I feel the allowance's are ok, however, to some extent I agree with Qatarcat. It all depends on

1) House rents are stabilizing, if you want to live within the city - yes you need about Qrs12K - 25K for a compound, but for a flat 6.5K will be ok. Airport area is not as expensive. Depends where you will be working, also how old is your kid, if he is old enough to go to school, needs to be considered.

2) Vehicle - how long do you plan on working in Qatar, if you are going for a new or quality used vehicle you will be able to get a bank loan and pay installments on the vehicle. Fuel is cheap, so that compensates to some extent. Refering to some of the comments on these site, people think Qatar is a desert and think that a 4x4 is required to move around, not so, most of the road can be negotiated by a salon car. etc

There is no hard and fast answers, hope the above helps.

Angelo