Budget for Young Working Girl

imaima

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 7:40 am

amother wrote:

I am looking for advice on how DD and I can create a reasonable budget. DH feels we should cover her clothing costs so she can save all her income towards her future. However I feel that giving her a credit cards makes her somewhat oblivious to costs.

Sitting down with my credit card for the past (almost) 2 years since she finished school, she has spent around $5500 on clothing, shoes, makeup & facials, hosiery etc. My feeling is that we should pay for a reasonable amount & let her pay for anything over that. Even though the budget below is about $3k, of course I am hoping some things last more than one season (boots? coat?) but she claims many shells and tops don't last more than one season.

She does not have expensive taste but finds it very difficult to find clothing she likes, so sometimes, if desperate (e.g. date the next day), she spends more than usual. I'm encouraging her to plan ahead a bit! She tries the Jewish stores but also looks for sales in the malls and outlets.

Here's a sample budget we came up with. If you are a shopper in expensive stores, your experience will probably not apply to us.

I also suggested that even if you find a stunning very summery (e.g. white lace) top for Shabbos or chasunahs, or a very well-priced dark velvet for winter, you should try to get mostly all-season items so you won't need so many different items. I also mentioned that in my day, by the 3rd date if you ran out of Shabbos clothing you borrowed from a friend! But her friends don't have her taste in clothing!

So, please tell me if you have comments on our proposed budget (not on the fact we have it!)

Spring/Summer # of items/Avg cost/Annual cost
Weekday tops 6 30 180
Shabbos top 2 60 120
Shells 6 18 108
Skirts 4 60 240
Shabbos skirt 1 60 60
Wedding skirt 1 65 65
Wedding top 2 50 100
Heels 1 75 75
Shabbos shoes 1 50 50
Weekday shoes 1 50 50
Dating outfits 3 50 150

Fall/Winter
Winter Weekday 6 30 180
Shabbos top 2 60 120
Shells 6 18 108
Shabbos skirt 1 60 60
Heels 1 75 75
Shabbos shoes 1 40 40
Weekday shoes 1 40 40
Dating outfits 3 50 150
Weekday coat 1 50 50
Shabbos coat 1 120 120
Boots 1 100 100
Annual
Tights 30 7 210
Makeup 2 50 100
Facials 4 60 240
Skin products 2 120 240

Total 3031

I may be ignorant, but what's wrong with wearing weekday clothes on a date? Is there a point in a guy's life when he gets to see the girl wearing casual clothes?

Isramom8

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 10:15 am

We have a young single working daughter. She gets to live at home rent free, free food, a small bedroom of her own and a room to use for her at-home work (unless guests need it to sleep). Other than that, she needs to behave as an adult and budget for her clothing, transportation, coffee and snacks outside the house, gifts for friends' simchas, etc.

She usually does her own laundry. She has her own key and no curfew, but she lets us know if she will be home late. She doesn't have to tell us where she's going, but she usually does. She is completely on board with this, which is why it works, and it's a pleasure having her live at home.

Amarante

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 10:52 am

I am finding the responses quite interesting as they are so all over the place. LOL

Not enough. Too much. Very reasonable.

I personally don't find the number of clothes nor the amount being spent for a woman in the working/dating world to be outrageous. In my experience, there are a lot of expenses when one first starts working because generally one's clothing needs are different.

It seems as though the parents can well afford the amount and whether the parents pay for it or whether they "save" the money for their daughter really doesn't matter in the end.

I don't think there is any standard "budget" to spend on clothing because it really depends on what a person's income is and also lifestyle.

I do think that a young unmarried working woman NEEDS to spend more money on clothing than a woman at a different stage in her life because it's much more critical.

SRS

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 11:51 am

OP, when I opened this up I had a different impression of what would be discussed. I have some unsolicited advice. Young people should use cash and checks for spending and never credit cards. Additionally, her budget should be practice for adult life. If she isn't paying rent to you, she should be saving what rent would cost for a single lady. That amount could be what would be spent living in a studio or 1 bedroom alone or as part of a group arrangement, but she should be learning what real life is. She should mostly be paying for her own food so she can learn to budget food. Clothing is something that comes after that and it should never be a central part of an adult budget. Rent, food/pharmacy, savings, gas, insurance, and after all of that fun money and clothing.

The idea that someone will just "adjust" to kollel budgets is ludicrous. Or at the very least, if one lives in reality, it will be easier to continue to live in a state of reality is your spending isn't pulled out from underneath you.

amother

Cerulean

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 1:55 pm

mommy2b2c wrote:

To me it sounds like very little clothes at very cheap prices, but if she is happy with that and you are happy with that, then why not? The point is, you are teaching her how to budget and that money doesn't grow on trees.

I agree. I think that she does budget herself very carefully.
The question is who should pay for it, especially if she works.
I think your DH is right, in allowing her to save as much as she can now.
If it's not difficult for you, then pay for her expenses. She doesn't seem to have extravagant taste, or high maintenance. As far as concern, after marriage. Make sure she goes into marriage prepared with enough clothes, for at least 1 yr, 2 seasons. Its not fair to the DH to have to buy her shoes ( or anything) 1 month into marriage.
My DIL, did not come into marriage prepared. She brought enough clothes as if she is going on a 1 week vacation. This caused ALOT of SB problems. At the end, we had to give her $1,500 on a gift card to buy herself even basics. This was the suggestion of aRav.

Shoelover

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 3:30 pm

I find that more expensive and better quality stuff can last for a few years so you don't have to keep buying them every season. My shabbos coat was a little more than $1,000 and its 5/6 years old and still in brand new condition. Depending on how a person wears their shoes those can also last a while. I have shoes that are ten years old in great condition (prada, ferragamo, crocs, Tory burch). I'd rather invest in w piece than get ten cheap new tops. Why is your daughter wearing shabbos outfits on dates?

