Curtailing living expenses in UAE | MoneyCamel:
UAE is a unique country that attracts thousands of expats every year. It offers the best of everything whether it is Cars, Housing, Schools, Food, Infrastructure, Entertainment or Airlines. While living costs remain high in UAE, you can save on all the major expense heads by spending smartly. MoneyCamel.com brings you a few tips to save money on the 5 biggest living expenses in UAE:
1. Housing- Rent or Mortgage is probably the biggest expense for all expats in UAE.
Saving Tips for Tenants:
Compare prices and find cheaper houses for rent. With property websites such as moneycamel.com, you can access more than 60,000 properties for rent in one click.
Check if Maintenance Cost is included in the rent. Good houses that come with a maintenance contract can help you save much.
Be in control of Rent Increase-You can see the maximum increase allowed on your property with the RERA Rent Calculator.
Save commission Cost- Contact the Developer or owner of the house directly to avoid paying commission to an agent.
Saving Tips for current or prospective Home Owners:
Compare prices and find cheaper houses for Sale.
Compare Mortgage Costs and find the best deal from Banks. On a good mortgage deal, you can save potentially up to AED 50,000 on interest cost, processing fee & repayment fee.
2. Finance:
Save on Credit Bills and interest on Loans. Check the interest rates on your home loans, car loans and personal loans every year to compare them with current rates in the market. With 0 Balance Transfer offer, you can save a lot by simply switching your loans and Cards to another bank.
Consolidate Debt. Reduce your interest cost payments by 60% by simply moving from high interest products such as credit cards to low interest rate products such as Home Loans and Personal Loans.
3. Transport:
Save on Car cost by buying a Car in Ramadan Promotions. Ramadan is a time for Car promotions in UAE- when Car dealers and manufacturers offer discounts or value added benefits that can easily save you up to AED10,000.
Consider buying an almost new car to get up to 20% off on the price tag. Used cars that have done 4000-8000 Kms are almost new and can save you a great deal of money.
4. Schools: Get a 4% discount on the fee when you pay it annually. When you use a credit card to pay the entire year’s fee, you can pay it back to the Bank in monthly installments at 0% interest. You also also get reward points on the Credit Card that can be worth 5% of the total fee. Apart from tuition fee, the bus fee is also quite high. A common way to save on bus fee is car pool.
5. Grocery: Save up to 10% of your Grocery expenses with Loyalty Cards affiliated with Supermarkets such as Union Co-op and Carrefour and Spinneys. Double your savings with Cashback on grocery bills with specific credit cards such as Standard Chartered Titanium Credit Card or ADCB Lulu Credit Card.
6. Travel: Save Flight Costs, Insurance costs and get discounts on hotels. Don’t just take the first holiday package you see, compare flight prices online to find the best deal on flights. Popular airlines like Emirates, Etihad, BA and Qatar Airways often have Sales- Buy air tickets whenever there is a sale on. Save on hotel prices when you book online with websites like lastminute.com and booking.com Use Travel Related Credit Cards to get multiple travel related benefits such as Free travel insurance, access to airport lounges, free marhaba & (up to) 10% cash back on International expenses. You can compare Travel Related Cards and Loans online.
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