What does it cost to support your young married couple?

watergirl

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:19 am

amother [ Indigo ] wrote:

Btw, I have a DS in shidduchim that wanted to live in Israel but didn't want to be dependent on support, so he started an online business on the side buying and selling stuff while in yeshiva, and set aside some money so he can make it when the time comes. Now he's having a hard time getting married, because none of the good girls are interested in a boy that's not 100% solely focused on yeshiva with no distractions. It's not like encouraging boys to be responsible and arrange a manner to support themselves (trust me, I wasn't pushing him to have any side hustles; he's completely independent in that and I can't control him) is necessarily helpful in marrying a good non materialistic girl that is motivated to live a kollel lifestyle without any of the unnecessary garbage that is standard today. Those girls only want boys that never looked outside a sefer.

Re: the bolded. These expressions make me so angry. Good girls. Quality boys. These other terms we use. These are so far from accurate. Whats so good about a girl that makes her reject boys like your son, who has had the foresight to do what he did? Thats not a good girl. Thats a stupid, brainless, spoiled girl who wants her daddy's money and not her husband's.

Your son is very smart. Please, contact shaddchanim and tell them to set your son up with girls from families who can not offer support. The ones the OP claims in the spin off thread will go into very high debt or sit as old maids and never get married.

Set your son up with a girl from a family who can not support. I promise you, those girls are also good. They are nothing less than the ones with rich daddys. I am SURE you are not meaning to imply that girls who cant support are not good. That CANT be what you are saying.

I cant understand why these kids who think they are mature enough to get married have such limited views and scope as to who they will consider a shidduch with!

This is not a problem that cant be solved!

banana123

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:29 am

amother [ Brunette ] wrote:

For a neighborhood that might be a little less, look into givat zev. It’s right outside Yerushalayim with transportation available. Not sure how much cheaper though but I know some American couples who are there now..

Other suggestions: Kiryat Yovel, Kiryat Menachem, Bayit Vegan, Beit Hakerem, Morasha, Shaarei Chesed, Kiryat Moshe, Givat Shaul...
Take a look here - you can filter by price and number of rooms. All of these neighborhoods are in Jerusalem and with the light rail it's much easier and faster to get around the city than it used to be. Many of these neighborhoods have quite a few olim and English speakers, they're not 1000% haredi but we are all Jews and all these neighborhoods have tons of frum Jews and all the amenities. Plus loads of smaller apartments that don't cost an arm and a leg.

The "yechida" someone referred to earlier is called a "yechidat diyur."

Yad2

Last edited by banana123 on Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:33 am; edited 1 time in total

amother

Fuchsia

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:33 am

amother [ Yellow ] wrote:

Disturbing because if you have the money to make a fancy wedding and that's what you want to do with your money, zei gezunt.
To live off someone else and knowingly and purposely spend their money without a thought, just because you know they have it, while at the same time pretending to be so holy and live a kollel lifestyle - extremely disturbing.

What part is disturbing? Who ever said we were pretending to live a kollel lifestyle? Yes he was and still is learning. And he did take every last second of that seriously. But I never pretended I want to live a poor life. Never pretended we planned to sacrifice. My parents wanted to give the money because they wanted us to be comfortable and have those extra. And they wanted a son in law who learns. There was no resentment only Pride. Why is that disturbing

PinkFridge

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:38 am

zaftigmom wrote:

My apartment was $1275. It was a spacious, old 2 bedroom. It felt like living in a warehouse. It was all we could find. We would have gladly lived in something smaller.

My father gave us $1000 a month toward rent. I earned close to 6000 NIS a month working long hours as a nanny. We used some of our wedding money too.

We were extremely painfully frugal but we still ran out of money after nine months. Life in Jerusalem is very expensive.

IMO you did it right, if your parents were able to do this. You got a boost, worked hard, and were prepared for it not to last, iow you weren't expecting anyone to put money in escrow for 5 years so that you could have your lifestyle guaranteed.
I have no issues with support if parents can manage, and if there's good will all around.

