Finance shaming | Imamother

Ema of 5

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 10:51 am

amother Bronze wrote:

I am also bothered by all the jealousy and " how can people....." that goes on on this site.

And I am poor (compared to salaries/ assets here), but I am happy for people who have money to spend and I think it helps the economy. I don't mind when they spend on big ticket items like simcha's, homes, vacations, sheitals

But I am disturbed by the rising "standard" in our community's. When I was a teen a juicy sweatshirt at $80 was cool. Not Moose Knuckle or Makcage coats at $1,500.
Again, I don't begrudge splurging on a nice item for yourself or your teen when you can afford it, but we do live in a community and the rising and rising "must haves's" are disturbing for the "have nots".

I don't have good solutions, but I wonder if the time has come for schools to segregate by neighborhood, like they do in the PS system, so that people in the same income brackets go to school with each other. It is very hard to stick to your guns and values when all the other parents are giving in to spending above budget.

We have decided to move to a different area, which is much more low key, with salary cuts, because I don't think my children should feel "poor" when we are really middle class.

The solution is to not give in to the must haves. Generally (not always) that idea is passed down from the parents. It’s usually subtle, very much not overt. The kids dressed in matching outfits. What knapsack does my 3 year old need. What glasses should I get. None of these things are inherently bad, but when this is the attitude at home, children learn it by osmosis. Then they become preteens who need these sneakers and that coat and the other knapsack. Again, it’s not always this way. Sometimes the parents don’t care at all and the child cares very much anyway. Sometimes the parents care very much and the child couldn’t care less. I don’t care what other people are wearing or doing. I don’t care what other people are doing for their simchas. I wear what I want to wear, I shop where I want to shop, I do what I want to do. I don’t care if other people think my clothes look nerdy, or think I should shop at other stores, or have fancier affairs. You do you and I’ll do me, and let’s just be happy for everyone and not try to do the same thing or outdo them. Who cares if I do a theme for mishloach manos? Why does that mean you have to? Who cares if you spent $10,000 on a bris? Why does that mean I have to? How someone else spends their money is really none of my business, unless they are spending above their means and come asking me for tzedaka.

amother

Cognac

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 10:55 am

amother Tuberose wrote:

By the by, I can afford just about anything mentioned on this site. I personally am frugal and like having lots of money in savings. I also find ostentatious behavior repugnant.

So it’s even worse lol. You are judging that people choose not to save like you. And you decided everyone needs to be you. Or like I call it, stingy, the inability to let anyone enjoy money. I know someone like this who saves and saves and has massive amounts of wealth and makes his kids live like paupers. That’s considered a terrible middah.

mha3484

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:17 am

amother Kiwi wrote:

I saw job ads recently for nursing home admin with salary listed as 2-300k

Most likely its a large high acuity home with very sick patients. Its an enormous amount of work. No flexibility. Half the year when your waiting for your state survey you cant leave your area because if state walks in your expected to be there. So no vacations etc. Your on the hook for anything that goes wrong so the pay has to make that worthwhile.

Your average person is not making that. I have done healthcare staffing for the past 8 years. I have seen salaries go up a lot. I have seen jobs that used to be coveted by everyone, no one wants anymore. The industry is always changing. I have never heard of an LNHA making 300k unless they are an owner-operator.

Chayalle

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:18 am

amother OP wrote:

This is completely anecdotal.

I know if a girl who lost her husband in a very tragic way and the owner of her apartment who lives very nicely told her she no longer has to pay rent for the rest of her life.

I know of another guy who noticed a boy in shul wearing torn shoes and ordered him a $400 pair from Nordstrom

I know of another guy who took it upon himself to marry off a kid from a situational home and took him to ferragamo to buy him wedding shoes, but didn’t want him to feel stupid about being a nebach so this guy purposely bought shoes for $200 more than this kid, for himself, to show him how little it meant to him

I know of a guy who paid for a friends husband to go to rehab for a few months!

I know of another guy that paid out $100k so that a couple can try a fertility treatment. He didn’t even know them!

