Procedure to migrate in Mauritius

Hi brama_raj,

Welcome to Expat.com

As you post was off topic, a new discussion has been created with it on the Mauritius forum for more visibility and for more interaction with the other members.

Thank you,

Priscilla
Expat.com team

Hi All

From South Africa we have now been living in Mauritius for 6 months and so figured i could give some valid input on living in MU.

Your wife or even you might feel like things are a bit backwards at times and this will lead you to want to go back home. If you cannot put in at least 6 months adjusting then i dont recommend even trying the move as you will be wasting money.

The Good:
Safety is really good, you hear the be careful and close up from people here, and that crime is increasing. But its very different from SA crime. This aspect we are absolutely loving. I do hear that houses on the beach do get broken into sometimes but its small thefts and crimes of opportunity not someone coming in with guns while you sleep.
Its beautiful not much more to say on this other than MU is visually a beautiful place.
People here are very friendly and helpful
The police take great pride in their appearance and jobs and people actually seem to respect the police officers.
Other than the odd side roads in bad condition the main roads are in what i consider really good condition if not somewhat narrow in some places, but this is at the end of the day an island.
Internet speeds are great a 4 meg dsl line will give you a proper 4 meg line, the mobile data speeds are very impressive as well.
The ocean is amazing and the beaches especially le morne is quite amazing.

The not so good: (not really bad, depending on your point of view)
Variety is not something you will not find, coming from a country with choices left right and center you need to remind yourself smaller island country, smaller choices. This is hugely evident when shopping as one day an item will be there and you will battle to find it again for a few weeks. This is only for specific imported items that you might want have from back home. Also you need to be ready to substitute certain items for something equivalent. This bothers my wife to this day as the big monthly shop involves going to 3 different stores to get all the required items.

Electricity pricing can get very expensive if you burn the aircons. Its a scaling system and is quite reasonable when its not Hot like an oven but once you break the 300 KWh you will be paying Rs8.7 per Kwh and this can really raise the price on your bill quickly if you are running 3 air cons at KWh each for 5 to 6 hours a day. A 24 000BTU unit like we ave in our room uses a little over 2KWh to keep our room comfortable while the 12 000 units run at around 1KWh. Our budget was Rs3 000 to Rs4 000 in winter as the aircons were really not needed all the time we raised it to Rs9 000 for summer and we think we are going be higher than this as well with all 4 rooms running their air cons while people sleep. And we keep 1 room cold to cool off in during the day.

Water its cheap but can be in short supply, make sure you have a place that has a big enough water tanks. We had 1 x 4000 liter tank and now have 2 as twice we ran dangerously close to the bottom of tank 1 with no sign of the water coming back. We had a water truck come and fill our tank after 4 days of no water supply.

:Monthly Expenses:
This is based on a family of five 3 kids and my wife.
This is just our budget and we live nicely not wanting for to much.
Groceries : Rs30 000 (this is very over zealous and we dont use this every month but this includes braais and beers  drinks etc. everything for the month.

Electricity : Summer (Rs 9000 to Rs 12000) Winter (Rs 4000)

Water : Rs 2 000 to Rs 3 000

Phone and DSL(4meg) : Rs 2500

Rent : from Rs30 000 to your choice. We saw a beautiful large 4 bedroom double story penthouse for Rs50 000 but settled on Rs65 000 for a brand new large 4 bedroom 1 study house on a small hill overlooking the marina and ocean, and a 2 minute walk to the beach, this includes gardener and pool maintenance. This is one place where you can negotiate heavily and for Rs35 000 to Rs 45 000 you will find a really nice place, you might not see the ocean but you will not be far from it. You can get cheaper than Rs30 000 but this is for comfortable living in a decent place. Try do private  rentals as you pay a full months rental as the admin fee to estate agents (yes its payable by you), i learnt this the hard way. There are lots of places to search for houses/flats/complexes available.

School fees : its around Rs 10 000 per child for the English school my kids go to. (the kids love the school here and they are learning at a pace that i cannot believe)

Petrol : Rs 6 000 - +/- Rs 54 per liter petrol Rs 45 diesel. I use a tank a month as i drive around 10 Kms per day work and back kids pickups etc. I am lucky live close to the office and school. My wife uses 2 tanks as she drives to Ebene a few times during the month so we

Car Rental : Rs 18 000 - this is for decent cars as you would get in South Africa that are in great condition. Be careful here some people rent real junk for Rs 20 000 and its a sin the cars look and feel like they are going to break. You can get really decent cars from proper rental people (not the rental groups, and not the guys that rent 1 or 2 cars) tajcar.mu Ajay is a great guy and his cars are basically like his children. You can also buy a car. A car in really good condition can cost from Rs300 000 to Rs600 000 second hand.

Dinners Out : expect to pay around Rs 1 500 for a nice dinner out.

Domestic Help : Rs 12 000 full time, this is a bit higher than it should be but my wife set this up and the lady we have is great with the kids as well so we are happy with this. Domestic helpers in SA are faster and seem to get a lot more done in the day, as such we have a second helper that comes in for 2 hours a day to do the ironing for Rs 3 000.

I hope this helps.
Keep in mind this is how we do it, i know a lot of people living here happily on much less but we wanted to have a great experience for ourselves and the kids while we are on the island.

markak

Thank you for that valuable information. I would like to email you directly and hopefully you will be able to assist me with some answers to certain questions that I have.

Thank you

lynnbeck1

@markak - Thanks a lot for the sharing of information

Very useful and detailed post Mark. Thanks.

dr makak, ur most welcome.. its a paradise here.

Hi Markak,
Thanks a lot for such a very good piece of advice (many helpful stuff in there!).
I visited SA more than a decade ago- port elizabeth and johannesburg...stayed only around 3 days, on business..would have stayed much longer. Why did you decide to move to Mauritius, cause I'm putting up a business in Mauritius and hopefully onward to the African continent- Nigeria, SA, and Ghana.

Kind regards,
Bernie

how are you bernie and what business you doing  now ? where are you now.best regds

rony

jumpmountain wrote:

how are you bernie and what business you doing  now ? where are you now.best regds

rony

You have posted on a thread that as been inactive since December 2013 so you may not get a reply. I suggest that it maybe better if you open a new thread