PinkFridge

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:45 am

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

This wasn’t the reason OP opened this thread. However, I do think the answers Do address her question as it depends what circles she is from.
Yes, my husband wanted to sit and learn. And he bh had no reason not to. Please bear in mind that my wedding cost over $150,000 as well. Just the one night. That’s also lavish. We were coming from typical Brooklyn standards and setup. That’s not anti Torah. The individual providing the support had more than enough to do it with. A person has the right to choose how to spend his money. I don’t understand why you are calling it disturbing!

I fargin the people who can and do make 150K chasunas, don't get me wrong. But you can't call that typical Brooklyn. Brooklyn also has reasonable simcha packages.

amother

Yellow

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 8:47 am

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

So on an individual level, do what you want with your money and live how you want.
But on a community level this idea that you are on the one hand so ruchniyus and holy and Torahdik but at the same time flipping the roles so that he learns Torah and she works or does nothing while they live lavishly supported by their parents - this, and the idea that this is what should be, and the attempts to keep up with the Joneses and demand this in shidduchim - is one of the biggest problems with the kollel system today.
Historically there were always top yeshiva bochurim who married the daughters of rich balabatim who supported their daughters and sons-in-law and their children for decades. But these were few and far between and the men in question were always the top bochurim who even if they had no money had good middot and were able to become rabbanim.
Again on an individual level who cares. But the fact that you see nothing wrong with it, and that it's something that's common regardless of the parents' ability to fund this lavish lifestyle or the bochur's ability to actually understand what he's learning, is what makes it incredibly disturbing.
Suddenly I have a real understanding of why DH always quotes "hizharu bivnei ha'aniyim, shmehem teitzei Torah" as why we have so few up-and-coming talmidei chachamim today.
"היזהרו בבני עניים שמהם תצא תורה" (תלמוד בבלי, מסכת נדרים, דף פא, עמוד א).
Davka mibnei ha'aniyim, vechacham einav b'rosho.

amother

Seagreen

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 9:16 am

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

Congratulations - I mean this sincerely.

However I think for the purpose of this thread you are an outlier in terms of the financial situation of your parents who are obviously very well to do if not wealthy in every sense of the word. There is absolutely no reason why parents of means shouldn't assist their children in their lifestyles without feeling that they are committing a financial crime against those who are less affluent.

However, as posted by some others, your family's situation is much more equivalent to the historical custom of the very rich supporting their son in law (or son for that matter) by having him learn. To be deliberately blunt, it was like buying any fabulous coveted thing only this thing was a brilliant Torah scholar. It also served the community as a whole since it enabled poor but brilliant boys to be able to be subsidized and become valuable members of their community by being learned Torah scholars.

I really don't offer any solution except to point out that what once served a very valuable function in terms of actually keeping Judaism and its culture of scholarship flourishing has now kind of morphed into a system in which any boy - whether actually gifted in this particular area - is funneled into learning and families - whatever their financial ability to subsidize long term learning - are expected to bankrupt themselves to provide the subsidy.

Certainly it is hard to change when the values of one's community support this model. Every parent wants what they feel is "best" for their child. Look at the insanity around college admission in some secular circles (not all of course).

I don't offer a solution. It is easy to say one should raise one's children (male and female) to have a realistic idea of the financial reality - that long term learning at the expense of being able to support one's family creates its own problems. However I don't know how that could be done since this is occurring in fairly insular communities where it is considered possibly deviant to wear the wrong denier stocking. To ask people to "rebel" against the system is quite a lot. It does seem as though it traps the participants because surely there are boys who would be "happier" with a different life path - shorter learning while also learning a way to earn their living and girls who would understand that the reality of being the sole breadwinner is a difficult lifestyle when coupled with large-ish families.

amother

Navy

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 12:17 pm

amother [ White ] wrote:

In the secular world people are expected to pay their own stuff after college and some even during college and that's perfectly NORMAL.
A grown up shouldn't need their parents to pay for things.
And inheriting money at the age of 50 and actually being thankful for that money after having worked your whole life is a lot better than being a spoiled 19 year old swiping daddy's credit card in jerusalem and not caring about the stress it puts on the parents because at 19 they're mostly selfish and want to show off or have the same as their friends and don't appreciate anything. Of course there's some who are different but that's the typical kollel crowd in Israel.