SRS

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 4:14 pm

amother wrote:

The question is who should pay for it, especially if she works.
I think your DH is right, in allowing her to save as much as she can now.
If it's not difficult for you, then pay for her expenses. She doesn't seem to have extravagant taste, or high maintenance. As far as concern, after marriage. Make sure she goes into marriage prepared with enough clothes, for at least 1 yr, 2 seasons. Its not fair to the DH to have to buy her shoes ( or anything) 1 month into marriage. .
My DIL, did not come into marriage prepared. She brought enough clothes as if she is going on a 1 week vacation. This caused ALOT of SB problems. At the end, we had to give her $1,500 on a gift card to buy herself even basics. This was the suggestion of aRav.

No wonder frum adult children get turned into the government. It is always easy to spend someone else's money! I think adults are better served by making and spending their own money and getting their feet wet as to what it is like to live like an adult and let the parents gift them some savings upon marriage if they so desire. There is something so valuable when a young adult sits down and makes choices like do I get a cell phone? (ok, I'm dating myself) or should I go to this hair studio or the beauty college?

OP, I'm enjoying the responses and understand there are some cultural differences, but you have to ask yourself, if you had no culture and could adopt bits and pieces of other cultures, whose financial habits would you want to emulate?

I am guessing that a lot of the issue here is that clothing occupies a very central place that doesn't exist in the general world or the modern Orthodox world (with a lower case m) where people just gradually add clothing to their wardrobe as they pass through different stages. High school kids have more casual clothing and some formal clothing and as they interview for jobs and internships during college they start to purchase more business appropriate attire, eventually having less casual and more business attire, and then during marriage and raising children, some of the business suits end up in the back of the closet exchanged for more more comfortable clothing for chasing after kids on trikes.

And what is this idea "the husband has to buy her". . . no wonder we have some pretty self-centered husbands featured weekly in the Shalom Bayis section who have not a clue. Mommy and Daddy took care of everything down to multiple thousands of dollars of wedding gifts and then the wife needs some shoes and all of a sudden the husband gets to experience sticker shock because he doesn't have an inkling as to the cost of a bag of rice, much less some shoes.

SRS

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 4:18 pm

Shoelover wrote:

I have no problem with people who can afford spending on pieces they like, but, please, let's not call them "investments." They are not. They are expendables.

A financial book I picked up once has as rule #1 of household finances: If it is on your A** is it not an asset.

Bingo!

amother

Rose

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 4:20 pm

In our circles one wears Shabbos clothing for the first 4-5 dates.
Plus if you have two or three chasunos/vorts in a week, you can't be seen wearing the same thing (even if it's one black lace top and then another black lace top...)

To be precise, we have only had one series of dates in winter (she was only officially in shidduchim for less than a year), for which we were not prepared (she had maybe 2 Shabbos tops) so there was desperation and mad shopping for prices that we would not normally pay. We are hoping she'll have someone to date (hopefully the right one!) in the summer so we're trying to be prepared.

I'm using average figures for most items e.g. sometimes you can find shoes for $30 and sometimes you have to spend $100. (Really? I've never done that, I don't think, but then I'm an old fuddy-duddy.)

But, you know what? I was looking around at a chasunah & said, basically these girls are all wearing short-sleeved t-shirts in nice fabrics, with a zipper. So I can sew that in a couple of hours, if we can find fabric that DD likes. So we're going to try that next week.

For that matter, a flarey skirt isn't too hard to make either.

So we seem to come to the conclusion that I will give her $175 per month & DH will chip in another $75 (because I mostly pay for clothing etc & he covers other types of expenses) and anything more she can dip into her own paycheck. I think this is a fair compromise.

OOTforlife

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 5:24 pm

SRS wrote:

I'm sure she didn't mean that the nicer clothes were going to be yielding income. Google's dictionary lists an "informal" meaning of "invest" as "buy something whose usefulness will repay the cost" and I'm pretty sure that was Shoe lover's point.

Barbara

Fri, Jun 19 2015, 5:37 pm

SRS wrote:

I think that we all understood what she meant. You can purchase "disposable" clothing, that will tear or pull or be stretched out of shape after only a few wearings, and then replace it. Or you can purchase well-made pieces that can be worn for years and that, while more expensive to purchase, are often less expensive per wearing.

IMNSHO, there's room for both in a wardrobe. Trendy items are purchased inexpensively. Classics are higher quality.

imaima

Sat, Jun 20 2015, 9:56 pm

amother wrote:

And it is a problem because? I guess you get carried away. Are you living in the Stone Age? Did you expect her to come into marriage shlepping a suitcase of stocking to lqst her for a year? And what if she OMG has a baby within this first year of marriage, should she have been prepared for this too, so you son, chas veshalom, doesn'r get to fulfil the obligation from the ketubah at all?

Where is you son in this, where is his money? In fact, you should be keeping your nose out of their spending, as they are now a separate family with their own budget.
A young newly married woman doesn't have to beg to get a new pair of knickers. It is so degrading.

amother

Cerulean

Sat, Jun 20 2015, 11:06 pm

imaima wrote:

OTH coming into marriage with 2 skirts 4 tops and 2 shabbat outfits is not normal either. We, DH and I support this young couple, so the obligation, that was suppose to be her parents, fell on us. So we gave her $1500 gift card to spend how she pleases. No one had to beg for anything. Don't judge if you don't know the entire story.

imaima

Sat, Jun 20 2015, 11:38 pm

amother wrote:

This obligation has been on your son not on her parents. Whatever is acquired in marriage falls on him.

Why do you say then that it caused a lot of sb problems, if you were so generous right away? Why did the rav have to impose it?

You are not telling all of the story and then expect me to know the details.