Why it asks for your own figures
Rent, school fees and the cost of a commute vary so much between two streets of the same city that a single average is more misleading than helpful. There is also no official cost-of-living index we could cite for each Gulf city. So the planner has no hidden prices and no guesses: every amount you see is one you typed. That makes the result yours to trust, and it works the same in Dubai, Riyadh, Doha, Muscat, Kuwait City or Manama.
Monthly and yearly costs together
Some bills arrive monthly and some once or twice a year. The planner turns everything into a monthly figure and a yearly figure, so a yearly rent of 60,000 shows as 5,000 a month and is compared fairly with groceries. Each line also shows its share of your salary. Example: on a salary of 15,000 with rent of 60,000 a year, school fees of 24,000 a year, utilities 700, transport 1,200, food 2,000, other costs 500 and 3,000 sent home, you spend 14,400 a month, 96% of your income, and keep 600.
Money sent home
Remittance is a cost line like any other, entered in the currency you are paid in. Choose the home currency and type the rate your exchange house or bank gives you, and the planner shows what your family receives each month and each year. When both currencies are covered, a button fills in the official reference rate the site already uses for its currency converter: the ECB euro rates and the fixed US dollar pegs of the Gulf central banks. Your provider's rate and fees will differ, so the manual rate always wins.
How long a savings goal takes
The planner treats what is left each month as your saving. It subtracts what you have already put aside from the goal and divides the rest by the monthly surplus, rounding up to whole months. With 600 left a month, a goal of 20,000 and 2,000 already saved takes 30 months. If your costs are larger than your salary, no date is shown and the overspend is marked in red, so you can see which line to cut first.
Typing numbers the way you like
You can type 12,500 or 12 500, Arabic-Indic digits such as ١٢٥٠٠, or a code like AED before the number. Empty boxes count as zero. A negative amount or a word is refused with a message on that box instead of being guessed. Kuwaiti, Omani and Bahraini amounts keep three decimals.
Related planners
To test a single rent against your income, use the rent affordability calculator. To plan regular deposits with interest toward a target, use the savings goal calculator. For Saudi take-home pay after GOSI, use the Saudi salary calculator, and to convert any amount, the currency converter. For what UAE law says about pay and family-visa salaries, read salary in Dubai.