Why Ghanaians Abroad Are Scared to Move Home – The Big Money Mistake They Keep Making

Many Africans living abroad, including Ghanaians, have a deep dream of returning home one day to enjoy a quieter, less stressful, and more fulfilling life. However, many of them never make the move, and the main reason is always the same: they feel they cannot earn enough to survive in Ghana. Recently, a writer shared a conversation with friends in London about this exact issue. One friend said that before he could relocate to Ghana, he would need to have something generating about GHS 25,000 a month. To him, that seemed like the minimum amount needed to live comfortably back home.

The writer was genuinely surprised by this figure and began to break down the friend’s actual needs. He pointed out that the friend’s house in Ghana was already built with no mortgage, his water was sorted with a borehole, and his car was fully paid for. With the biggest expenses out of the way, the writer asked what the GHS 25,000 was really for. The friend paused, thought about it, and finally admitted a shocking truth: “When I go to Ghana on holiday for two weeks, I spend more than that.” That was the moment the real problem was revealed.

The writer explained that this is the biggest mistake people abroad make: they confuse visiting a country with living in it. When you visit Ghana on holiday, you are in celebration mode. You eat out every day, hire drivers, go to beach resorts, buy drinks for everyone, and show love to every relative. But in London or New York, you do not live like that; you cook at home, budget your money, and eat out only once in a while. The writer noted that a “Borga” on a two-week holiday does not live like a local resident. Holiday spending is celebration spending, and it cannot be compared to daily living.

The writer then gave a reality check. He told his friend that a man with his own house, car, and borehole does not need more than GHS 10,000 a month (around £600) to live a far better life in Ghana than he lives in London. This amount should comfortably cover food, electricity, and fuel. Even better, if he moved to a smaller town and farmed some of his food, he could live well on about half of that amount. The real barrier, the writer concluded, is not income; it is the mental picture people have formed about what life in Ghana costs, built from holidays rather than daily life.

Once you separate holiday life from daily life, the numbers look very different, and the dream of moving back home starts to look possible. The message to Ghanaians abroad is simple: stop scaring yourself with holiday budgets. Living in Ghana is not the same as visiting for two weeks. If you plan wisely and live like a resident rather than a tourist, you will find that you can live a very comfortable life back home with far less money than you think. The dream of returning home is not a fantasy; it is a reality that just needs the right mindset.

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