Where should we live?
A tool for r/RupeeStories

Where should we live?

The question you have been avoiding, worked out in numbers. Pick the story that sounds like yours. See what staying, moving to India, or trying somewhere else would actually mean.

What it does: it estimates your income, tax, living costs, savings and retirement path in each place you pick, then shows one plain answer and what would change it. Every assumption is yours to edit.

Everything runs in your browser ยท nothing is saved anywhere ยท no login

01

Pick the story that sounds like yours.

โ† back to the stories
Starting with
The answer

Your numbers, side by side

Everything in today's dollars. Wealth after ten years assumes a 5 percent real return. College savings are tracked separately.

So which one looks better?

Three money goals, which do not always point the same way. Everything that is not money is in the next section.

What could change the money ranking

A rough estimate only, and only about the ten-year wealth number between the top two. The independence date can move a different way.

Money is not the whole decision

The things that will decide the move regardless of what the wealth number says. Only the rows that apply to your family are shown.

How these are rated โ†’
These are planning judgements, not measurements. Family closeness uses where you said your parents are. Healthcare, schools, and safety are broad country-level views and will be wrong for specific cities, hospitals, and schools. Immigration is deliberately not scored here, because it depends on your status rather than on the country, and is stated in the line above instead. Treat all of this as a prompt to go and check, not as evidence.

Make this yours

Start with the basics. Change what does not match your family and recalculate โ€” everything above updates.

Places to compare
More assumptions: retirement age, lifestyle, tuition, college, debt, travel and tax settings โ†’

Show me the working

The three strongest locations by projected wealth, and the ten-year path for every location you selected. Ordered by money only.

Where your money goes over the next decade

Projected retirement wealth in today's dollars. Temporary tuition and debt payments stop when you say they stop.

The link contains your inputs base64-encoded in the URL. Anyone who opens it will see your numbers. Share deliberately.

All assumptions

Everything the calculator uses. The basic fields above and these detailed settings write to the same numbers. The story you picked already filled them in โ€” change what does not match and press Recalculate.

Money and work
Gross income before tax, both spouses combined.
This choice changes the result more than most other fields.
Exclude home equity unless you plan to sell and invest it.
Growth above inflation. The default is zero because all figures use today's dollars.
Places
Locations to compare
Choose 2 to 6. Your current location is always included.
Family
Current family-size costs fall after this point.
Lifestyle and costs
Used for children not covered by the exact tuition entered below.
Boarding, private, or international school paid today.
529, UTMA, or a separate account. Do not include it in retirement assets.
Enter 0 when you expect it to continue indefinitely.
Enter 0 only when the payment is ongoing with no known end date.
Your current annual budget. The tool scales destination estimates from it.
Status and treaty
Used only in the simplified retirement-withdrawal estimate.