Each of these guys live nicely, and dress the part.
I think it’s just which circles you are in.

I wonder at the mindset of someone helping another person who obviously needs tzedaka, going so far to spend extra $$ on something designer, and how that is very helpful to the recipient.

I mean, a boy with torn shoes needs a decent pair of shoes. He doesn't need them to be ferragamo, and he doesn't need that standard introduced to him (so he feels that's what he needs in the future).

I know someone who goes thru really hard times, and there's this guy in their neighborhood who picks up her teen son and takes him to outfit him before YT. A new hat, suit, shoes, etc....no, not designer - but decent good quality in the local frum stores.

I think that's more beneficial than splurging them and introducing them to values they don't need.

Just my humble opinion.

imacoolmom

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:25 am

So I’ll just add 2 thoughts I have regarding this thread in case anyone is interested;
1. Wealth is so relative-there aren’t just 2 categories rich vs poor it’s a massive spectrum with so many categories in between. The us vs them mentality is so weird to me bec there’s so many subcategories. For example, dh has a successful business bh. We just bought a very average house in a very affluent neighborhood. We drive 2 new non luxury cars we are ok we can afford to splurge here and there. So there are people who think we have $. But compared to our neighbors we are “poor” bec they live in mansions, drive bmw and live the high life that we will probably never be able to do but that’s life.
2. I admire the wealthy who give tzedakah. These people literally are the pillars of our communities. The only thing that irks me are those that clearly do it for ego and kavod and have to have their names on buildings everywhere and their picture in the papers. It’s so obvious it’s not for the sake of the mitzvah they want to be worshipped and I find that gross.

pause

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:28 am

Highstrung wrote:

I agree in a way. But people are also supposed to enjoy the gifts HaShem gave them and we are supposed to enjoy Olam Hazeh too, while we are here. The problem is that some people define ostentatious differently. For a jealous person that can’t afford going to FLorida for vacation , they view the people going as ostentatious. No . The people that have the money to go, good for them. The jealous people need to work on themselves.
So so many wealthy people who spend money on themselves to enjoy life , also give huge amounts of tzedaka and are mezakeh with tons and tons of Mitzvos. At least the truly wealthy people that I personally know.

100% that jealous people need to work on themselves.

But where to draw the line between enjoying your money and spending modestly should be a question for a Rav, not easily brushed off with the attitude that I see on this thread.

amother

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:33 am

Chayalle wrote:

Ok, that guy who bought the chassan shoes was my husband. And we spoke to a huge gabbai tzedaka when we undertook the wedding expenses and went through every expense and what was the right way to do it.
And being that this boy’s friends all get married with such shoes we were told to buy him designer ones. My husband never buys designer shoes but this time he did just to make this boy feel part of things and not a nebach.
My point wasn’t how to give tzedaka. My point was to say that only people who live simply give more is anecdotal and just based on the people you know and are surrounded with.
I’ll admit I live on a high standard and therefore know people like us and are privy to their givings.
If I lived simpler with like minded people I’d be privy to that side of it.

Side note: purely anecdotal as well, we reached out to a family that’s fabulously wealthy but look like they receive tomchei shabbos to ask for help to marry off this kid. They didn’t like that we got the kalla a Diamond vs a lab grown one (which is what they get their kids) so therefore refused to contribute how they normally do. They told us straight out that had we given a lab grown they would have given us a lot more…

Chickensoupprof

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:34 am

The problem sometimes is the mindset, maybe I'm way too leftwing for saying that but there is a mindset if you did not make it, you are a loser, you are a nebech. If you made it you are a hero! Which is not necessarily true. If you do your best you also can succeed and become wealthy and if you don't, we are not helping you, your own fault.

Which is not true. You need to know your privilege. If you are born in a rich family, where your parents could afford tutors, and the best healthcare needed and you end up being a fancy lawyer you are not a self-made man. You can believe you are but if you didn't had a private tutor...and your parents could not afford the college education and could not give you some money to start your own firm you weren't anything...

