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How does everyone do it ?
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amother
Amber


 

Post Sun, Apr 15 2018, 8:57 pm
Dh and I each got trust funds. One was used to buy a house, the other, we don’t touch the principal the interest we use for Sheitels, vacation, or unexpected expenses we can’t cover with our monthly money. But stocks (mutual funds) have been doing VERY well lately, so this isn’t necessarily a good time to use as an example- results not typical lol. We are low income, we Don’t get earned income credit (because of the investments, we’re not eligible) were eligible for govt health insurance but nothing else because we record all our money. Dh and I both work, and well probably be pumped off insurance soon Sad

P. S. We have a Shmattah car and rarely buy clothing - hand me downs from relatives, etc. - because we don’t want to touch invested money. We believe that’s where the magic lies. So the idea is to live beneath our means and hopefully save to invest. (Easier said than done)
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flowerpower




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 12:30 am
Many people do not do it. Trust me. Many people I know shop sale items only, shop at the cheapest supermarket, and not all are sending their kids to day camp all summer.

One perSon I know is a kollel wife. She gets expensive hand me downs from a sil. People see her kids wearing Mona Lisa clothes and probably judge away.
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amother
Papaya


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 12:53 am
Help from others and just saying no to things.

We have 7 kids KA"H and are making in the $60k a year range. We give maaser because honestly we see that when we don't we end up with less in the end. (Tried and tested for us...)

We are on mostly full scholarship for tuition (I barter some work for the school).
We have Medicaid, although we B"H rarely use it, it's there mainly in case of emergency ch"v.
We live OOT so rent is cheaper.
We are in about $10k of debt, most of it from a few years ago.
We get $80 of food stamps a month.
We very rarely buy clothing.
We drive a really old beat up car and put in the minimum we need to make it run.
DH works 4 part-time jobs which add up to more than a full-time job (they pay well per hour for this area)
I work part time from home.
Things don't get replaced when they are broken, they get replaced when they become necessities.
Prizes for the kids are usually dollar store.
I bake my own challah, sometimes my own bread.
We eat pareve more often than fleishigs or milchigs.
Kids are home all summer unless we get a grant to send some of the older kids to camp.
Tax returns this year were $1500.

We don't get much help from family, maybe $500 or so a year.

Nobody thinks we're living it up, but we are B"H managing.
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amother
Blush


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 12:56 am
amother wrote:
Lol about stores. Yes, decisions have to made together. And in our case they are. But my husband knows more about investing than I do. What I mean is if he wasn’t on the lookout for ideas, it would be tough. Does that make sense?


Sure. In your family it makes sense. Some women are actually a lot better at ‘investing’ than their husbands.
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amother
Purple


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 7:02 am
Lots of you say you know people who keep their kids home for the summer instead of day camp . I only know one person who is doing that .
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keym




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:47 am
I know many people who keep kids home for all or half the summer. 80% of the people I know who send to camp, work through the summer (or at least the half they send their kids for).
When people talk about keeping their kids home, do they mean not sleep away camp but instead day camp, or do one of the parents not work?
Because many people have suggested I not send my kids to camp as a way to save money, but what should I do with my 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr olds for an 11 week summer while both my husband and I work.
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amother
Violet


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 8:59 am
amother wrote:
Help from others and just saying no to things.

We have 7 kids KA"H and are making in the $60k a year range. We give maaser because honestly we see that when we don't we end up with less in the end. (Tried and tested for us...)

We are on mostly full scholarship for tuition (I barter some work for the school).
We have Medicaid, although we B"H rarely use it, it's there mainly in case of emergency ch"v.
We live OOT so rent is cheaper.
We are in about $10k of debt, most of it from a few years ago.
We get $80 of food stamps a month.
We very rarely buy clothing.
We drive a really old beat up car and put in the minimum we need to make it run.
DH works 4 part-time jobs which add up to more than a full-time job (they pay well per hour for this area)
I work part time from home.
Things don't get replaced when they are broken, they get replaced when they become necessities.
Prizes for the kids are usually dollar store.
I bake my own challah, sometimes my own bread.
We eat pareve more often than fleishigs or milchigs.
Kids are home all summer unless we get a grant to send some of the older kids to camp.
Tax returns this year were $1500.

