r2i forum

Want to validate a very back-of-the-envelope analysis of the financial cost-saving implications of moving back to India:

The top cash outflows in the US for a family are: 1/ mortgage, 2/ tuition and childcare, 3/tax, 4/ retirement, 5/ college savings.

If you move abroad - in particular to India - the only outflow you will slash significantly is #2 - tuition and childcare. Houses are as expensive. Being a US citizen / permanent resident, you have to pay the same US tax, albeit on a lower income. You would still want your kids to go to US colleges, so you would want to save the same amounts for college that would if you were working in the US. You probably want to keep the option open of retiring in the US, so would want to save the same amount for retirement.

Looking at it from a different angle, the only "pay cut you can afford to take" while moving to India is the US tuition + child care cost: about $60K per year for a family with two kids.

Does this make sense? Am I missing any other big things that you may be saving by moving to India?

I am yet to see a post on this forum, where someone moved/planning to move to India to save more.

I think most of the people return to india because of roots, yearning( with a 'y' :)), responsibilities etc.

rahulrahul;629863Want to validate a very back-of-the-envelope analysis of the financial cost-saving implications of moving back to India:

The top cash outflows in the US for a family are: 1/ mortgage, 2/ tuition and childcare, 3/tax, 4/ retirement, 5/ college savings.

If you move abroad - in particular to India - the only outflow you will slash significantly is #2 - tuition and childcare. Houses are as expensive. Being a US citizen / permanent resident, you have to pay the same US tax, albeit on a lower income. You would still want your kids to go to US colleges, so you would want to save the same amounts for college that would if you were working in the US. You probably want to keep the option open of retiring in the US, so would want to save the same amount for retirement.

Looking at it from a different angle, the only "pay cut you can afford to take" while moving to India is the US tuition + child care cost: about $60K per year for a family with two kids.

Does this make sense? Am I missing any other big things that you may be saving by moving to India?

I remember one member, a medico, having to live in some Nebraska boondocks, moved to India to save his sanity. It was a big thing for him.

thanks! even if someone is not going to save more by moving to india, its worth validating this analysis to identify the _cost_ of moving to India.

The reasons people return have been discussed a zillion times:
- Be close to family, or roots, emotional reasons
- Being financially independent, meaning drop the job and gain back some of years of your lives that would have been spent working
- other things

As our friend technyt willl be happy to explain, options are expensive. If you want to leave the option of retiring in the US, then you are not really "saving" those years. Also, while housing in India is expensive in certain buckets, people who move back have the choice of picking cheaper options which meet their needs, and those come out way less expensive than if you lived in the US. Moving back to India with a chunk of money allows them to stay in a town or village which has no jobs and be perfectly fine with it. None of these might apply to you.

I think you left a lot of your assumptions unmentioned (like you are moving to Bangalore, Hyderabad.... etc) which may not apply to a lot of people here.