2 incomes and still not making it

mha3484

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 1:00 pm

Responding to blonde amother. If you eat anything with an OU-D for example not pas or chalav yisroel or specific hasgachas meat will be your biggest expense. Some dairy is available from the major non kosher brands like yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream, kraft string cheese now has an OU. So some cheeses you might want or need to buy from the kosher companies but more and more seem to be available at the same price the non kosher consumer pays. Meat is an entirely different story.

amother

Saddlebrown

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 1:59 pm

amother wrote:

I disagree. Being frum means living in a frum community. You can't just go and live in isolation in a remote, rural place where accommodation is cheaper. Frum communities are very expensive to live in and OP has already left NJ and moved to a more affordable place. Even the less expensive OOT communities are still expensive to live in in comparison to what else is out there. Methodists or atheists could chose to live in much cheaper places without compromising their ideology.

Furthermore, OP has stated that her husbands income depends on being in a sizeable Jewish community. It appears that a small community which may be less costly to live in, would not work with his job.

OP, how long have you got left of your lease? As others have already said, it appears that your rent is the thing you need to cut back on. I think you said there are cheaper places available so can you scrape by for now and get a cheaper place at the earliest opportunity or are those places not suitable for your family? Do you or your husband have any prospects of increasing your incomes in the near future?

You're smart to send to public school.

By the way, does kosher really cost the same as non-kosher in the US? I'm in Europe and meat and dairy costs 3 times as much and wine is like 10 times more. Other kosher food is way more expensive too.

Op here: yes, I think my personal expenses are not increased bc we keep a kosher lifestyle. In full disclosure we very rarely buy meat/ chicken (we all prefer dairy) and no one eats fish. We do but some soy products but we eat very health consciously so we save a lot in this area. Obviously someone who relies on meat and chicken is not as fortunate with food costs. Both my children eat all kinds of vegetables and fruit and do not enjoy packaged foods. We will also eat vegan out so we do not have to only eat in a kosher restaurant on the very rare occasion we go out.

We still have about 18 months on our lease. I hope my salary will increase although to what amount I am not sure. My job does have very good benefits so leaving really isn't an option. Not to mention, I enjoy what I do even though the money isn't wonderful.

We buy mostly in trader joes and I find most stuff is kosher. If I can't find it, I really do just make it. I am not sure what additional food costs a person who holds by mainstream hashgachat would have except chicken/ meat and I know those are very expensive.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:17 pm

OK, yes.

If there were a group of husbands who had jobs that could be done at home, remotely, with only occasional commuting to an office, a group of Jewish families could colonize a cheaper town all together, all at once, in an area normally considered "too far away".

By starting their own Jewish Community, they could live more cheaply. They would bring their minyan with them, and move next door to an existing mikvah.

They would look on the website "Mikvah dot org" to find one.

The landscape is dotted with remains of once strong Jewish communities that still have a mikvah and even a pretty old synagogue.

These towns are now iffy and rust-belt like. And cheap.

Kosher meat is available online, or there could be occasional a food runs to an established community. A freezer truck, maybe.

They would home-school.

They would have Jewish communal life and cheap rents.

They would have to identify several such places, to choose among them. They would have to be on good terms with the local authorities; they would meet with them before moving there.

They might live in one building or buy houses close together. The main thing is the mikvah.

Mikvahs are hard to make. So you find an existing one. It will need sprucing up, but it's there and it's kosher.

Everything else about Jewish life, if you have a group of families, can be done anywhere, anywhere at all.

You do need sufficient numbers, and they have to get along with each other.

There might be a group van driving to the nearest city, every morning, with Shakris davened on board. To the jobs.

Yes. Kosher meat is indeed available online, starting with Amazon, and there are other sources.

They would need a clinic and a dentist. These things can be arranged.

Last edited by Dolly Welsh on Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

Amarante

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:19 pm

amother wrote:

Not to really digress, but I think many secular people in the middle middle class also don't realistically have the ability to move to a cheap rural community. People want to live where their family is - or they want to be within reasonable commuting distance of their jobs.

