I happened upon an interesting site today, Xpatulator.com. I was intrigued about their views on the UAE, and thought I'd do some comparisons to home. This landed me in Microsoft Excel, which happens a lot in my life. I think in spreadsheets...I can't help it.
So the way this works...each category is rated from 1, being the most expensive, to 300, being the cheapest. There are 300 countries in the study, with Tokyo, Japan being the number 1 most expensive overall, and Sanaa, Yemen being the cheapest. (Of note: they do not cite resources!)
Overall, Abu Dhabi ranked 27 and Atlanta ranked 225. New York City ranked 33.
Then, they ranked spending areas in each city. Remember 1=most expensive and 300=least expensive, so Abu Dhabi's clothing cost is really expensive!
So then I made a graph, because who doesn't love a graph? You can see that the two cities meet in the middle for Communication and Transportation, and that Atlanta's household prices are super inexpensive compared to the rest of the world!
I feel the need to comment on some of these...
So the way this works...each category is rated from 1, being the most expensive, to 300, being the cheapest. There are 300 countries in the study, with Tokyo, Japan being the number 1 most expensive overall, and Sanaa, Yemen being the cheapest. (Of note: they do not cite resources!)
Overall, Abu Dhabi ranked 27 and Atlanta ranked 225. New York City ranked 33.
Then, they ranked spending areas in each city. Remember 1=most expensive and 300=least expensive, so Abu Dhabi's clothing cost is really expensive!
So then I made a graph, because who doesn't love a graph? You can see that the two cities meet in the middle for Communication and Transportation, and that Atlanta's household prices are super inexpensive compared to the rest of the world!
I feel the need to comment on some of these...If you divided up Alcohol and Tobacco into two categories, you'd see that Abu Dhabi's Alcohol number would fall drastically and their Tobacco level would rise.
As far as Clothing...it's hard to score well when you fill all of your malls with BCBG, Burberry, Dolce & Gabanna, Emporio Armani, Gucci, Juicy Couture...and the likes.
In terms of Education, they must be referring to free public schools reserved for Emiratis. To give you an idea, the nurseries I've seen here cost 8,000-12,000dhs (about $2K-$3K) for a 3-4 month term. A common education allowance for employees seems to be 25,000-40,000dhs ($6K-$10K) per year starting at age 3. I think nursery is way above what I know in Atlanta, but the private school seems pretty close to average at home.
Household seems accurate to me - with Abu Dhabi being REALLY expensive and Atlanta being really cheap. This includes rent/mortgage, real estate taxes, and utilities.
The Restaurant/Hotel speaks for itself...this isn't a cheap vacation spot!
Well, that's the end of our lesson today. Hope you enjoyed my nerdy presentation :)
Wow! what a drastic change. I am headed to Tokyo in the fall. My friend has already talked about how expensive it is and lack of craft supplies too
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