I always see this on imamother and I just don't understand it. Just as in the Jewish world, people in secular world provide for their kids according to their means. And if they don't have the means they also very often go into debt for it. I come from a MO family and went to graduate school with 97% non-Jews or very secular Jews and became good friends with many of them. Their (mainly very affluent) parents spend ridiculous amounts of money on multiple very fancy vacations a year, bought them houses, paid their NYC rent (which was definitely upwards of $2k a month) and routinely bought them coats etc. Not to mention in many of their circles the burden of paying for all of the wedding expenses is on the girls family. So frum families and non-frum families are very much the same in that. If that girls parents could afford whatever they gave to her, its not different from all of my secular friends who lived very expensive lives. And I'm not even counting paying tuition to their extremely fancy private schools. If you think Jewish private schools are expensive, my non-Jewish friends went to private boarding schools like Groton where tuition is upwards of $50,000 a year. Plus fancy colleges, plus graduate school.
And what about the people that couldn't afford it? Look at the statistics for student debt. The population with the fastest growing debt are parents who took it out to support their children. I don't see how different that is from giving a kid $3k a month for a few years to live in israel if you value that the same way these people value a fancy degree.

amother

Mistyrose

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 12:38 pm

watergirl wrote:

The problem is, the mothers of these boys have pounded their sons over the head with their very limited and inaccurate definition of what a "good girl" is, to the point the bocherim themselves are as confused as their mothers. By the way, this term "good girl" is so condescending. We're speaking about a grown woman, not a kindergartener. It seems "girls" who aren't wealthy enough or are unwilling to offer support won't be considered "good girls" by said mothers, because they aren't prestigious enough (lack of money) or their ability to buck the contrary-to-Torah and insane trend of receiving parental support makes them somewhat of a strong personality -and if there's one thing a narrow-minded prospective mother in law is intimidated by, it's the prospect of a strong-minded daughters in law who won't be manipulated by her! It's very difficult to buy the line that parents support for years on end out of their own kindheartedness and generosity. What it comes to is, many parents who provide years of support are not being philanthropic but are actually after prestige, control over their children or maintaining their family image. Hence many "good girls" and "good boys" have no problem accepting this money from their parents, because it's being given by the parent, for the parent's own benefit.

amother

Seagreen

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 12:47 pm

amother [ Navy ] wrote:

You are picking a very small segment of the secular world.

No one is disputing that Frum or secular, if parents can afford it, they do subsidize their adult children financially. You have picked a segment of the secular population which is extremely affluent and does not reflect regular middle class secular finances.

However, the issue is support by Frum parents who cannot afford to support their adult children but feel compelled to do so because their community demands it.

In my experience with secular people of normal middle class means, parents to NOT typically go into debt in order to subsidize adult children nor do middle class families typically send their children to private schools or boarding schools.

Yes some kids graduate with student debt or parents borrow to send kids to college. However, this has been overstated and, more importantly, many secular parents and children are looking at college finances much more shrewdly. They are sending to state universities where costs are much more affordable and not as much to expensive private schools unless those are really extraordinary like Yale or if the financial package makes them affordable. In fact, many of the less prestigious private colleges are having financial issues because there is a declining number of people who want to spend $50,000 on a "regular" college versus having the ability to get a great education at a state university for far less.

But again, let's not confuse the issues. The issue is a system that forces some Frum families to go into debt because their daughters are unmarriagable without payment and boys are viewed as losers if their goal is not to spend years in Kollel rather than to balance learning with also acquiring marketable job skills.

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Dec 12 2019, 2:57 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

First of all, its not YOUR money. Its your parents money. And its living large. Full stop.
The fact that you wrote that 150k is not a lavish wedding is showing me that I just live in a very different world. But you also said that that was lavish.

As for disturbing, I always knew the kollel life to be one of sacrificing in any way needed so that the man could learn. To me that does not equate to so many of the things that you mentioned in your post AND not to 2k a WEEK. Amother, I dont think you realize just how lavish that amount is. Its crazy. And I know couples and families in many different circles in Israel.

I guess the kollel life is not what it used to be and its more about living up to the cohens now. ANd to me, that is extremely sad and unfortunate in so many ways.