And many secular middle middle class people need to live in areas which have excellent public school systems which means that housing prices are high and that real estate taxes are also generally higher because good schools cost money. Homes in areas of NJ which are considered to be a reasonable commute from NYC and which have good school systems have paralyzing high real estate taxes.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:24 pm

Yes.

That is why moving in a body somewhere cheaper, and home schooling (until you get a cheder going, or whatever yeshiva you want to organize) is an idea.

The secular middle class people you mention don't have our vision and they like nice lawns. They can't imagine living nourished by each other and by a religion, where there aren't any nice lawns.

There are a lot of ways of not having to go to an office every single day.

Schooling children of various ages does not necessarily require a nice building used only for that purpose with different rooms for different ages. Those things are nice, but the one room school house produced many presidents. You can stagger schedules. You can get it done, as long as you have a place to sit and talk that is quiet, some books and a blackboard.

You can daven in somebody's living room.

Dedicated, one-use spaces are nice but one can do it another way.

Don't make too charming a community; you want to keep the rents low.

The main things are the mikvah and working remotely, or commuting in a van and staying overnight at the home of a city contact. In a body. Perhaps on air mattresses.

It is better to have more children and less grass. Candidly, nobody can afford grass anymore.

wispalover

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:41 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

Dolly- a mattress? More children and less grass? Have you been uhhhh... Smoking some grass? Really this is so odd. We are dealing w similar issues as OP and this is just such a bizarre statement.

How will more children help? I might be missing something.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 2:52 pm

I am not saying how many children people should have. I am only taking about the children they have already.

Once a couple has any children at all, any at all, even one, and they don't home school, and most don't, they are going to be wondering how to survive. As noted upthread, nice school districts bring crushing taxes.

The air mattresses were one possible way for husbands to live and work far apart. I was assuming a husband had to go to meetings in a city occasionally. To keep costs down, I was putting him to sleep for one night on an air mattress at a friend's house. I was thinking there might be a few such husbands, all occasionally sleeping at the house of a city contact, who was a fellow frum Jew and in sympathy with the community that moved away.

Do not panic about that one detail.

As I said there are ways to work remotely, and if you can't, there are ways to commute occasionally, not every single day.

ALL your husbands have worked from home when they were sick. You saw them on their phones and screens. That can't be done every day, necessarily, but maybe some of the time.

This needs a GROUP. A minyan. Near an existing mikvah. The group and the mikvah, the group and the mikvah: that's all you need. The mikvah is easy. There are lots of them.

The group is hard.

You lot don't get along with each other easily. You fight over where to put the fork on the table. "Mother always put it on the left side," you assert. Three Jews, four opinions. Blah blah.

I don't care if you start an Imamother Frumplace, and name it "Yael".

Figure it out!

Amarante

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 3:32 pm

Without bringing this discussion far afield, most people have no desire to live on air mattresses in remote communities unless they are members of a sect. :-)

There are lots of extreme ways people have chosen to drop out of the system - I am sure there are still some communes scratching out an existence around Santa Cruz :-)

But that has nothing to do with how most normal middle middle class people in the US and Europe want to live - whether they are frum or sectarian.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 3:47 pm

Forget the air mattresses. I proposed people live quite decently in homes or apartments, much in the style of Brooklyn, New York.

Just in a further away area, which would make their husbands have to work remotely and commute occasionally.

This fixating on air mattresses is ridiculous. It was a possibility for the husbands only, never the wives, who might have to spend one overnight occasionally with a contact in the city where the jobs were.

In case anybody cares, there are inflatable beds now that are normal height and as comfortable as any other bed.

But that wasn't the point. I see the terror of leaving the usual upscale high tax areas. Well, it would take some guts, but it might be an idea. The more central an area is, the more it costs. People are quite literally exchanging children for location. There are human beings who are not getting born because their parents have been taxed into sterility. This can be addressed. People count for more than that.

Not every man can move. But some might. It's worth thinking about.

