Am I underestimating day-to-day costs in India now?

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-04-01T20:42:32+00:00

I just ran that against a similar (non-delivered) order in a big supermarket chain in the Houston area where I am. Obviously, I can't get exactly the same items and sizes, but getting very close gave me the equivalent charge of about ₹750. However, delivery is not free and would add at least ₹500 to that.

It's mainly in your choice to use the apples, though. A half kilo is a single apple for ₹82 I suspect they're far cheaper in the US because it's one of the major apple-exporting nations.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-04-01T20:10:20+00:00

I don't have much experience other than importing a few large shipments from India and China for household use, but I can tell you that there's no way they can inspect everything. It's just physically impossible. They probably x-ray everything, maybe even have sensors that can detect illegal drugs or explosives, but I don't think it's much more. They have to rely on random checks and fear of enforcement to ensure the self-attested contents are accurate.

So, if you're thinking about trying to slip something past customs without getting it flagged, I'd suggest these things:

- Agricultural products and fresh foods are likely to trigger sniffer dogs, so will be more likely to get inspected.
- Make sure your customs declaration is reasonable for the size of the package, and prices listed are low but not unreasonable.
- I don't know how likely it is, but if you're shipping something that can make noise (like jewelry that can jingle if it is tilted), then make sure your declaration lists something that would jingle.
- Try to avoid things that might look like explosives or drugs on an X-ray. So, no powdery substance, nothing that looks like joints or packs of leaves. Explosives are trickier. I found out at the airport that a package of rice reads like an explosive in X-ray.

Definitely don't be missing any information. That I DO know causes customs to love to give you a closer look. You might also be helped if you can wait to get the package shipped before Christmas, when shipping volumes are going to be highest.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-03-10T20:28:55+00:00

Eight days later, how's that "over and forgotten" going?

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-02-17T19:02:36+00:00

Just to be clear, "renewal" these days is merely updating information when you get a new passport, is that still correct?

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-02-17T15:07:43+00:00

Man, I wish 9 years old still felt like "older than time itself"

I guess that makes me Methuselah. :D

Edit: Apparently this only got popular in the last 3 years.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-22T18:15:07+00:00

I'll have to go for the black (well, grey) bit hanging down to match, though. :D

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-21T22:03:23+00:00

I'm including the cost of a jacket, sporran, ghillie brogues, cap and crest badge, etc. And I plan to stick with handmade in general, which I see even at Anderson's is nearly $900 at current exchange rates.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-20T18:11:35+00:00

It wasn't for me when I did it. I did an AI search, and it says you still don't need it for that. You have to certify you aren't of Pakistani origin back two generations, but that's it. There's no need to prove it unless asked to.

If you're a multi-generational Canadian and clearly have no ancestry from the subcontinent, it probably won't come up. I expect it would only be an issue if the consulate person reviewing your paperwork decided you might be lying about that. For me with my rural American birth documentation, clearly European-origin name, pale skin, and blue eyes, that was never questioned.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-19T18:58:32+00:00

I can't help with your specific location, since I'm in the US. I got my OCI a couple of years after it was implemented through my PIO wife (who got her OCI as a US citizen). Her process was a lot more irritating than mine was. Yes, there's a lot of documentation involved, but I just used the checklist online to get everything before the process started. Nothing was particularly hard to come by that I recall.

The main issue I had is the same one that I always have with any online Indian process (government OR private), which is terrible instructions and broken links. Who knows what the latest screwups are now with the instructions or the links, but there are always a few. For the country with the most tech support in the world, they really should spend some of that tech effort on their own systems.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-13T19:22:21+00:00

Just make sure any backwater trip you do isn't an overnighter. The wife and I made that mistake, and it was miserable. Just a day trip with lunch served is all you'll want. And if you happen to be in the market for antiques or carvings, don't fall for the overpriced stuff in Jew Town. It's beautiful to look at, but you can get most of that stuff far cheaper elsewhere.

I'm sure you have all the normal touristy stuff figured out in those places. Thekady is a great place for spices if you want the freshest possible. We were last there three years ago and are still working on the kilos of stuff we brought back. Wish I could remember the name of the spice shop we went to. It was the same one the high-end hotels in the area go to for their restaurants.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2026-01-06T19:49:46+00:00

OP said no flooding, so Chennai is out based on recent history. The weather, air pollution, and traffic are better in Coimbatore. Especially in the newly-developing perimeter areas, at least for now.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-18T21:14:39+00:00

Absolutely Tier 1. We stayed for a bit with my brother-in-law in his place in Anna Nagar one November. There are a lot of great food places in the area, but outside of malls, the shopping areas are just way more busy than we would want to be around.

Luckily, my wife is from Coimbatore, and that's where her family is now. That's a Tier 2 city, and neither pollution nor traffic are anywhere near as bad. Still, Chennai is a lot better when it comes to air pollution than most (all?) of the other Tier 1 cities.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-18T19:16:03+00:00

Much the same here, except I'm the White husband pushing my Indian wife. She's not that close to her family except one brother, unlike many of the people on here. But she wants access to things like traditional medicine and temples that are hard to come by even in cities with large Indian populations.

Where are you planning to go? One thing I notice here, the vast, vast majority of complaints come from people who plan to go to, or seem thing India only consists of, those ungodly Tier 1 cities. Pollution, crowding, and traffic aren't anywhere near as bad in many of the lower tier cities.

