The Cost of Living in Doha, Qatar

Qatar is a peninsula bordering the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia.  Arabic is the national language and English is spoken by most locals and expatriates.

Doha is Qatar's largest city, with over 80% of the nation's population residing here or its surrounding suburbs, and is also the economic center of the country.

The overall cost of living rank in Doha is 84 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations for expatriates to live. 

In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Doha is ranked as a some hardship location with a hardship index of 20%.

According to the recent Consumer Price Index released by the Qatar Statistics Authority, the cost of everything but rent in Qatar has gone up. Compared to the cost of things like clothes, food and transportation in May 2010, prices have gone up between 0.4 to 7.8 percent, QSA reports:

“The highest increase was in the Clothing and Footwear group, where prices went up by 7.8%, followed by Transport and Communications by 5.2%, , Miscellaneous Goods and Services, by 4.8%, Food & Beverages group, by 4.5%. Prices in the group of Rent declined by (3.8%).”

CPI has also been calculated excluding the group of rent. After eliminating the effect of rent, the overall index shows a 1 month increase of 0.4% in May 2011 compared to April 2011, and an increase of 4.1 % for the full year compared to the month of May 2010, as published in Doha News.

Added to this, all citizens employed by the Government will be receiving up to a 60% increase in their salaries, which will likely snowball the already increasing prices. As an expatriate this is not good news, if salaries do not increase on the expatriate front as well.  Increasing prices will decrease expatriate purchasing power and result in expats unable to send money home, save or sustain a decent standard of living.

To get a full evaluation of your cost of living status go to xpatulator.com

Xpatulator.com provides cost of living comparison calculators by city. Choose salary, cost of living allowance, or cost of living index report for international comparison of global locations across the world.

Cost of living and hardship (quality of life) data is updated quarterly. Current data is as at 1 July 2011 based on data collected during the second quarter of 2011. Exchange rates are updated daily. The latest free cost of living rankings as well as free cost of living reviews are available for all 300 global locations and all 13 cost of living baskets.

Cost of living index (percentage) and hardship (quality of life) index information for 13 different cost of living baskets in 300 international locations are delivered via 3 premium content self service comparison calculators (Report Wizards) that generate personalised reports online:

Salary Purchasing Power Parity Calculator

Cost of Living Allowance Calculator

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Denise is an Expat, Mom, Wife, writer and Marketing Manager at  http://www.xpatulator.com/ a website that provides cost of living index information and calculates what you need to earn in a different location to compensate for cost of living, hardship, and exchange rate differences. The complete cost of living rank for all 300 locations for all 13 baskets is available here.

A festival feast for you....from Italy with love

 A couple of years ago when I was still one of those nameless employees in a big corporate, a colleague of mine made a decision to take a sabbatical. He had just turned 30 (not sure what 40 was going to be like for him) and was having a mid life crisis, a marriage crisis and a career crisis.  In his search for something better, a break from the mundane of life he sort out Italy as a retreat and with that a festival to entice him to just the right little Italian Village.  If I remember correctly, it was the Palio of Siena, it has an exciting horse race which is run in Siena's fan-shaped main square, Piazza del Campo or Il Campo.  It is one of the most popular and well-known historic festivals in Italy.  It was a festival to be cherished, it brought him out of his crisis, and it was a story to be retold for years to come.

As an expat you have the most incredible opportunity to base your holidays around these wonderful festivals around the world. You too could be my colleague, but every summer while you are away could be his Italy.

Here are some more Festivals to turn green over in Italy:

• Carnevale - Carnival Festivals - The best one to experience is in Venice (March 8 but many cities start in February, Venice being one of them)
• Palio of Sien Festival - Piazza del Campo - Where: Sien (July 2)

• L'Ardia di San Costantino - Ancient Horse Race - Where: Sedilo, Sardinia (July 5 - 7)
• Festa Della Madonna Bruna - Procession and Fireworks - Where: Matera (July 2)
• La Quintana: Medieval Parade -  Where: Ascoli Piceno (First Sunday in August)

• Summer Music Festivals 

     - Verona Opera, Arena di Verona (Mid June to September)

     - Puccini Fetival in Tuscany at Torre del Lago Puccini (July and August)

     - Stresa Festival, Lake Maggiore (year round)

     - Opera Theater of Rome, Baths of Caracalla (year round)

     - Umbria Jazz Festival, Perugia (24 June - 10 July)

     - Ravello Concert Society, Amalfi Coast (year round)

     - Sferisterio Opera Festival, Macerata (late July to early August)

     - Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro (August)

• Regatta of the Ancient Maritime Republics - Venice (June 2)
• San Biagio Festival - Southern Italy's Saints Day Festival - Archery Contest amongst the neighborhoods of Fivizzano in the Lunigiana of Northern Tuscany (July)

These are just some of the top Festivals that Italy offers, as an expat it is worth looking at experiencing not only the wonderful travel experiences that are on offer, but also the wonderful cultural festivals.