Many women here do indeed already make money at home one way or another, over the internet, investing, transcribing or who knows what. They can live anywhere there's a mikvah and a minyan.

What I am discussing is NOT dropping out of the system. Not at all. I am not talking about a commune. Everybody would own his own home as usual.

I am talking about making mini-Brooklyns. There aren't any communes in Brooklyn.

I am talking about moving to less desirable, less central, but quite functional smaller cities and towns, where normal police, fire and traffic services are available. Yes, normal life, as you say. Just not where you are used to being. Certainly not some commune in the woods.

As you would be buying a lot online, it would be somewhere the UPS man could find easily, and went to daily.

The rewards would be - 1) not being in agony about finances, and 2) having more children if you wanted them.

You could simply wonder if you wanted more children, not if you could afford them. Without huge tuition and real estate costs, another child would just cost his food and clothes. That might be refreshing.

There is simply too much financial pain out there. This might help.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 4:25 pm

You are a physician, Frumdoc. Your work isn't done remotely. Your view is skewed by your own experience. There are plenty of people who work remotely a lot of the time.

Each situation would vary. Many fathers aren't home all the time even in central areas; many fathers are away for a day here and there, or a few days here and there.

You are correct that families whose children need special educational services couldn't do this. Others might.

To be out of financial agony, a woman might put up with and adapt to some things, such as her husband's absence sometimes or even a lot.

I am all for the established Jewish communities but this can be another way to make new ones. The established communities had birthdays. They don't date from the before Columbus. Somebody STARTED those communities, once upon a time. Well, maybe that can happen again.

We can't forget the skills needed to start new communities.

And this is about reviving OLD ones. An existing mikvah was the starting point.

Jews lived there already. The mikvah is proof of that. These communities are ALREADY rather near cities.

They are NEAR larger cities. Some ARE cities, just second tier ones.

You would be exchanging one set of difficulties for another, but you might not deplete your savings and run up your credit cards.

Financial stresses damage marriages.

The women would have to be friends. Good friends. From Imamother, maybe.

wispalover

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 4:51 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

Like a cult or a commune? I think those kind of lifestyles exist already. Lev Tahor, anyone?
Hey, maybe let's bring back polygamy and then the women can have sister wives who work and the ones who are maternal can watch all the kids. Only one husband who leaves just for one night and the women can all get a rest at least once a week too. Dolly, you've hit the jackpot with this idea.

Frumdoc

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 5:23 pm

Obviously I'm not thinking of my workplace, which is clearly not doable from home, rather lawyers, large businesses, stock traders, bankers who you suggest should travel to NY once a week and sleep on air mattresses ;-)

Although it is possible to work in some of these jobs part time from home I recall reading articles about how this inhibits career progression, because if you're not seen to be present in the office, no one knows what you can do unless they are working directly with you.

Networking is enormously important in these type of jobs, and is one suggested reason for the glass ceiling in many large city businesses. Maternity leave and women working part time from home after having children stops them getting known and climbing that ladder.

This is what I'm referring to. I can think outside the hospital setting as a workplace, believe it or not!

amother

Burlywood

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 9:22 pm

I'm having a hard time understanding OP. Dh and I both work also, and make similar amount. We have four kids in Jewish school, two kids get a tuition break b/c of our income (not an MO school). We keep Chalav Yisrael which adds up. Cleaning help once in a while, no vacations, no nails done, no new clothes for me etc. Yet it wouldn't occur to me to stop having kids purely for financial reasons (of course if a working mother couldn't handle it that makes a lot of sense). After all, we do have food on our table, and can afford gas for our cars, and cheap health insurance. We are living tightly, so if one thing goes wrong, everything will snap - so I'm not saying to just have more kids. But we get through the day, week, month. This is not CH"v meant to be judgemental, but rather I am just scratching my head. How is it that I'm "making it" through the month and OP is not?

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 9:30 pm

Wispalover, maybe normal nice people can do what nutty people do, just without being nutty?

