Re: Has Dubai/Mideast fever gripped your family or desi social circle yet?
well we bought before we left- assuming we'd move back and right now it's rented out. THe move her is allowing us to save some but not THAT much relative to what we were saving in the US.....
We also have the cheapest car amongst our friends in Dubai, live in similiar accomidations and aren't crazy spenders on designer duds .....but that's how we are in the US too.
I find alot of expats think they are owed a nicer lifestyle than they would have had back in the states....b/c they are expats and overspend/reach...which may be part of the problem.
As for the taxation- i know peoplel who try various tricks to get out of it- the best is an american whose non-american wife gets a paycheck from his company...he declares his income as what he actually gets to his name not including his wifes bit.
so he is goign with the married filign separately approach which is technically fine, only issue for him is going to be when his wife and he move to US and she has issues with social security benefits.
i agree overspending by expats contributes to the problem.
you guys did it the smart way by renting your US house out because as you say you are saving more than u were in US but not significantly more. Imagine if you were saving 30% more and then came back and saw thatthe propert values have gone up more.
Moving abroad is also a challenge for two career families, while some companies try to offer the expats spouse a role too, sometimes even hooking them up with other companies its still a challenge.
the last issue is coming back, depending on how long one has been abroad, finding a new job has its own set of challenges, although none that are unsurmountable, coming back into the same company can have its own issues, from not being part of the 'network' to finding teh disparity between teh expat lifestyle and local lifestyle.
but then there are benefits of being in demand due to having expereince of another culture, and with internationalization that can be a skillset and experience that not everyone can boast.
as they say good and bad aspects to everything.