Mishpacha -p23 - Can You Afford this Shidduch?

naturalmom5

Thu, Jul 24 2014, 11:13 pm

amother wrote:

Both my husband and I are college-educated. DH works full time. I work 3/4 time because there is no way I could work full time and be able to get kids to and from school and be off when needed for vacations, etc.

We moved OOT to a community with low cost of living. With the exception of socks and underwear, our clothes come from hand-me-downs, thrift stores, or a gemach. My car is 15 years old. DH's is 13. Our furniture is from before we had kids, some from before we were married, gemach, even out of people's trash if it can be cleaned up and repaired. We eat meat (chicken) ONLY on Shabbos. No fancy strollers. One human hair sheital in my entire marriage (otherwise synthetic) and I wear a tichel whenever possible to make my sheital last longer. Our summer vacation for a family of 5 cost $350 not including food (we schlepped our food and cooked on vacation...no restaurants).

We qualify for no gov't assistance. There is NO way we could pay full tuition unless we stopped eating. Meanwhile, I see most of the teachers at our school, and rebbes, with newer cars, nicer houses, several nice human sheitals, clothes that are clearly this year's styles, going on trips here and there throughout the year, etc. I wish I could pay full tuition. It literally makes me sick to my stomach when I fill out the financial aid form. I have no idea how families with the wife teaching and the husband working as a rebbe/in kollel make it work.

DUH.....THEY ARE GETTING HELP FROM THEIR PARENTS!!!

amother

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 1:14 am

I have a lot of respect for Torah and Torah learners but I'm honestly asking : why aren't we stopping this kollel cycle? Why aren't we teaching our children differetly? Why do we keep this cycle of all boys having to learn for a couple of years at least and all girls must only marry boys who learn? When will this change come about?

I believe in Torah but take issue with kollel for two reasons:
- it doesn't make sense to raise another generation of poverty (this thread is the perfect example)
- I think naturally and according to Torah (betzar teldi banim anyone?) a mother should be the most she can with her kids. Are we scarifying the next generation (our kids) so that our men can learn? How does it make sense?

I'm asking with all honesty and I'm asking here on this thread because the financial aspect of things is a serious serious problem.
In a generation or two there won't be anymore parents who can help - what then?

Tekky

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 3:39 am

First of all, in a generation or two, this system is going to completely fall apart - at least that is what logic would dictate.

Secondly, what bothers me tremendously is that all the teachers ever pushed was "become a morah, become a teacher, it's so great for your ruchniyus". Aside from the 5% of teachers who actually make it "big" and become speakers, kallah teachers, and kriyah specialists, the other 95% are making peanuts - how exactly do you expect a kollel couple to live on that??

What they SHOULD be teaching us is that not necessarily is college the answer (starting your marriage in debt and crazy schedules isn't that most ideal solution for those who get married while still in school), but you should be looking into things that interest you and become business-minded, thinking of ideas that can make you money so that you can support properly without lliving off your parents/in-laws! It's your hubby's learning that's important here - not YOURS!

I sure wish they taught that to us.

Frumdoc

Fri, Jul 25 2014, 10:42 am

amother wrote:

So, saw50st8s, I hear what you are saying. But if a family is giving their all for their community, putting their lives and souls into educating the community's children in Torah and Yirat Shamayim, why would the schools want to make those hardworking, community minded parents feel like they are dirt and need to accept charity just because the schools cannot pay them enough to make them be able to live like mentschen? I am teh amother who posted her whole budget living on $5500/month,we are both educators. Who do you think would want to be the educators of the next generation, who would want to teach your grandchildren if hte Rebbeim and teachers were made to feel like dirt?...........
So lets say the schools where dh and I teach would pay us an extra $1000/month each, then we could just about pay full tuition. Well, sorrry, hte schools cannot afford to pay us more, so instead they acknowledge to us, "you do so much for our jewish community, we will adjust your tuition obligation accordingly." That is not tzedaka, and no, thank G-d they do not make us feel like we are accepting tzedaka for the prviledge of working in chinuch of our community's children. It is teh negative , bashing posters like yourself and frumdoc who I am so glad are not our school's administrators and tuition deciders, because if they were as negative as you are being then nobody would be willing to teach hte children of our community... sorry.