Does every close-knit community have to be nutty? I am talking about making mini-Brooklyns. Brooklyn is full of close-knit communities that aren't nutty or culty or polygamous or living in communes.

Frumdoc, I see your point, but going bankrupt doesn't help your career either. What a man would sacrifice in office visibility might be offset by what he gained by being able to pay for his life. We have people here who are running down their savings, running up their credit cards, public schooling their kids, limiting births altogether, and generally feeling unhappy, living where they are.

Without some other way of having Jewish life, Jewish life might become just for the quite successful. A luxury good.

Some kind of distance working is probably going to have to happen, one way or another, like it or not.

It's not new. People have always schlepped.

Exactly how far from a job to move, and how to get people around you nearby so you can have a meaningful life, varies from case to case.

I understand the desire to have it all.

But if one can't, one has to figure out what to choose.

These are hard times; they will be easier to bear with unity and community.

amother

Saddlebrown

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 10:22 pm

amother wrote:

Op here: I think I may have mis-titled my post. I didn't mean to imply we aren't making it through the month, I meant there is not a lot of room (or any room) for extras.
First I pay 10k for my child's daycare- how much is your tuition if you don't mind me asking?
Second we pay a lot in rent and we had to buy a car after our car died recently so we are making payments on that.

I guess my priorities are different from yours as well. I can't have kids just to keep having; I want to live a "good life" with them and I want to be able to take vacations, I'd like to go to Florida for pesach and I'd just like not to worry about paying various bills. For example, I'm already worried about our winter heating bill- you might qualify for LIHEAp or similar (not saying you take it cause I have no idea) whereas we definitely don't.

Before and after care costs for DC also add up to about $400/month. Throw in some shul fees, regular utility bills, car insurance, cable etc and we've basically spent all our income. We also have a TV and we do pay for cable, so that's also an expense others might not have....

TeachersNotebook

Tue, Aug 04 2015, 10:24 pm

This is so interesting. I think whether or not you're "making it" depends completely on your attitude. There are quite a few posters here in similar situations. Some of them are like, "Most of our expenses are paid, so I'm not living with a lot of leeway, but I'm good." And others are like, "Most of our expenses are paid, but I'm not living with a lot of leeway, and this is not the lifestyle I envisioned."
Finding ways to cut expenses and/or increase income are always helpful for us middle-classers, but maybe a change in expectations, values, attitudes, and thought processes can also help us cope.

DrMom

Wed, Aug 05 2015, 2:51 am

amother wrote:

Obviously it isn't a great salary. Hopefully there will be increases, but who knows for sure. Even if we did choose poorly with professions, once you hit 35+ you don't have the luxury of deciding to try your hand at something else (even tho I wish my DH would).. You have to make the best w what you have.

That's not really true... you may not have the luxury of transitioning to something completely different (schoolteacher --> investment banker/nuclear physicist/rock star), but you may be able to transition to a related career (schoolteacher --> marketing in child-related company/educational software/etc.).

My son attended a summer program run by a very capable women who used to be an administrative assistant in high tech. She decided she was basically functioning as a caretaker for her department employees, who seemed rather helpless without her. She decided she could easily put these "administrative" skills to good use, and have more run, running art workshops and classes for small children, who also need a lot of attention and help with many details. She is quite successful now.

We have a project manager in marketing here where I work who started off as a high school teacher in language arts. He transitioned to marketing, leveraging his excellent communication skills.

Perhaps you and/or your DH can "think out of the box" and find ways to leverage the skills and experience you possess to transition to higher-paying careers.

amother

Crimson

Fri, Aug 07 2015, 5:06 pm

Dolly Welsh wrote:

Crimson, there is a thriving Torah Home Schooling movement; a little googling will turn it up. There are many threads here about it. There are members here who do it. It suits some situations and not others. But people do it. There's a lot of that in Chabad Sheliach families who often are not near frum schools. They have a website for boys and a website for girls.

I work full time and my personality is not cut out for teaching my kids at home. I would mess them up emotionally.