You can live the highlife in Egypt for 1/2 of that. No kidding. I would get what you can especially from a bank. But truly, unless you have 10 kids $150 is more than you will ever need. I am moving there in April and will be happy if get half that. Ina diff field of course, good luck to you and I hope you get the job, cairo is a wonderful city!

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That is a lovely salary, but you did not mention benefits. Will you be a consultant? Will you get vacation/sick leave and insurance?

If you have children, make sure the company pays their tuition (if your children are not school-age, but the company pays tuition, you can try asking them to pay the same amount toward a pre-school).

If you get them to provide housing and can chose to have them lease the place instead of you, that is easier. I don't know about other countries, an American company my withhold taxes on any money they give you for tuition and housing (since that is a taxable benefit) causing a cash-flow problem for you. You will need to pay taxes on that money eventually, so keep track, but probably not as much as they withhold. If your company owns apartments, even better - they report your housing allowance, and can decide what the "worth" of your place is. This can save you a lot in taxes, since places now rent for $3000-10000, but may only cost the owner $300/month.

Again, if you are American, talk to a retirement investment person, unless your company has a plan and you are eligible. Once you have put in whatever your company matches, you may find that much of your remaining income is tax-free, or at a much lower rate. In this case, you are better off investing in non-tax-deferred plans, as you are paying little or no tax on the money now and won't have to pay later (as with tax-deferreds).

Some standard things to ask for: relocation allowance (you will need to stay in a hotel for a few weeks while your apartment is made ready - if you are in Maadi/Cairo, I recommend the Residence) including meals and other costs that you'll pay until you get in an apartment, yearly or biyearly trip "home", settling in costs (new drapes, carpets, etc.), transportation allowance (car/driver for work, perhaps a company car or rental for personal use) and education allowance (at least try to get them to pay for Arabic lessons).

Check into how they are getting your stuff over here - if they provide you with a furnished apartment, you might be able to ask that they air freight your personal stuff, rather than by sea.

Did you come over here to interview? Have you been here at all? If not, you should ask them to send you over for a week soon - it might be to pick out apartments, or just to get an idea of what's available and what's not.

Will you be working for an Egyptian company? If so, you might want to check out the tax and employment laws. If you are working for a non-Egyptian company, then you want to check out your own tax situation.

This last sounds silly, but it caught us twice. Talk to your bank and credit card companies; let them know where you will be, so they don't shut off your cards. See if you can work out the best way to do everything online - we have someone we email when we travel to alert her that we're on the move and using our cards all over Europe (they would try to call our home phone to report suspicious activity and not get us, so they'd shut the card off).

Likewise, many online services (like buying/renting movies and music to download) are not allowed to sell here. In some cases, it is enough to set up your account with them before you go - in others, you have to go through a proxy (I use GoTrusted). We found out the hard way that we couldn't pay for our Skype number from here. For some strange reason, I-Tunes continues to sell to me, but would not for my daughter, without using the proxy.

My best advice is to have someone "back home" who you trust to handle your bills, credit cards and such. Sometimes it's just easier to have my daughter call and be me rather than have me call and explain I'm in Egypt.

About mail - if your company sends stuff over all the time, try to get your mail forwarded there (but still have someone go get the stuff that falls through the forwarding cracks - they can send it in a big envelope to your company). Otherwise, you can use a mail service (expensive) or have someone collect and go through your mail about every 2 weeks, and then FedEx the important stuff over.

Hope you enjoy your new home and new job - don't spend all that salary in one place, but plan on doing lots of traveling.

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This is pretty vague!

Will you or will you not be on ex-pat terms? Dependant on your personal circumstances this will involve between $50 to $100K per anum.

Are you responsible for your own tax, it's pretty much a flat 20%. Car, housing, health care et al?

Short answer, if is $150k and no add ons then its OK but not great

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