We don't get much help from family, maybe $500 or so a year.

Nobody thinks we're living it up, but we are B"H managing.



Wow! I have to say I am very impressed you are able to raise 7 children on 60K income
I don’t know about others , but I certainly wouldn’t be able to
Good for you !
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amother
Violet


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:08 am
keym wrote:
I know many people who keep kids home for all or half the summer. 80% of the people I know who send to camp, work through the summer (or at least the half they send their kids for).
When people talk about keeping their kids home, do they mean not sleep away camp but instead day camp, or do one of the parents not work?
Because many people have suggested I not send my kids to camp as a way to save money, but what should I do with my 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr olds for an 11 week summer while both my husband and I work.


I have a question not to you in particular but in general about camp. Why do people find it so much more expensive than tuition. Let’s say tuition per a child per a month is about 1,200. If there was such a thing as school in the summer than for 2 months I would be paying roughly 2400. In the summer, camp for a child will cost me about 1700 for I think 7 weeks. So I feel like camp is way cheaper than paying tuition. Am I the only one that thinks that.?
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thunderstorm




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:12 am
amother wrote:
I have a question not to you in particular but in general about camp. Why do people find it so much more expensive than tuition. Let’s say tuition per a child per a month is about 1,200. If there was such a thing as school in the summer than for 2 months I would be paying roughly 2400. In the summer, camp for a child will cost me about 1700 for I think 7 weeks. So I feel like camp is way cheaper than paying tuition. Am I the only one that thinks that.?

In some schools you pay 12 months tuition with daycamp on top of that.
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amother
Blush


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 9:14 am
amother wrote:
I have a question not to you in particular but in general about camp. Why do people find it so much more expensive than tuition. Let’s say tuition per a child per a month is about 1,200. If there was such a thing as school in the summer than for 2 months I would be paying roughly 2400. In the summer, camp for a child will cost me about 1700 for I think 7 weeks. So I feel like camp is way cheaper than paying tuition. Am I the only one that thinks that.?


Some parents pay tuition in 12 payments over the year. So camp equals an extra cost.
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keym




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 10:00 am
I live in Lakewood.
Average tuition for my girls is $470/month. For 10 months.!
Camp for 9-14 yr old girls average $650-$750/month plus paying transportation- $100/month.
Boys average $500/month for 12 months. Plus $200 for the first half camp session (they have cheder camp- mandatory) then second half costs $650-$700.
Thats extra money no matter how you look at it.
Plus camp payments usually are due just when the registration is due.
My 3 yr old sons playgroup costs $350/month 9-3:30.
Daycamp runs $90/week. Same hours. So the nine weeks cost $700 during the year and $810 during the summer. This a backyard camp.
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tovasara




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 10:38 am
I haven't read everyones replies but I skimmed them. I am joining the ranks of those who are also not doing it. I make a huge effort to shop in reasonably priced stored, even though it is time consuming and not convenient. We have professional salaries and get very little tuition discounts. we make do with few extras.
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Zehava




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 11:10 am
I feel like most people here responding aren’t chassidish. Anyone here chassidish would mind adding your two cents? In every chassidish in town community I know the real estate is sky rocketing and most stores sell designer clothes. How do you afford it?
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pause




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 11:19 am
Zehava wrote:
I feel like most people here responding aren’t chassidish. Anyone here chassidish would mind adding your two cents? In every chassidish in town community I know the real estate is sky rocketing and most stores sell designer clothes. How do you afford it?

