700 canadian dollars at today's exchange rate is about Rs. 37, 500. That is more than sufficient for you to maintain a four or five-member family comfortably, Prabhu. Most of the amenities here, especially food is not very costly, but depending on where you stay, rents can be high. High as in, as you are just one person, you may not need a triple-bedroom apartment or like that, so about Rs. 5000-6000 you should get a good house for rent. If you cook by yourself you can restrict food costs to within Rs. 2000-3000, if you take Prasadam from ISKCON or otherwise, it may take Rs. 5000 or so. With food and shelter taken care of, rest of the money you can comfortably use for other necessities or services as you please.
You are planning to work here, or you have savings and want to engage fully in direct service, Prabhu? If you do not want to go to our Vrindavan, Mayapur or Puri, you can always come to Sri Rangam. It is a very celebrated place and service to Visnu is written all over the place. I'm sure you must have heard. Only, you will have to learn Tamil :)
But you should be careful of so-called guides wherever you are in India, or autos or taxis that you want to take, as if they see foreigners they charge 10-100 times the normal charges, as foreigners are unaware of the cost details of these small small things. It will be nice to ask people around beforehand about these details before venturing out. In their eyes foreigners have a lot of money, so they just want to exploit and make as much money as possible, as they feel it is not a big loss for the foreigners. It is true in most cases, though.
Once you are settled , you can both to India eventually Prabhu. The cost of livelihood here is not very high as people, at least many, still prefer a relatively simple lifestyle. But the western influence is gradually changing that and people have become greedy and lusty for wealth and women. Anyway, that is a long and sad story you already know of.
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The whole problem here is visas. One can stay all of 180 days, then must leave, or try to get an extension. Thus, one cannot invest much in housing or computors etc so it is living out of a suitcase unless one has some assurance to stay there. This is a big problem for us foreigners. I suppose one can rent, then leave the country during the hot season for Nepal, and come back after the 150 days Nepalese visa runs out...
When first i visited India exchane was 6.7 to one, now it is about 50 to one or so! (CAD) In older years, Canadian govt guarantees income for all citizens of about 1200 or more per month income, at age 65, so if you dont have that, the government will pay it to you!!! - so one can travel back and forth between there and India and have some real funds to do preaching with overseas.
Other countires is different, so one has to think how to best utilize available funding and social allowances etc Best is indpendence from savings and private pensioning or own real estate and collect rent.