What festivals have you been to and which ones do you consider the best?


Denise is an Expat, Mom, Wife and Marketing Manager at  http://www.xpatulator.com/ a website that provides cost of living index information and calculates what you need to earn in a different location to compensate for cost of living, hardship, and exchange rate differences. The complete cost of living rank for all 300 locations for all 13 baskets is available here.

Generation What? The Baby Boomers .....

Having spoken about the Traditionalist Generation, we now move on to the Baby boomers and how they left and are leaving their mark in our lives.

Baby boomers 

Born: Between 1946 and 1964

Age: Between 47 to 65

Education: Seen as a birthright

Influencers: Civil Rights, Space Travel, the Vietnam War, the Sexual Revolution, and the Cold War/Russia.

Family:  Came from privileged backgrounds, due to their parents’ hard work and savings.  Long work hours and living to work resulted in an imbalance and the family unit disintegration with the highest divorce rate and 2nd marriages in history. 

Values:  Value success but also think of themselves as a special generation, due to their radical views and democratic outlook. They have a broad continuity of values with older and younger generations and have a tendency to define the world in terms of the generations. The Baby boomers are post War Babies who grew up to be the radicals of the 70’s and yuppies of the 80’s. 

Money: As a group in general, they are the healthiest, most educated and wealthiest generation of that time and grew up with an optimistic outlook for life, their futures and the world as a whole.

They strived for the American Dream, they are well established in their careers and hold positions of power and authority, and as a result they are seen as being greedy, materialistic and ambitious.

Motivation:  The strongest motivator for this group is being valued, prestige, perks and their need for money, they define themselves by their professional accomplishments.

Work: Baby boomers live to work, they are loyal to their careers and employer. They have a strong work ethic, are multi-taskers and traditionally found their worth in working long hours (they established the 60 hour work week). Working hard gave them the self-worth and fulfillment they required.

They established “flat” organizational structures, democracy, equal opportunity, and creating a more humane, warm and friendly workplace.

They were rebellious against convention and tradition due to their conservative parents , however they were also independent, confident and self-reliant with a competitive edge and goal orientation.

This hard work ethic led to this group being hesitant to take too much time off work for fear of losing their place in the corporate environment.

Now, the Baby boomers  strive for a work life balance with a leaning towards a healthy lifestyle and strong family bonds.  

Baby boomers defined a new form of working – living to work, they were / are scared that not working hard will result in failure, being successful is all important.  As expats, they may be a bit set in their ways and struggle to find their feet within structured work units.  They do however, have the knowledge required to complete tasks and will be of great benefit to the organization as a whole when dispatching experience and information into the workplace.  Although they are aiming for better work / life balance at this stage at life they are still achievers and are still looking at climbing the corporate ladder given the opportunity.

And more from history

1950 - Korean War

1954 - McCarthy HCUAA hearings begin

1955 - Salk Vaccine tested on the public

1955 - Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, AL

1957 - First nuclear power plant

1957 - Congress passes the Civil Rights Act

1960 - Birth control pills introduced

1960 - Kennedy elected

1961 - Kennedy establishes Peace Corps

1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis

1962 - John Glenn circles the earth

1963 - Martin Luther King leads march on Washington,DC

1963 - President John Kennedy assassinated

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How Expats Can Save Money

Expats settling abroad simply move on for good. Whether they have to deposit finance, health or sacrifices but it takes a lot of trials and troubles to establish a stable life overseas.
And to make things better you may want to know how expats can save money when living away. These tips will teach you to save, earn and spend for your enjoyments and also have enough during times of trouble.

