I’ve been thinking a lot about money and frugality lately, particularly with the price increases that went into effect.

The following costs increased in Israel as of January 1, 2025:

• property tax: 5.29% increase
• electricity rates: 3.8%
• water bills: 3.4%
• Value Added Tax (VAT): 1% increase (this is added to every purchase in Israel, other than produce)
• National Insurance contributions: rates will increase from 0.4% of income to 1.2%, a 0.8% increase

Tax credits will be frozen, we’ve been told public transportation costs will go up, food will continue to go up – everything is expected to get more expensive. That’s not such a pleasant thought, particularly as we’ve experienced inflation and rising prices in the last few years.

I’ve read a number of articles about the price increases and the message of every single one is that they are going to negatively impact our society. It doesn’t resonate with me to tell people how much worse off they’re going to be, because I don’t like narratives that turn you into victims. It never benefits you.

You have choices in every situation that can improve your situation in some way. Sometimes life is hard, even very hard, but there are still better or worse ways to think about and deal with your situation.

My approach to these increases is to ask myself, and a question I encourage others to ask if they’re concerned about prices going up, how can I make the coming year as good or better than the one that just ended? Is it possible? I think so and that’s my goal for the year to come. For that to happen I’ll need to be more intentional about goal setting, budgeting and spending.

When people complain that things just keep getting worse and never get better, I wonder if they’ve lost sight of the bigger picture, as we live in a time of unprecedented abundance.

You have clean running water and indoor plumbing; chamber pots and outhouses aren’t the norm. You can take a hot shower inside your own home. You dress in clothes washed in a washing machine, you don’t boil huge pots of water to do the laundry or scrub it down at the river’s edge. You turn on your stove and oven with a flick of a dial – my great grandmother had a wood stove and cried with happiness when she got a gas stove. The physical effort you need to expend on a daily basis to provide for your needs is miniscule compared to the past.

You have stores filled with a variety of food products unimaginable to past generations and can find just about everything, regardless of seasonality. You have large quantities of inexpensive foods in every store in your country. You don’t have to stand on food lines waiting for hours for your one allotted loaf of bread, only to find out that there’s none left and then you need to stand on the next line for your allotment of potatoes for the week. You can buy whatever quantity that you want.

Clothing and household goods have never been less expensive and more easily acquired. You often don’t even have to leave your home – click on the computer to order and it arrives at your door a day or a week later. I have a clothing order that’s supposed to come today that I ordered from overseas less than three weeks ago; in the past my orders came within a week and I feel as if something’s not right for it to have taken so long to get here! When we get used to luxuries, we take them for granted.

Thrift and second hand stores are filled with items that are in excellent condition, often unused. My daughter volunteered at a clothing gemach and told me the quality and quantity of donations is so high that they don’t keep anything missing a button, needing any kind of repair or not in perfect condition or out of date. That reflects a level of material abundance that didn’t exist thirty years ago.

So being grateful will make you a happier person. Being more content and positive about life is worthy of the effort on its own. But when it comes to money, it’s not putting more money in your pocket, is it?

Maybe it can. When you feel grateful for what you have, you feel less entitled and more willing to consider different options. When you focus on all that you have, you need less. When you recognized you need less, you buy less. When you buy less, you have more money to put into savings. And that happens without feeling deprived and unhappy.

Avivah