Budget - how much makes sense

amother

Bergamot

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 2:48 am

I think your first bill of 5K is probably a lot of extras that you won't see in future months now that you are aware of it, even without making drastic changes.

We are a family of 8 including a couple of teens, everyone eats supper at home, a few eat lunch at home and most eat breakfast at home or take with them. Our months food + supplies (I.e. supermarket) bill is about 5K shekels a month. We eat salmon a couple of times a month, eat chicken at least twice a week (chicken breast cutlets - much cheaper than chicken on the bone) plus meat sometimes too and are always home for shabbos. We have soup almost every night, which minimizes the amount of protein needed. Meat/poultry is fresh only, the frozen chopped chicken/turkey/meat is full of chicken fat and skin. We don't ever buy takeout or go out to eat (will buy pizza or falafel 1-3x per year), and make most things from scratch, and always have an abundance and variety of fresh fruits and veggies in the house. But I do buy things in sale or shop in the supermarket with better prices or on sale days.

I vote for monitoring your expenses for a couple of months, probably as you settle in more your need for take out will decrease, and you will have a better idea of which products you use and how much of it to buy. And then if you see that your expenses are still too high you can make changes. My guess would be that you can keep your food expenses in the 2K or so range (or even lower, if you want to go frugal), maybe up to 3K if you want more ready made food.

I also think it makes sense to think about your overall budget and financial plan. It would be good to sit down and figure out how much you want/need to save each month for the future (long term savings) and for short term - tickets to chul, vacations, etc so that you know how much is available to spend each month.

Reality

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 3:37 am

amother Mint wrote:

I froze a lot when we were a smaller family. One chicken lasted us four shabboses...

We're a family of 7 in Jerusalem, spend about 4500 at most on groceries (food and anything else you buy in a grocery store) but we buy from the less expensive places and we eat fairly healthily, so don't use anything ready made / super processed. I don't include takeout as part of grocery expenses - that goes into another category so I can track it properly. Usually me and DH get takeout once a month, and we do pizza for everyone for rosh chodesh.

Chicken/meat maybe once a week apart from shabbos - usually wings or ground turkey/beef.
Salmon only for shabbos and even then only two or three fillets for the seven of us.

I usually aim to spend maximum 25 shekels on protein for the evening meal for the seven of us, but my kids are still small - I know this will go up when I have teenagers. 25 shekels could be 5 cans of the cheaper tuna, or 500g of ground meat, three cans of beans, eggs is a cheaper protein at approx one shekel per egg, everyone eats between 2 and 3 so I usually make 20 at once...

Salmon and red meat are the most expensive healthy protein items. Other big expenses are processed or imported cereal, sauces, ready foods. We limit those. Of course kids need a lot of snacks for various school things, but you don't need that.

Track for a few months. Bear in mind your expenses will go up if your family size increases, so if you're planning to move for the longer term and planning to expand your family, take that into consideration.

Your children must eat nothing. How do seven people eat 500 grams of meat? That's one pound of meat! Your kids eat one meatball?

amother

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 4:22 am

I am going to try the following for this month and see how it goes

1. Only buy on my card so I can track it properly. I will try read my receipts to work out the cost per meal as well.

2. No more spices or sauces! Except 1 item which I've been looking for for the past few weeks (anyone knows where to buy miso?)

3. Takeout will be limited to once per week, although I'm going to try do without that as well, but since I am still settling in, I'm still finding the juggling hard. No more takeout for lunch, I need to make sure to get up on time in the morning and prepare my food.

4. I will try bake more which will make snacking cheaper.

5. The proteins for supper are staying the same, but I will pay attention to cheaper fish and chicken and will try switch over a meat for chicken meal.

6. I forgot that I buy pizza on motze shabbos but made sure not to this week! I made pasta instead and it was great and cheaper. I will do my best to keep that up! And I'm going to try make homemade pizza one day this week.

7. I will try cook with the mindset that I'm cooking for 2 days and freezing so it doesn't feel like leftovers. That will make it easier for me.

8. I like the idea of buying fresh protein and portioning it myself.

9. I will make a list and shop with that to help stop impulse purchases.

Thank you all for your ideas and help! I will let you know how it goes!

amother

Iris

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 4:30 am

amother OP wrote:

Hi, You sound like you're doing great!
Can you afford what you're spending and still put $$ away? If so, enjoy your shana rishona!
Just a couple of comments:

Re #3:Pizza and falafel can be cheap here! If you find the right stores pizza can be 25 shekel for a medium pie and falafel can be 35 shekel for 2 half pitas which is the same price as making supper from scratch. So find better priced stores don't cut your takeout if you want it!