I'm privileged, I know that yet there are more people who are more privileged then me financially wise but I'm comfortable.
But I think y'all scold me now as a filthy liberal Wink

amother

Kiwi

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:45 am

amother OP wrote:

If they are fabulously wealthy but look like they are getting to tomchei Shabbos that is NOT what most of us are talking about on this thread. We are not talking about living like paupers. We are talking about living a normal tzniusdig life. So don’t bring an example from that type of family. How about a fabulously wealthy family that makes middle of the road simchos drive middle of the road cars and dress neatly and nicely and up to date but not flashy or showy?

And in your post you clearly admit that the boy might feel bad because all his friends wear designer shoes!

Chayalle

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:48 am

DustyDiamonds wrote:

That has truth to it!

My friend once went to Home Depot with her grandfather, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. He was a wonderful person. She saw him put a small item from a shelf into his coat pocket. She was horrified and said “Zaidy! What are you doing?’

He responded that he needed it and Gentiles own the store.

I’m certain that everyone reading this is horrified and can’t believe that an honest man would do this.

Yet, look back at her grandfather’s country of origin. He was a butcher in Poland before the war. Had he paid all the taxes legally required, he would not have had anything to eat! And even though they raised chickens, they only had an egg at the first seder, and half an egg at the second Seder! They sold the rest, no other eggs for the family all year! We cannot imagine their poverty! They had to steal from the gentile government or mayors, or they would have starved to death! He lost his wife and several children in the war, which means he was at least 25. So these ideas were baked into his consciousness, he was fed them with his mothers milk, and we cannot begin to imagine how his life had been.

Of course cultural attitudes about money get passed down through families.

I think this is an extreme example. My grandparents who survived the holocaust would never do that.

However, in the early years when they were setting themselves up after the Holocaust, my grandfather did business on the black market in Romania. He felt no particular allegiance to the Communist party in power, and even less allegiance to the local populace who had looted his parents' home after they were deported to Auschwitz....he felt no compunctions selling matches and various household necessities to people and making money, bypassing the local government boards who helped themselves first and took ages letting goods reach the populace.

He considered himself an honest man who used to tell us "alleh meine tzen finger zenen rein" - my 10 fingers are clean, he never cheated anyone. I agree with him.

Chayalle

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 11:54 am

amother OP wrote:

I hear.
I have a relative who is a Baal Tzedakah, and I know that he's particular to Hachnasas Kallah. He told me once that there's a concept of "Kallah B'Chvodah" that's mentioned in the Gemarrah - that we give to a Kallah on a standard that is b'kavodik to her. I don't have a particular opinion on the type of diamond that's considered honorable to a Kallah because many people are fine with lab-grown. Those people you were dealing with were nit-picking and looking for an excuse.

And I hear the context of the ferragamos, and your husband sounds like a special person. I do think though that there's a scale that is unnecessary. I know someone who recently made a wedding on a very ostentatious scale, and it was all tzedakah. The Kallah's family just insisted they are entitled to that level, and pushed people to contribute on the scale they wanted. It's a mindset I don't relate to (but I'm not in their circles, so can't judge).

Chickensoupprof

Thu, Jan 26 2023, 12:05 pm

Chayalle wrote:

Interesting also to read DustyDiamonds story.

My family was also really poor before the war. They had nothing. That's why they became socialists or just didn't care I quote something of a website about Jewish Amsterdam: ''In part of Amsterdam Jew there was a very large flattening. The majority of all those civilian Jews who were with the progressive “Freedom League” were against special schools on principle, so also against Jewish schools. Why would a Jew have special schools? You had to have equality.”

This was my family, it was because of poverty and wanted to become Dutch rather be Jewish. Yet they were poor but were proud believers in socialism not like in Russia but they believed if the worker class gets more appreciation, and the union would better protect them they would get a better life. Yet after the war, the family that was left from my side (most of our family were murdered) were really poor. My mom also grew up poorer, and everything was saved even one single potato. My mom drank spoiled milk with mold my grandma made drink the milk and told her to just close her eyes. It was that they became a bit richer when they got money because they were holocaust victims but before that they were poor. They were too Yekkish to do something illegal I guess after the war or during the war.