Looking for income ideas

amother

Yellow

Mon, May 04 2015, 11:01 pm

After toying with the idea of Aliyah for a while, right now it seems like the main consideration is money. We are seriously crunching the numbers now and while we need to do more work to figure out more specifics, based on our best estimates so far we are about 25,000 NIS short per year for the first two years. Basically DH is stuck in an entry-level position for 2 years after which he is practically guaranteed a much better job, so we figure if we can make 2 years work then we're in. I am deliberately saying 25k per year and not coming up with a monthly number because I know already that not all months will be equal at all - the first couple of months we will probably be too busy settling in for me to make much headway, then I am expecting a baby a couple of months after that (which shouldn't stop me from doing things like simple internet-based jobs but I won't be running a circus during that time or anything) And from my experience with previous part time/freelance type jobs, Tishrei and Nissan practically don't exist. And so on.

Neighborhoods we're currently looking into include Givat Shmuel, Rechovot, Beit Shemesh, and Ramat Beit Shemesh.

I am a freelance writer for some American publications, currently I don't do much of it but I'm fairly sure I can make about $1000 a month doing that once I am in Israel and have more time (needing to leave my day job in America) That is factored in BEFORE the deficit mentioned above. I'm looking for something I can do BESIDES this because I doubt I could handle more jobs than that even if I could get them - I do good writing but I don't churn it out like a machine.

My current main profession is in education/special ed. In order to get an official job I would need to retrain in Israel which I really don't see happening within the first year or probably more, with adjustment stresses and needing to work on more immediate income. I am not sure if I will ever decide to do that, but it definitely isn't the answer to that first 2 years problem. Is there a private tutoring/special ed industry at all? What kind of demand and income could I expect if I look in that direction? (plus, assuming tutoring happens after school, I'd need care for my children during the time - how much would I have to pay for that?)

Is there any market for after-school classes/groups like baking, cake decorating, gardening, crafts, things like that? Do you need any official licensing for that kind of thing? Is the market already flooded with every other American housewife looking for extra work? How much do these things tend to make? Anyone have experience with such a thing? My kids are a good age to participate, I think, so I could save on childcare (need sitter for one baby, how much does that run for a couple of hours?) as well as on having to pay for them to go to a chug somewhere else. I could also do after-school supplementary English lessons, though I'd have to first get a handle on what's going on in the schools and what the parents would want beyond that and how to do that without basically guaranteeing that the kids will be bored to tears in school the next year - I'm sure there are holes in the English curriculum overall that I could fill, it would take some research. How much would people pay for this? Do people prefer groups or 1:1 tutoring? Are there centers that do this already and would hire teachers without Israeli government/department of education certification?

I think I've already estimated in the limit of how much freelance writing work I could get and manage, but I could do editing from home. In English. I don't have formal certification in that or anything but I am very good at it. Really. I could also do Hebrew to English translating. My guess though is that both of these jobs are not so plentifully available and don't pay very much. But does anyone know more, whether this could be a realistic contribution?

Any other ideas? Brainstorm with me please? Are ANY of these ideas likely to close a 25k/year budget gap or are we dreaming the impossible here?

amother

Yellow

Tue, May 05 2015, 12:18 am

We are crunching the numbers on both ends to figure out if waiting a year or two would make us better prepared financially. It is uncertain because even where we are now we are living at a deficit, so we need to work on that as well, part is due to high cost of living but once we start looking at moving to a lower COL place then you go through all the stresses and expenses of moving anyway so why not just direct it toward Aliyah already if we want to end up there... see what I mean? I can take on more work here (much more easily and more lucrative than in Israel) but with a predicted maternity leave coming up as well as high COL and added babysitting after the baby, it's not at all clear whether that will put us ahead at the end of the year-or-two. It's a tight call. Lots of figuring out different factors. We're working on it. One way of working on it is brainstorming whether there is any way to come up with an extra 25k NIS per year in Israel. We can use savings for some of it but not most/all as I want to have that as a cushion for UNforeseen needs.

Another factor is that my oldest kid is about to enter real-school age. So if we move now, she starts off on the right foot, whereas if we move in a couple of years that's one more thing to worry about, moving at a harder age to adapt to a new language/school system/culture/social scene. Now I worry about me but not about the kids. In two years I worry about the kids a lot more. Hebrew education here is not enough to prepare them for full immersion so the longer we spend here the more they come at a disadvantage.

Thank you for sharing the actual cost of your chug. That is even lower than I would have thought. Per hour/week, the teacher must be making practically nothing! Even if I assume that the chug is limited to 4 kids by choice and maybe she is running 3 different sessions of it for kids at different levels that is still not much at all. What's a year, a school year minus holidays? 30 weeks? Well, I guess if you run 2 groups of 4 kids like that at 2000 per year that's 16000 minus materials and babysitter, not very much but takes care of more than half of the 25000 deficit... still another half to account for but it's a start... but I don't anticipate being able to set one up right away, need to get our bearings first... ack.