You are completely misreading what I am saying. I am not bashing you or anyone else who works in the community and gets reduced fees or expenses because of that.

I am saying that this solution to financial equity, ie paying in kind by working for the institutions and thus getting reduced fees, is not going to work for the remainder of the graduating kollelniks who need jobs and an adequate income fo meet tuition.

Somehow the money must be found to pay for schools and teachers, in your case, if you were paid more, you might pay more fees, as the money is effectively going in a circle from school to your wage to school tuition and back again. But not everyone can have that cycle.

The point I am making is that it would be sensible to encourage men of yeshiva and kollel age to start preparing for self funding in a realistic way at a much earlier age, ie take the right exams, consider career pathways and spend time and effort on this at the same time as learning in kollel. Dual track.

It seems that many men do not actually appreciate that their peers in the working world have had to put considerable time and effort into studying their field, working at poorly paid/ apprenticeship type posts and struggling for many years in order to reach the better paid places they are in when their classmate who has spent 10 years in kollel appears and expects to chap a job on the same level, and is then confounded when it doesn't happen so easily.

Just like a man who has never seriously sat down and learned in yeshiva can't expect to be at the same level shiur as his bil who has been learning full time since the age of 14, the kollel men need to understand they can't just jump on a train already running at 70mph. Yes, there are some transferable skills from the gemara kop type, but it still takes a lot of new learning.

Hence, my idea that one should plan for and work towards having some kind of skillset or qualification that can enable you to support yourself. Unless you are one of the truly great geniuses who will become a gadol hador, or has that potential, realistic plans are not some kind of rejection of Hashem's hand in the world.

I am kind of fed up of being told that it is a higher madreiga to deliberately decide not to fund your own lifestyle, or tuition, and we should rely on a miracle rather than consider our responsib to our own families and children, or that I have no emunah because I budget and plan our finances.

(Issues about planning to live off government handouts are separate and need to be discussed in a different thread)

33055

Sun, Jul 27 2014, 4:12 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

I disagree that getting tuition reductions is "not paying your bills". The bill is whatever the school charges YOU, not a penny more. Sure it would be nice for people to give extra to the school when they have more money but it's not an obligation if it's not on the bill.

Not everyone pays the same thing in taxes, and if a school wants to set a policy that not everyone pay the same in tuition, that's also okay for a family to pay what the school charges them for their income.

You don't think everyone should pay the same in taxes, and if they pay less than their neighbor, they're not paying their bills! A bill is a statement given by someone you owe money to how much payment you must remit.

Discounts are also given on medical procedures. If someone is given a bill for less because it's on a sliding scale, that doesn't mean payment in full for that statement is "not paying one's bills".

Let's stop having the mentality that everyone must have the same expense amounts (and therefore the same income per capita) -- it's just not feasible that every person have high paying jobs. We would be out of a lot of very important job holders.

Paying your bill is covering what it cost to educate your children. Being the schools are not for profit someone else must cover your child's costs. It can't come out of less profit for management so the burden for educating those children whose parents can't afford to goes on the backs of the tuition paying parents.

You yourself said there are discounts when there is a sliding scale fee for medical procedures. There is an official price and that price is discounted for those that can't pay the same as the schools have an official price. When you get a discounted bill that doesn't mean you covered your children's cost - someone else did.

Absent loopholes those that earn the same pay the same taxes (income). Those that purchase the same amount pay the same taxes (sales). Those whose properties are the same value pay same taxes (property).

I didn't follow the beginning of this thread, but the logic of your post didn't sit right with me.

I agree if we would be out important job holders and as a community this is what choose to do, but let's not delude ourselves as to who is actually paying the bills.