American or British) and when the school year starts - in the UAE it starts in September. I know of lots of cases where kids transfering have to either drop a year or pick up a year...

Thanks for the Easter Wishes, hope you and your family had the same. Yes, although the region is predominantly Muslim they are relativley tolerant in Dubai and the are a number of churches. We even have Christmas Trees in December !!!

Check the Canadian Tax laws. I know the Australians have to still pay tax for a period of 3 years after arriving here and I think the Americans still have to pay "County Tax"???? or something like that...

once again,,,thank you for all the advice ! you have been most helpful!! as for the Engineer term....unfortunately its a computer/electrical engineering degree that here takes 4 years of university studies! so hopefully it will count for somthing!!!

Canadian tax laws = you leave canada and become a non-resident, you no longer need to pay tax... but you lose on dumb little things like the joke of a system called "free universal health care". Well boo hoo, la di da... whatever...