So badly wish we could make this work... besides the money for just those 2 years it really seems like a great path for our family, and it's not at all clear that the money will be better in chul... well it will be better fairly sure but not better enough to put us in the black.

June

Tue, May 05 2015, 1:56 am

also, bituach leomi pays your entire hospital stay after a birth, plus they pay you about 2000 shekels just for having the baby.

however, you can only get onto bituach leomi after being in the country for 183 days. I'm not sure how it works for olim, but I've hear from non-citizen friends that if you're not yet on btl, you have to pay up front and then submit a claim for retroactive payment once you get on btl.

I'm also not sure if pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition for insurance. when I got on insurance they told me that any treatments/tests related to my pre-existing condition would not be covered. (l'maaseh, though, all my blood work, doctors visits and medicine related to my condition have been covered. )

good luck and b'shaa tova! (here or there)

Last edited by June on Tue, May 05 2015, 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total

shabbatiscoming

Tue, May 05 2015, 2:00 am

chugim can be more but you have to do it right. In our neck of the woods, there are many chugim given. And they anywhere from 120 - 200 shekels a month. My daughter went to a dance chug last year. There were at least 12 girls in the chug and it was 120 a month. And that was just one age group. So imagine doing maybe 4 groups, and the teacher also did adults, I would assume that she did make about 4 - 5 thousand shekels a month. It is doable.
Or the teacher who is running the engish chug my daughter is in. OK, this one is expensive but we wanted my daughter to have the english. She is 200 shekels a month. She has about 4 or 5 time slots with at least 5 students in each time slot. Again thats about 5000 shekels. Thats a good salary.
So, in terms of chugim you just have to work out the math and make it worth your while.

amother

Yellow

Tue, May 05 2015, 2:00 am

June wrote:

also, bituach leomi pays your entire hospital stay after a birth, plus they pay you about 2000 shekels just for having the baby.

however, you can only get onto bituach leomi after being in the country for 183 days. I'm not sure how it works for olim, but I've hear from non-citizen friends that if you're not yet on btl, you have to pay up front and then submit a claim for retroactive payment once you get on btl.

I'm also not sure if pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition for insurance. when I got on insurance they told me that any treatments/tests related to my pre-existing condition would not be covered. ('maaseh, though, all my blood work, doctors visits and medicine related to my condition have been covered. )

good luck and b'shaa tova! (here or there)

Oh no... thanks for the warning... another thing to look into...

amother

Yellow

Tue, May 05 2015, 2:16 am

Iymnok wrote:

There is a very good special Ed system here. Try to get licensed as quick as you could and learn the system. After you are in a certain number of years you can be covered by the kupah, this gets you more clients. This is in addition to working in a a school or facility.

That is a nice idea for the long term but as I said long term we will be fine, both because I could get more set up in special ed and because DH will have better opportunities then. However I need quicker ideas.

Shabbat thanks for the added chug perspective. I don't have a specialized talent like dancing, any craft I do would be more on the level of "I can probably learn how to do this well enough to teach an 8-year-old." (I happen to be artistic and skilled at these kinds of things, I'm just saying I don't have a high specialization that would make people pay premium for my chug. I think I could run an excellent art class but I don't have a degree in that.) English I'm pretty good I think, but I'm sure every fourth or so olah fancies herself an English teacher... I took exactly one credit in grad school on ESL...fwiw. I could probably pull together enough of a program but I wonder if there would be enough demand to fill all my slots.

shabbatiscoming

Tue, May 05 2015, 5:36 am

amother wrote:

Right, about english. I wouldnt do that unless you were sure and that there was a need. My daughter's english chug is them actually learning english, the letters and now to read, in books that the teacher purchased. Proper english lessons. I would assume private lessons would be very different and you would not be able to charge as much either.

Tablepoetry

Tue, May 05 2015, 3:39 pm

Chugim - it really depends on area. Big city or yeshuv, poor or rich, etc.
In my area, chugim range from 120 - 250 NIS per month, for one meeting a week (one or one and a half hours).
IME parents only send to special chugim. Nobody will send to a baking chug, they can do that at home. Stuff like ballet, karate, English, ceramics....those motivate parents to send.

Private lessons by a real English teacher run from 70-120 NIS per hour, again, depending on location (most places I know are around 100 NIS). Since you aren't really an English teacher and don't have experience with the program, I'm not sure what you could charge. Again, it really depends where you are, if there are no anglos in your area, everyone will flock to you.

You might want to look into retraining even in the first couple of years. I think they have all sorts of special programs, especially for those who wish to become English teachers. It might be a good idea to register for something, since you won't be working f/t anyway, and can go to a class here and there.