Returning_Indian wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2025 2:58 am
Taxes in India are incredibly high. For buying a car below is the breakdown:
Car cost - 15lakhs
GST -7lakhs approx
Total 22 lakhs
Income tax to make 22 lakhs (30%) - 7lakhs
Total tax paid on initial cost: 100% = 14lakhs
Below are taxes as running costs every year: 75k every year to govt. Not to mention taxes on tires, spares, repairs, servicing etc.
Tax on insurance: approx 20% of 20k = 4k
Tolls approx - 5k
100% tax on petrol- approx 15k km with average of 12kmpl = 63k
India is a bad deal for people who belong the India 1 Alpha. The taxes and general cost of living is super high for the type of services and good consumed by this category of people. India is a heaven for the middle class frugal people. I have figured out how to live in India.
1) Buy a used car, ideally a small car like Alto or i10, more likely than not someone in your relatives will be upgrading their car to a bigger more expensive car. Do them a favor and buy out their used car.
2) Dont rent/buy in those DLF/Sobha type apartments, in places like Bangalore and even Delhi you will find either landed houses(Kothis as they call in Delhi), most likely the owner occupies the lower floor. Go and rent the upper floor, you will get it for around 20k rupees or rent a non luxury apartment which is builder floor.
3) Eat out chats, idly dosa, food courts within malls, occasional ordering pizza or fine dining is fine. But mostly cook at home. My wife is a great cook. Groceries are still cheap in India.
4) Do your own dishes, clean the house etc, it is good exercise as @SAPPORO mentioned, there are no footpaths in Bangalore, so you cannot get any cardio exercise unless you join the gym. You can join the gym, but you wont go everyday. Gym is good for weight lifting, anyways at our age we shouldnt do too much cardio, we must do more of weight lifting to gain muscle strength.
5) Put your kids in decent CBSE school, the school we chose cost us 2L per annum. Not sure what career path daughter will choose, but if follow what we followed, I plan for her to write the KCET/COMEDK exam and then hope she gets a decent engg college in Bangalore. Bachelors should cost within 20L.
6)vacations, mostly within India, take the train where possible or short drives if it is south India. Do a lot of solo travelling.
7) Buy a nice motorcyle and will try to use it for dropping and picking up my daughter from school. Our house is in North Bangalore and school in Yelahanka, this is airport road stretch so you can zoom 7kms in 15mins. Hoping to do some long bike trips for fun.
I expect our annual expenses to not cross 10L. But I will update here anyways. My guru is @mn_op so looking forward to follow his path
, may be New Jersey should be renamed as New India 
