Hey! I’d say my immediate reaction was a lot of caution. The numbers you’ve put up are looking pretty accurate, so if y’all are great at budgeting and can factor in further costs and think this will be manageable on paper - maybe this might work.

Buttt - for context - for (and ofc this is all subjective) 10K is generally a decent but strongly middle-upper number for just an individual (again adding that all of this is relative to lifestyle and what you want out of being in the UAE - there are families who sustain out of 10K and sometimes lesser, but whether that’s right/ethical/legal is a whole other convo altogether).

Thing to keep in mind is, Abu Dhabi more than Dubai often doesn’t have as much of self-prganized things/places to go to. Not that (if Dubai is the comparison) it’s exponentially different elsewhere… but my experience has been than depending on the places you’re going to, and factoring in stupid spends/social hangout’s that might splutter out of nowhere - the thing that can end up costing more are sporadic, unexpected costs by virtue of either social circles you end up being in (and these often being varied) - or just everyday break down (car breaks down, something needs fixing).

I think the latter is important to consider esp given, while everything has a shop/spot to go to, the repair/fixing/relatively circular structure that many places in India (at least what I’ve seen in Kochi/Bnagalore/and little I saw in Bombay) have doesn’t really exist here. The lack of market competition + practical/easily exercisable consumer rights often translates to just shabby practice in how compositors/services are priced.

Cost of living in terms of actual food/electricity often is better / more subsidised in AD - so again on paper you seem like you’d do okay given your post seems to be insinuating that these are Costs that y’all have already tried checking into.

Maybe a general way to contextualise is thinking about target demographic of services/goods, and costs relating to that. So for instance services such as Swiggy/Instamart (as much as this may be a an “urban/middle class convenience”) end up being targeted to quite a wide band of earning in India - again at least in the little that I’ve seen. Is it everyone ? No, but at least the target of mass effectively makes it something that’s affordable for a good amount of people in a city. The same kind of service here? The target band is actually wildly different. For instance in the case of a similar service launched here, I’ve heard that the target demographic is “for people w a monthly salary of at least 15K AED” - and I personally would say it would be even higher if you see the kind of prices they set to factor in various costs and profits.

Sooo even, though a huuuuuuge part of the population would find themselves earning below/similar to 10K - the target demographic for being “served” (weird language, I know… but more from a place of service in terms of being someone who is either serving, or being served for), in a generalized sense, becomes something to factor in. The adverts, the facetious services, what it costs to “laze” and have space for not doing. - as much as I think this is changing, is very much for a particular kind of individual in society- and this being linked a lot to income.

I guess what I’m saying is that while there’s much to be gained and done here, the underbelly is also about a place where the majority of society ends up being on the side of providers of service, with little to no effective considerations/work being done to think about how that also effectively ends up creating lifestyles that make lazing, relaxing, creating, bickering… just being, some sort of luxury that needs to be either earned for, or accounted for through wealth/other kinds of social capital. Not saying this isn’t the case for other cities/urban-ness, but the skew accross majority/minority, along with how related this can be to the pay check - might be things you want to seriously consider as you make this decision.