We'll talk in the CV... Wink
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Chayalle




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 11:37 am
keym wrote:
I know many people who keep kids home for all or half the summer. 80% of the people I know who send to camp, work through the summer (or at least the half they send their kids for).
When people talk about keeping their kids home, do they mean not sleep away camp but instead day camp, or do one of the parents not work?
Because many people have suggested I not send my kids to camp as a way to save money, but what should I do with my 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr olds for an 11 week summer while both my husband and I work.


It has to be that one of the parents is not working.

I've always had to send my kids to daycamp, because I work. I do work from home, but I need to be able to put in the hours. At a certain age, and depending on the child's personality, I can sometimes keep a child home for 1/2 summer as long as they keep busy and let me work. But it doesn't work out with every child, and it wouldn't work for a whole summer - they would get bored and need me to entertain them, and then I wouldn't be able to work.

After two summers of DD kvetching by the time 2nd half rolls around (she loves daycamp first half, but by the time 2nd half comes she's had it with the structure and bored of the same activities over and over) paying tons of $$$ and having to coax her onto the bus in the morning, I'm keeping her home 2nd half this coming summer B"EH. I don't expect it to work out for the whole half - I'm figuring that after a week or two she'll want to go to daycamp, and I'll call the camps and enroll her for the last two weeks. In this way, I'll have spent less and she'll have kvetched less!

I have no idea how we have managed to pay for camp and daycamp over the last few years, it's gotten so much more expensive. I think it used to be cheaper, but the camps have upped their standards and the kids have come to expect it, and it's a vicious cycle of paying more money for more stuff that kids would never have dreamed of needing back in the day. All I can say is Chasdei Hashem. At this point my teens are done with camp (B"H! Deep breath....) and it's a good thing, because the costs have gotten beyond me.....

In terms of clothes, my teens won't buy anything from the frum stores beyond basics for the love of money (they like being somewhat unique, and don't want to wear a "uniform") and for my 10 year old, I shop ahead on sales, etc...to afford clothes for her. And anyone ever heard of hand-me-downs? B"H for those as well.....
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southernbubby




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 11:47 am
All of the budgeting gurus out there caution people to avoid "group think" when making financial decisions. People often compare themselves to their neighbors and their buying habits become like those that they live or work with even when those around them are making bad financial choices. This happens a lot in frum communities where everyone wants to look like the neighbors.
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amother
Periwinkle


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 12:55 pm
I had parents help buying my house, but even if we didn't, we would have bought anyways. I married in my older 20s and saved up a lot of money. For the first few years of our marriage, we lived SO frugally and had a lot of kids in a small apartment to save on rent. In general, we have a mindset of saving and being careful with our things. We ate a lot of cheaper things like eggs and pasta instead of meat. So its possible ppl are frugal in ways that you may not be or that you may not see outwardly.
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amother
Ivory


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 1:02 pm
pause wrote:
We'll talk in the CV... Wink


I work in a non chasidish community and there are stores with high end designer labels

who have branch stores in other non- chasidish neighborhoods.

Now, as far as the chasidish community: there is a fair amount of well to do businessmen

with brilliant business accumen who are wealthy.

(In some ways, chasidic children have a street smartness that non- chasidic children may not

have despite their lower English education.)
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cnc




 
 
    
 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 1:43 pm
amother wrote:
I work in a non chasidish community and there are stores with high end designer labels

who have branch stores in other non- chasidish neighborhoods.

Now, as far as the chasidish community: there is a fair amount of well to do businessmen

with brilliant business accumen who are wealthy.

(In some ways, chasidic children have a street smartness that non- chasidic children may not

have despite their lower English education.)


I agree and just because there are stores full of designer clothing, that doesn’t mean that everyone shops there. I certainly don’t and same goes for many people that I know.
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amother
Violet


 

Post Mon, Apr 16 2018, 1:50 pm
thunderstorm wrote:
In some schools you pay 12 months tuition with daycamp on top of that.


You mean they split into 12 months ? Or that school tuition is 12 months ?
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