I'm new to this Expat.com. I'm from India and a Bengali, planning to shift to Accra, Ghana with my wife and a 5 yrs old daughter.
The employer is providing furnished accommodation, car with fuel, child education (only admission and term fees), medical charges and insurance.
They will give me salary in 2 parts. One as offshore savings in US dollars. The other being mess allowance of 2000 GHC/month. I'm little apprehensive whether this (mess allowance) will meet my following regular expenses :
1. Electricity Bill
2. Maid salary
3. Cable charges
4. Telephone / Internet charges
5. Water / cooking Gas charges
6. Child's school expenses (other than the above)
7. Daily food, rationing, weekly dining out, usual shopping, etc.
Can anybody guide me with the above. Also, if there is any Bengali community in Accra, kindly share the details.
Thanks
Life in Accra
It all depends on your lifestyle, gas (bottled) , electricity and water should be no more than GhC 300 per month. Food, if you cook at home and use mainly local ingredient should be around GhC 500. Your home help will depend on whether it is on live in or live out basis. Ours lives in and gets GhC 300 plus food. Internet and phone calls depend on usage but you will probably manage on 50-75 cedis per month. You didn't mention TV. A premium package is around 160 cedis. I have no idea what it will cost you for things like uniform, books extra curricular for your son's school so you have to decide whether you will have enough for your lifestyle
Hi basab and welcome to Expat-Blog,
hope you will manage easly when you will come.
Ghana is a peace country and you will find lots of thing.
Its a great opportunity to come and enjoy with us.
cheers!
Hi Hkann,
It is excellent reply from you.
While I'm convinced with other expenses you explained, the food part, I'm still apprehensive whether 500 GHC per month will be sufficient for 3 of us. My wife cooks well at home. We are non-vegetarian, want to dine-out at least twice a month, lot of nutritious food required for my daughter on daily basis and I do not want to count on pennies as far as the food habit is concerned.
If you can elaborate further on the above concern, that will be great for me.
Thanks in advance.
The 500cedis was only for food but of course there are a lot more things you will need like cleaning materials and toiletries which are both relatively expensive here.
Eating out is also quite expensive 70cedis+ for the 3 of you in a restaurant and 30 cedis+ in a fast food restaurant
You could look on a website for stores in Ghana such as shoprite and game and see prices of items.
2000 cedis is more than most Ghanaians earn and they manage and pay school fees and run their cars and pay their rent so only you can decide if it will give you the lifestyle you require
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