Watch: Why Families Struggle After Moving Back to India: 5 Mistakes to Avoid
Family-led India return pain points: spouse-career continuity, parent-care coordination, school transition, household-help expectations, and the 3-6-month landing plan that reduces regret.
The full write-up, with the numbers and the links.
What this conversation covers
- Why return plans usually break
- Why Do Families Struggle After Moving Back to India?
- How to avoid family return failure before moving back to India
- How Do You Define a Successful Return to India?
- Reason 1: Not Having a Strong "Why" — The Foundation of Success
- Reason 2: Lack of Proper Planning — The Costly Mistake
- Reason 3: Unrealistic Expectations — The Reality Gap
- Reason 4: Family Not on the Same Page — The Silent Deal-Breaker
- Reason 5: Wrong Timing
- Conclusion
- Related Articles You May Find Helpful
Transcript
Auto-generated captions, lightly cleaned
0:00 Hey there. Today I want to talk about why some families who move back to India couldn't succeed. From my conversations with hundreds of families, I have identified five key reasons why this happens. If you're someone who is considering to move to India, this video is critical as you can see the critical factors clearly and also avoid common pitfalls. Before we dive into the topic, please hit subscribe so you won't miss these real life stories and practical information to make an informed decision. Also check out the link in the description below on how DIY return can help you with your journey.
0:52 Broadly there are two groups of people who move back to India. First those who are forced to move due to immigration issues or unavoidable reasons. Second those who choose to return after a careful thought and planning. At Di return, we mainly interact with the second group of people who make a conscious decision about the move, weighing pros and cons and carefully planning their move to have this transition as smooth as possible. Before we dive into five key reasons, let's define what success really means. If you move to India for a specific reason in mind, let's say spending some time with your aging parents or you have a career assignment in India or it could be raising kids in Indian culture for some time and after that and you move back abroad that still is a success
1:54 Because you have a specific reason and specific criteria when you moved. So success isn't about living in India forever. It's about being intentional and clear about your reasons and making your move work for the given phase of your life. Reason one, not having a strong why. You should be very clear with your reasons why you want to move. Please don't move because your friend moved or you heard a good success story. You need to be clear with your reasons. Is it for parents? Is it you know for kids or you want to do a startup or you want to retire early? Whatever the reasons could be, the reason has to be very strong and clear because no place is perfect and every place has its own challenges. India also
2:54 Has its challenges similar to what challenges you might have in abroad. So unless your reasons are strong, you could give up when things become hard. Reason number two, lack of proper planning. I have seen families who move back without thinking through much and that's a big mistake. You should have a proper planning. For example, financial planning. What are the tax implications if you move to India while you have assets abroad? How much money do you need to have a certain lifestyle? What corpus do you need? What to do with your assets? Do you need still need to keep your accounts open? There's much more. You need to plan a proper financial transition so that the transition will be smooth. Second, as we talked about, India has its own challenges and you
Read the full transcript (7 more sections)
3:54 Should plan on how to mitigate or accept it. For example, traffic. Are you planning to take a job that is remote or have a flexible working hours or do you want to stay close to your workplace? Second, do you want to live in a tier 1 city or a tier 2 city? What is important? And also the social life, the kind of lifestyle that you want to maintain in a gated community or in a rural environment or it could be a tear to city with minimal hustle and bustle. So it depends on your choices and you need to plan properly whether that is the right choice for the entire family.
4:48 You should also think about kids education what curriculum could be appropriate based on if they're going abroad or going to study in India for their highest studies which school and so on. So the more you plan the better it is for a successful transition. At DIY return, we have an active WhatsApp group where you can interact with like-minded people talking about the pros, the challenges, how to mitigate having enough information so you are making an informed decisions. You can also check out our vetted partners who can help you with your transition. Reason number three, unrealistic expectations.
5:34 Many writtenists think life in India will be rosy. Domestic help, family support, vibrant social life, you know, quick delivery, etc. Yes, these things exist, but keep in mind managing domestic health can be challenging. Customer service, bureaucracy, traffic could test your patience. Things might not work on time. you have to follow up several times which can be frustrating. Keep in mind India is a developing country and you can't compare it to a developed country and you should either embrace it or try to mitigate some of these and have a realistic expectations so that you are not disappointed and getting frustrated. Reason number four, family not on the same page. This is a big one. If your spouse or kid are not
6:34 On board with the move, this can cause some friction after the move. So talk openly with your family. Understand the concerns. Are these concerns real? Is there a way to find to mitigate these concerns or a compromise way to handle the situation? For example, living close to family but not together in the same house or maybe kid is in a school that has a good infrastructure or it could be several things but it's important to talk openly about this and make sure you have a good game plan for that. The other one that you can do is if you have the flexibility, spend few months, one or two months in India doing a trial run and see if some of these concerns are real, valid and how you can avoid or
7:35 Mitigate them. This can help in making sure the family is on boarded with the move and that makes the transition smooth and successful. Reason number five, wrong timing. Timing plays a critical role in the success of the move. As the kids get older, it becomes hard for them to adapt because they built their own social circle and culturally they have grown in a certain lifestyle. As the parents gets older, you would lose the valuable quality time that you can spend with them. Finally, there are some people who want to hit a certain financial corpus amount or a career milestone. But by the time kids age, parents health might make the move tougher.
8:29 Remember, you can always earn money later, but you can't buy the time back. So make a decision that where you can balance out the time as well as the other things that you need to achieve. So the five key reasons why family struggle when moving to India are not having a strong why, poor planning, unrealistic expectations, family not aligned and finally wrong timing. So if you plan ahead and make sure you have a realistic expectation, involve your family members and plan it properly, the chances of your move to be successful is going to be very high. So check out the stories of families who have moved back to learn from their journeys. Join the DIY written WhatsApp group to connect with like-minded people and navigate this journey together.
9:31 Understand the challenges, understand the process and so on. Also check out the bettered partners that we have at DiN who can help you with your planning as well as making the transition as smooth as possible. Finally, we have a digital course on the financial planning which can help you on what to do with your assets abroad, tax implications and so on. I hope today's video helped with your decision making. If you like it, please subscribe and share it with others who can benefit from the content. Until next time, take care.
