Cost of life in Muscat?

Now I know that this topic is probably going to attract a few people to this blog and sorry to those who are actually not going to get a straight answer to their question. This post is inspired by a recent post published in Italian by a friend who rightly confirms that the answer to the question at the top is all relative.

I know too well how badly one wants to know the cost of life in a city where he/she may potentially move to. If someone makes you a job offer how are you going to know how far the monthly dosh is going to take you? And more importantly, are you going to be able to save?

These are the same questions that we had before moving over here and despite the large amount of blogs  available in the cloud and the discussion forums on this topic it is in fact all a little bit confusing.

 The kind of answers that you may get to the above question in fact could be an immediate "expensive" or a more frequent "it depends". I tag along with the "it depends" with the needle leaning heavily towards the "expensive" because, no shame in admitting it, that's the kinda life we are leading here. 

In her blog my friend posts a table of expenses summarised by someone who obviously leads a (waaaay) more frugal life than us and our circle of friends considering that tonight's dinner event alone will blow and over the entire monthly leisure budget suggested for a couple. 

The thing is that local stuff and local food can be incredibly cheap but set your eyes on any of the imported western standard commodities we so take for granted (things as simple as toilet paper, cakes or even greens.. nothing too extravagant hey) and you may end up blind from the shock.

I am sure that every expat or anyone not paying too much attention sooner or later will have gone to the till and either realised too late that they paid over the odds for something as humble as a familiar looking bottle of water (not me I only buy local) or decided to leave at the till (I did) the packet of "washed and ready to eat" spinach when they realised that it was priced at the equivalent of 10 Euros (washed in gold?).

Yes it is not a joke (though this is often the subject of hilarious conversations with friends). Since the day I once discovered (horrified) that the price of a 9-roll packet of a popular European toilet paper brand is almost the equivalent of 12 Euros (if I had ever bought it by mistake I would have probably framed it like precious archaeological grade papyrus after discovering that it doesn't even come with the dog!) every now and then I take photos of the extravagantly priced items that I come across when shopping (because I am sure nobody would believe me if I just told).

So considering that the local currency (Rial) which by the way is expressed in 3 digit decimal point, is roughly the equivalent of 1.95 EUR or a weaker 1.74 GBP see what you make of the items in these photos. 

Now for some of these things there may be cheaper workable alternatives but sometimes if you really want a treat of 6 rashers of bacon for breakfast you may have to bite the bullet and pay the price of gold for it.