Save Money On Belongings

If you are interested in buying a piece of land in the overseas country then you must take time to learn the quality and price of the same.  Spend enough time with the people and places to get the right feedback.  Keep an eye on the auction process, bargains, local developments and changes before you make your decision.
If you have to pay towards your mortgage costs, a good idea is to rent your property in the UK.  You can request your mortgage company for a mortgage holiday if you’re still concerned about meeting your mortgage obligations while you make the transition. Some companies will allow you a complete break; others will allow you to make interest only payments. 
If you plan to rent property abroad make sure you negotiate and fix a rate suitable to your budget.  Also, if you’re prepared to sign a long-term contract, you may be allowed to pay cheaper monthly rent.  Prove how good a tenant you are, cooperate and adjust to all the communal rules.

Paying off Bills

With so many free services introduced in the market, international calling is possible from any country at a minimal price. So don’t worry about paying off the long term bills. You can keep in touch with friends and family through companies offering free international calls, thus providing you good returns. You can even use online texting or set up a webcam to see who you’re communicating with.
Nowadays you have so much free television over the internet with the likes of the BBC and ITV having iPlayers where you can catch up with all your old favorites. So you don’t pay out for an expensive overseas television package.

Tax Savings

As an expat it is the right time to save tax on your savings and investments. Your personal situations will limit your options. But you can spend your time speaking to an expatriate financial adviser to learn how to structure your financial affairs to make them 100% taxation efficient.

You have to have a positive attitude as an Expat

Your attitude as the adult and parent is going to greatly influence how your children settle in the country and accept the move.
We can decide whether to be positive or negative about becoming expats. The more positive parent results in a well adjusted child who looks at the glass half, finds the positive in every situation and tries to adjust as much as you do.

The positives, in themselves, of living in a new and different environment so outweigh the negatives. We can start with that fantastical dream of living abroad (the “Out of Africa” experience or exotic India thoughts), this is an adventure for you and them and it needs to be embraced as such.
Perhaps it is the benefit of a better environment, climate, economic situation, better job opportunities and prospects, a better political situation, safer country iow less violence, the reason you have left your country of origin is your positive and this positive must be lived every day by the family.
What you and your family are achieving can be what your peers back home can only dream of ever achieving one day. Your attitude back then, when you were deciding to take this adventure, was one of hope and opportunity, of adventure and new beginnings and this is how this dream needs to be lived.

Trudie says : We saw this move as a wonderful opportunity to expose our children to the world and maybe broaden their horizons.
I was 36 weeks pregnant when we arrived and I was stressed beyond mention. Adjusting to this part of the world was the hardest for me. I gave up a whole support system at home to have a baby in a strange country and had to cope on my own- with just Craig by my side. For Matthew (8) coming to this part of the world is associated with so many wonderful things-he got to be with dad again (as Dad was always away when we lived at home). He finally got a sibling that we had been praying so hard for. And he got to go to a new school, make new friends and take up a combat sport-For Matthew life was grand.
Shirley says: I hated where we moved to with a passion. It was cold, wet, windy, the people were not as friendly as I thought they would be and it was a really hard and lonely time for at least a year. My first six months I told my husband that I could not handle this place and wanted to go home, but the thought of the crime back home and the safety of my children was more important for me and that was an absolute put off. I really wanted my children to be able to come and go as they wanted and not always worry about whether they would be safe, or if I had to drive them somewhere, would I get hi-jacked. It took me long time to stop hugging my handbag to my chest, to stop looking over my shoulder to see if I was been followed or whether someone was going to snatch my bag, to stop locking all my car doors and putting my handbag under my seat. That became a plus in my book and I had to really work hard to change my attitude and that is what I did.

I still miss my family and my friends, but I have made new friends here and it helps a lot. I don’t worry about locking my car door anymore or worrying about whether my bag is going to be snatched etc, it makes life more simple and therefore I just carry on with life and hope and pray for the best. My children are happy and that is what counts.

Each of these parents has had a positive attitude towards their circumstances, even if it did not start off as positive eventually expat parents realize that only their positive experiences can result in their children having a positive attitude too.

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Expat article

Thanks so much to everyone who has help to contribute towards the Expat article I am working on. Watch out for the article to be posted soon!

Expensive or not

Paris, France is 24th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 98.61 (NY=100)

Oslo in Norway is 25th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 98.37 (NY=100)

Milan in Italy is 26th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 98.2 (NY=100)

San Marino is 27th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 97.97 (NY=100)

San Francisco is 28th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 97.79 (NY=100)

Monaco is 29th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 97.43 (NY=100)

Vienna, Austria is 30th most expensive for expatriates out of 276 global cities. Overall COL index 97.21 (NY=100)

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