Schnowzer,
Good reply about the maid, indeed they are the exact reasons most of us have one. My missus works also and it would be impossible to do it without our maid.
However, I think the point of the ORIGINAL thread (before it turned into the 'I pay my maid more than you pay yours' thread), was to see how much the guys monthly expenditure is vs pay.
I think its safe to assume that anyone can dress up OR down how much they fork out per month to service their own argument or perspective on things.
For instance (and I'm not saying you don't spend it), your golf membership seems to be costing you about 12000dhs per year?? As a keen but crap golfer myself, I would say this has to be full FAMILY membership at the Monty....am I right? If so it must be stated that this is one of the most expensive in Dubai. Being a tight fisted git, I only pay 2700dhs per year for full membership at Nad (albeit its going upto 4000dhs for next years membership!). I also presume you must live a long way from the kids school, as you seem to be spending a huge amount on petrol?? We've got 2 cars (a Pajero and a Merc) and spend about half that, but we live close to the school! Also you seem to be spending an unrealistic amount on groceries (8000dhs!!), you must be buying about 10kgs of fillet steak every day from Spinneys for breakfast alone to spend that amount? Try shopping at Carrefore (sp). Again, we spend about half that, as do most of the people I've asked in the last couple of days (and anyone who knows me will tell you I certainly don't skimp when it comes to food shopping - I eat enough to feed a small village just by myself), albeit our kids appear to be much younger than yours and obviously aren't eating us out of house and home yet.
Again, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your figures are untrue, its just that you seem to have chosen 'fat' figures to support your argument which perhaps aren't the norm (ie the golf membership example), I just thought I'd give slightly more 'common' figures to give the thread more balance.
Cheers