Let the Hemorrhage Begin

Listening to: The psychosis of the McDonalds play area

Mood: Meh

Because I really haven’t gotten to the whole extent of it, I really haven’t discussed the monetary aspect of moving to India. For obvious reasons, the cost of such a move will be different for every family, and I’ll get into costs later. Today I want to talk about voluntary costs that add a buttload to your overall moving expenses.

Let’s just get it out there. We bought leather couches. “What?” you say? “Totally unnecessary throwing of money down the black hole!?”  Well actually I’m getting to agree with that point just because everything is so damn expensive, but I do feel that this was a necessary expense for our family. As to your family, well, not everyone will have a child with moderate to severe eczema. I’m not planning to bring my vacuum and India is legendary when it comes to dust. For our family, a couch I could wipe off was almost non-negotiable as dust is an allergen trigger for my youngest. Bringing the vacuum along also wasn’t a really viable option either, the converter to make it able to run itself is a hassle.  I actually really like the couches just because they scream classy. At least to my mid-western blue collar sensibilities they do anyhow.    

The point I’m trying to get at in this topic is that unless you’re a standard family without any exceptional problems (mental, emotional etc.) then the cost is going to be a bit more than you wanted. I know I definitely could have done without dropping a few (not so) extra thousand dollars on new couches that we wouldn't have otherwise bought. The further we get into this move, the more the expenses seem to multiply like unsupervised rabbits.  

So unless you’re willing to either spend the money it takes to obtain what you want/need to be comfortable or are willing to be even more uncomfortable than you would have been, a move like this probably isn’t for you. We could have gone the route of going with suitcases and shipping a very small amount of our personal belongings, but my husband is quite worried about our ability to deal with this huge change in general, it’s never really been an option to start completely over again. Another deciding factor is that re-buying a household in India is almost comparable to furnishing one from here, on Indian pay. Salaries aren’t the same as the US and goods in a general sense will costs just as much, but not have the same quality.

It’s really a shame. This should be a super-exciting time for my husband and I, and in a way it is. I know I’m super excited to go! But we’ve never had disagreements about money before. We both don’t really like wasting it, so this type of this where the money is flowing out like water is really unnerving for us. No blow out fights yet, but I’m not counting them out.

Becky