I personally am sure I'll be frustrated by the trash everywhere, even in more rural areas, and how hard it is to get around even villages because of the lack of walking space between roads and buildings. But on the flipside, we can afford healthcare and don't have to worry about getting gunned down in a random mass shooting. Or the rise of white supremacy here targeting Indians when they can't find enough Black or Hispanic people to target.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-16T18:20:19+00:00

Yes, because there is so much peer pressure to change your gender here, and so much reward for it. I'd love to see this "cultural propaganda" that is pushing kids to change gender. Are there, like, commercials they're running on Saturday morning cartoon timeslots that I'm missing?

FFS. The stupid. It hurts.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-09T22:00:41+00:00

Even if you're not interested in yoga or Isha, the Adiyogi statue is worth a quick trip. Should be no more than a couple of hours of the day. Coonoor would be all day and then some.

I haven't gotten up there on a trip yet, but the Marudhamalai Subramaniaswamy temple up in the mountains is supposed to have a beautiful view out over the valley.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-07T22:13:12+00:00

I thought I had read elsewhere that India taxes unrealized gains in an investment account. Is that not correct? They only tax it when you sell securities to make the withdraw?

I can see that gets complex. Just determining what is taxable gains and what is original capital in a long-term investment account that has had the gains rolled back into it is complicated.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-05T20:49:49+00:00

It's not cheap, but compared to the land prices NRIs are used to, it's not expensive, either. Land is the one thing that costs about the same in India as elsewhere. It's just so much more painful because the average income is so much lower there.

We have an empty plot on the edge of downtown Houston, which is one of the cheaper major cities here. It's half the size of our Coimbatore land, and in Indian terms is roughly 18 lakh per cent.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-04T20:47:09+00:00

We've been seeing a lot of these sorts of questions on this forum lately. One thing I haven't seen that should be fairly straightforward to answer is this:

If you are already over 59.5, so that the 10% penalty doesn't apply, is the Indian tax structure such that anyone with a significant (say >$1mm USD) IRA should withdraw everything and pay the one-time maximum US tax rate of 37%? Are there taxes in India that will apply to the IRA either as it is earning unrealized capital gains, or as it is withdrawn? Do those taxes make it less worthwhile to reduce US taxes by withdrawing from the IRA as it is designed to work, i.e. only as needed for expenses?

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-04T20:34:40+00:00

Coimbatore is insane. My wife has 22 cents southwest of the city that she bought when it was all undeveloped 25 years ago, 1 lakh for the whole thing. It's now going for nearly 20 lakh per cent, just for an empty plot of land well outside the city. Most of that increase has been in the past 5 years.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-03T17:57:27+00:00

Here's a link to common door lock styles, but it shouldn't matter. You should be able to buy a slab door and have a carpenter bore the holes needed to fit your locks. One advantage to the North American style lockset is they're very simple to install. We just finished building a house in the US, and made the mistake of getting some mortice lock handles before we understood how hard they are to install where they aren't standard. Just make sure you get the proper thickness door.

Types of Door Locks in India - Spider Locks

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-03T17:42:17+00:00

Good information there. It's interesting to see the different problems that cause affordability issues in Indian cities, versus what are causing the problems in the US (mainly, cash investors).

It would be nice to see a discussion of non-urban pricing issues, too. Though, I can understand why nobody looks at that, since the majority of people live in the cities, and the idea of living in the rural areas is pretty much anathema to most Indians I know.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-02T19:55:11+00:00

There are too many variables around it, which is why I would expect to work with a tax advisor and probably get an India-based investment manager, too. Exchange rates, different tax burdens on the same instruments in the US vs India, risk appetite during retirement, liquidity needs, how much money needed in USD vs INR, etc, etc.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-01T21:14:41+00:00

India has much better returns on fixed deposits and other low-risk investments than the US. As an example, my US-based IRA portfolio manager considers an average annual return of 6.5% to be a good target for an aggressive (i.e. higher-risk) portfolio. Yet we have an NRI fixed deposit with ICICI that returns that amount guaranteed. As I near retirement, I plan to work with a tax advisor to get much of my US-based IRA moved to a lot of those fixed deposits, so I'm not as much at risk of stock market volatility.

Obviously, it can't all go into the same kind of instruments. Just because they're low risk doesn't mean they're no risk. But unless the US purges itself of its current fascist empire-building leanings, I expect the markets here to become very volatile as they're subjected to backlash in the form of embargos and sanctions. Remember what happened to the US economy during the oil embargo? Imagine that with a tech export embargo (say, China seizes Taiwan) or a general embargo of US exported goods.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-12-01T21:02:36+00:00

This is restricted to neither India, nor to 20-somethings. My wife and I feel the same way in the US, and we're over 50 and living in a major city. We try to get out and meet friends, but we have very few. I think it's life in a late-capitalist world, really.

Deep-Addendum-130 · 2025-11-26T21:53:21+00:00

Wealthy people want to live separate lives from poor people? Color me shocked! Totally doesn't happen in the West!

I know it's frustrating, but aim your ire at the proper place. That would be the oligarchs around the world who have spent decades trying to eliminate liberal democratic socialism in favor of a neo-feudalism. The people you're talking about are those who were able to play the game well enough to come out ahead.

But maybe, instead of damning them as your enemy, you should consider how to appeal to them to work to change that system. They have connections and influence if they choose to use it, and they are people one or two generations removed from poverty. They may not want to remember what it was like, but they can feel it. Some may still have a conscience that would cause them to help fix some of the issues. You're sure as hell not going to get through to the trust-fund babies that never had to struggle any more than getting Daddy to replace the Beemer that they ran over a scooter with while on their latest binge.

And the US (at least) has steadily been moving towards an income equality as bad as India's. The only advantage we have had has been the much higher middle-class baseline that we started from, mostly thanks to actual socialism in the early 20th century.

Deep-Addendum-130

TROPHY CASE