Cost of living in Riyadh

Hi Science! I have created a new thread from your post.

Good luck
Christine

Science wrote:

Hello Sir,

I have a few questions about living in Riyadh.

1. When moving into KAS from another country, are both the employee and his spouse allowed to enter the country at the same time or is it that only the employee comes first and then the spouse?

2. Does the employee keep your passport? What is they dont give it back to you? ANd haraass you etc? How are you going to deal with this?

3. Is there also Indian compund in riyadh, where Indians live? What would be the rent for 2-bed room apartment - furnished?

4. Is there a good interaction / social interaction among indians?

5. Do they normally pay in SAR or in USD?


I will very much appreciate your response.
Cheers

jaynoah wrote:

Hi, I was advised that one could live comfortably on SR3,000 per month.  So a good salary should be around SR7,000 - in this way you can live well and save too!

Hi Science, hope this helps:

Answer No. 1) When moving to KAS KSA from another country, both the employee and spouse are not allowed to enter at the same time. The employee is supposed to come first and get the ID card and then he can apply for the spouse' visa.

Answer No. 2) Usually the employee does keep the passports. God forbid, if they harass you, nothing can be done here.

Answer No. 3) I heard there are Indian Compounds but someone else might be in a better position to answer to that. Regarding the rent, it varies from the place to place. At a good location (not a compound) the rent might be around 30k.

Answer No. 4) Actually I dont see much of interactions here, but am sure I too am missing on that.

Answer No. 5) All the transactions here in KSA are doine in SAR; hence the pay too.

Hope its kinda clear now... let the discussions start on this...
and ya... gone are the days that a family can survive on 3000 SAR!

and science, the information you have is very very old. I am in talking in regards to the PM you sent. Now we dont need any kinda letter to go anywhere. It used to happen a long time back.

yes u need exit and re-entry visa if going on vacation can be obtained in 10 minutes flat!

I think cost of living has a lot of angles and a lot of subjectivity in it. If a family is getting accomodation, and transportation from the company and just need to arrange only food and other misclaneous expecnses from their pocket, I guess 3000 to 4000 SAR is more than sufficient. If the family has kids, the education here is expensive, so I would suggest add some more to it.

The easier approach I would suggest, which I followed one month back when I was coming here is to note down all the items and the expenses and make a total of it and then arrive at the conclusion.

Science, you really need to do some more research on this.  There is so much information (current and up-to-date) information on this site alone, that's without all the other websites that presently hold the answers to all your questions.  I am just alerting this to you because you will not be able to avert conducting your own research and forming your own opinion.  This site is best used for gaining an opinion if you had done your homework, you could then 'bounce' a few things around.  I am not speaking for Expat-Blog, nor am I speaking for the other bloggers, I am just saying when you get the same questions so often it get's tiring.

Good luck in your search and your decisions.

I have been in science's shoes a month back and the kind of mindset people would be in when they start thinking to come here, I would give her a benefit of doubt that she had complete understanding of how the situation would be here in RIYAD,

Science,
To eloberate on wtever I said in my previous blog above, want to assist you in ur research. Note down the things like the below and start adding some rough costs and then u will arrive at some rough costs and assist in ur decision making process.

ACCOMODATION - Is company paying or u will have to pay. If u have to pay,  a family accomodation in a nice non-compund, could cost you roughly about 20K SAR to 30K Riyal depends on where u want to be in, you could calucuate about 2000 to 3000 SAR per month per accomodation. there r cheaper and costly ways , but depends on the life style.

FOOD - again subjectivity , average food per a person could cost you between 10 to 20 RIYALs per day. There r people who are surviving with 5 Riyals per day, Depends on the life style. would put about 1000 RIYALs per a family of 2 assuming an average life style.

Transportation - Are you paying from your pocket or company pays?. If company is not paying, depedns on your house and ur husband's company location, depends on the type of transportation one choose, they are situations where people take shared taxis and survive with 2RIYAL per trip and if you r not lucky, u may need to pay 20 RIYALs per trip. another subjectivity. so I would put arround 1000 RIYALs per transportation.

Misclaneous costs - I would put arround 1000 RIYALs per month

as u see, based on the life style, whether company pays or dont pay certain things, u may put arround 4500 to 5000 RIYALs per month for a simple average life and adjust this figure here and there based on what u get and dont get from the company.

Hope I did my level best to assist you in your research that helps in ur decision making process
Best of luck

lets think about future... if science have kids, then wat? will he be able to survive in that? and on that wont he think of eating out atleast a month? wont he buy anything for himself or his wife?

Science, you need to save everybody time and trouble by telling us what salary and benefits you've been offered.

I see three possible scenarios:

1. If you've been offered, let's say, 8,000SAR a month and think you can live on 3,000SAR (and the company supplies housing and utilities), yes, you'll be able to.


2. If you've been offered 8,000SAR a month and think you can live on 3,000SAR (and it doesn't include housing and utilities), no, you won't be able to  live on 3,000 but at least you'll have the extra money you'll need to supplement it.

3. If, however, you've been offered 4,000SAR and think you can live on 3,000SAR (again, if it doesn't including housing and utilities), you'll be in the proverbial cardboard box under the bridge!

Now that would make the puddy tat a great primary school math teacher, i bet?

hey, I've taught math before, up to and including basic algebra and geometry (enough to pass the American GED test!).

Allie well done