Re #6: I'm pretty sure you are paid back for melava malka expenses (included in shabbos, yomtov, and boys tuition)

Re #8: I find it cheaper to buy meats and proteins in bulk from neighborhood sales (Mir sale, Kupah shechuna, or mishnat yosef) the portions are bigger than I would otherwise buy but I spend less on the package.
Ex. I would buy a package of 6 chicken thighs from a sale for less than I'd pay for 3 chicken thighs from the butcher. Therefore, I may have to make all 6 at once because it's frozen but I'm spending less. And then we get extra food:)

amother

Honey

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 11:54 am

amother Iris wrote:

I don't live in jlem but our prices here are pretty similar. A whole pita here is 17₪ (17 ×2 =34)

amother

Coffee

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 3:27 pm

amother OP wrote:

I have no idea at all what food would cost. Or any other expenses.
I'm trying to figure out if we could afford to move to a nicer apartment but I don't know where to go from.
I have about 8k shekel to spend on expenses aside from rent. I want that to cover utilities, transportation (public, occasional taxi based on need), food (groceries and takeout once or twice a week), gym membership, phones and any other expenses I can't think of. And I would want to have money saved each month so that I'm not stuck yom tov, vacations, flights back to family etc.
Is that realistic at all? If not, we can keep a cheaper place and have a bit more money towards the other expenses.
Do I make sense?

Didnt read the rest of the responses yet, but 8k shekel is less than $2200 which really is not alot, even without rent and kids.
I remember being a newlywed in israel for the first few years, we had minimal support, I worked full time and my husband made a kollel stipend, and we were very careful, and still moved back to the US having used most of our savings/wedding money. Money goes quickly these days no matter where you live and what your expenses are.
I would not take the more expensive apartment, especially if you plan on staying in israel longer than a few months, it wouldnt be responsible.

nylon

Sun, Dec 17 2023, 7:51 pm

I don't live in Israel but having moved countries (and knowing other people who did), always expect your groceries to be more expensive for the first few months and then go down. When you first move, you are learning -- which products are good value, what's best to spend a little more on, which stores have the best quality & prices, and so on. You're also settling in generally and more likely to splurge a bit on takeout and prepared foods while you're getting accustomed to things. So, don't be alarmed if you spend a little more than you would have expected as yet. If, in six months, your budget hasn't gone down, then you need to take a serious look. In the meantime do keep records of things -- what prices you are getting, products you like, what was a good bargain, what meals that work or don't work now that you're somewhere new. In the initial period you are going to have some waste too, like buying a brand of pasta sauce and finding you hate it and have to throw the rest out. After a few trips you figure out which brand is the good one but maybe it takes 3 trips to find which one is to your taste.

amother

Fri, Dec 22 2023, 8:59 am

Just to update you all I've had a very successful week!
I haven't looked at my cc bill yet, I'll only do that at the end of the month. But this week I was really really careful and it wasn't so hard!
I didn't buy any takeout at all. Not sure if I'll manage that every week but I'm happy I managed.
1 day was leftovers that I had in the freezer - it actaully was 2 portions.
1 day a cheaper white fish that I liked.
1 day chicken
1 day ground meat
1 day homemade pizza.
And I held myself back from buying something cool that I wanted. If I still want it in a few weeks I'll buy it but for now I'm doing without.
Thank you all for your help and good shabbos!

amother

Fri, Dec 22 2023, 9:00 am

amother Iris wrote:

What is kupah shechuna and mishnat yosef?

amother

Cerise

Sat, Dec 23 2023, 1:54 pm

amother OP wrote:

What is kupah shechuna and mishnat yosef?

They are cheaper sales where you call in/ register online and place your order. It comes to a central drop off point near your house to pick up. It's a substantial saving. I have a big family kah so I don't know how much you'd save but I could easily save 300 a week. Be warned, once you order you have to take - my experience with the fruit there is very mixed and I prefer to spend a bit more to choose it myself. But eg potatoes in the supermarket were 4.90 this week, on mishnatyosef they were 3.50. For 2 people it might not be as much but I buy 20 kg a week so it adds up.

amother

Sun, Jan 14 2024, 12:55 pm

I just worked out this months expenses and it's been a lot better!
I spent about 3200 on food this month which I'm very happy about! Did some takeout although less than the month before. We were invited out for most Shabbos meals (although last month was like that as well) and I used some proteins I had in my freezer that I paid for last month. So I guess next month will be a bit more expensive because of stocking up on proteins again.

I also worked out what each protein costs me per portion which was interesting to see but I don't think I'll be making changes as I need variety. Chicken was the cheapest but I am also using fish and ground beef with occasionally regular beef. I saw that frozen salmon is significantly cheaper than fresh and it still tastes good so that change will stay.

Thank you all for your help!

amother

Outerspace

Sat, Jan 20 2024, 1:58 pm

awesome.

I also found the first few months I moved in, supper was much more stressful and I bought takeout a lot more, we wouldnt have had dinner otherwise...

once I got into a good groove takeout happened by mistake much less often.

a big saver for me, was to do a big grocery stock once a month in one of the cheaper groceries, and only get dairy and vegetables at a smaller grocery.

yes by the end of the month it sometimes feels like erev pesach, but instead of buying all new ingredients for dinner, I use what I already have.

also a first stock up is always a lot....

lostmyoldSN

Sat, Jan 20 2024, 2:15 pm

amother Outerspace wrote:

Good advice but you need space for that which I'm guessing she doesn't have.