Category Archives: frugal strategies

Myth busting – I don’t have the time to be frugal

frugal strategies, personal development

Often people say they don’t have time to do money saving activities- they’re just too busy.

I empathize with how full life can be – overwhelmingly full, even.

There are two parts to my response.

The first is that very few people are completely honest with themselves about how they spend their time, and that leads them to think they have less time than they do.

Nine years ago I began tracking my time throughout my day, and I did this for many months. It was incredibly eye opening. It showed me where I actually spent my time, how much time I spend on those activities, and how much time I wasted with nothing to show for it.

Time tracking is like money tracking – it lets you know what you have and where it’s going. I’m not suggesting you track your time but I’m positive that if you did, you’d find you have much more discretionary time than you think.

I think just as big an issue as not having an accurate idea of how your time is spent, is the fact that no one wants to spend their time doing things that they associate with drudgery and deprivation.

Everything takes time. It takes time to shower, to get dressed, to make your food, to eat, to take care of your children and to drive to work. It takes time to go to the gym, or take a hike or a vacation.

Life is full of time consuming activities. Just like with money, it’s potentially empowering when you realize YOU get to choose to spend your time in a way that brings the most value to your life.

I deeply appreciate having peace of mind around finances. I like knowing that my family always has food and clothing, our bills are paid, and upcoming expenses are budgeted for. I like being relaxed when the holidays come around or when my children get engaged and married, knowing that I’m prepared for all of the related expenses. I like living without deprivation and without worry about debts. This is fundamental to my quality of life.

It’s not our income that has created that peace of mind, but how I spend what we have. Right now we have a comfortable income, but even throughout all of the years that our income was much, much lower (most of our married lives), living frugally has consistently created a high quality of life for our family.

So I spend time tracking our income, budgeting, meal planning, shopping carefully and doing a lot of things myself rather than hiring others to do it for me. I enjoy doing those things and have a sense of satisfaction around them. I see the value of them and I associate them with an abundant life.

I suggest that if you were to associate money saving activities with being able to live your life in the way you want, you’d also find enjoyment in them. It’s much easier, even with a busy schedule, to make time for the things you enjoy doing.

You have all of the time you need. But you have to use it intentionally, you need to be conscious and aware of how you budget it, so that it will add to the quality of life you want to have.

Avivah

Repair your clothing, don’t throw them away

frugal strategies, homemaking

I was sitting at my sewing machine working through a pile of pants to be repaired, when my daughter-in-law noticed what I was doing. She asked me if I could hem a skirt of hers, and I agreed, so she gave it to me. It wasn’t a major repair, it just needed a couple of minutes to sew and it was as good as new.

At the same time, a friend of my son came in and seeing what I was doing, asked me if I could fix his pants. Yes, I could, so he brought them to me and I repaired them as well.

It’s inconvenient and expensive to have your clothing repaired by someone else so most people will give or throw clothing away rather than deal with it. Replacing items that were overall in good condition other than the needed repair will cost money, and if you can maintain what you have so it lasts longer, you’ll be saving that money instead.

Basic things like replacing a button are super simple, but if you don’t know any sewing at all, you can find tutorials online that will demonstrate just about every sewing technique that you would want to learn.

I have a cabinet in my room where everyone knows to place anything they have that needs a sewing repair. It might be socks or tights, but usually are shirts that need buttons, pants that split in a seam, or something that needs to be tailored or patched. One son regularly gets his belt loops on the waist of his pants caught on door handles and they need to be reattached. Every so often I take out a pile, take out the sewing machine, and work through the necessary repairs.

My son really likes his pair of loafers, and wanted to continue wearing them even when the leather loop attached to the buckle detached, leaving the buckle hanging off to the side. I assumed I’d have to throw them away, but I took a look at them before doing so. I realized that the loops on each side had come unsewn, and thought I might be able to resew them.

I have a package of unusual needle sizes that are heavy duty, and found one that I was able to push through the leather. Less than ten minutes later, both sides of the loafer were sewn back on. If you look closely, you can see my repair but it’s not noticeable at a first glance. (The loose thread isn’t from my repair but I should snip it off.)

Why would I would waste time repairing these shoes, or fixing socks or tights? How much money am I really saving? It’s true that some things don’t cost that much. I can replace these shoes for 50 shekels on sale but although they aren’t expensive, ten minutes to save 50 shekels is still worth my time. If smaller items like socks are overall in good condition, I’ll fix those as well.

What about the time it takes? Aren’t I too busy for all of this stuff? Actually, these small repairs don’t take time out of my schedule since I take my sewing basket outside with me when I watch the kids play.

For the items that need the sewing machine, I wait until I have a pile – it could be two or three months – and then spend up to an hour repairing everything. That’s not a lot of time for what is usually at least seven to ten items of clothing.

Start to look at your items needing to be repaired with an appraising eye, and challenge yourself to repair an item that you would have in the past gotten rid of.

Do you do your own sewing repairs? If not, why not?

Avivah

How to track your money

frugal strategies

>> Avivah, could you share more details about how you track and budget? It’s one of those things we know we should be doing but never do. I’d love to get a better handle on tracking and budgeting, but even the idea overwhelms me. <<

I so much understand this! The more time that’s gone by without tracking, the more overwhelming it feels.

There’s a huge emotional relief that comes when you get clarity about what’s going on with your money. Even when you think it doesn’t make a difference to you not knowing how much you spend on what, there’s an energy drain from ignoring something that you know you should be paying attention to.

Get ready to do some homework – give yourself a week to get this done. Starting is the hardest part; once you’ve started, you’re on your way to bettering your financial situation so don’t put this off.

Step 1 – The first thing to do is to print out the last three months of your bank statements. Some people recommend twelve months and this is ideal since you can see your yearly spending pattern, but I think three months will give you a good idea and isn’t overwhelming.

You’re going to track two things: your income and your expenses. You can do this with pen and paper (that’s what I do) but a spreadsheet is a good option if you are inclined, and it’s nice to have the math done for you. Some people use budgeting apps; I’ve seen many recommendations for the YNAB (You Need a Budget) and Every Dollar trackers. They both have free versions. My husband once bought the paid version of YNAB and said it was very good, but obviously, it’s just a tool and if you don’t use it, it’s not going to help you. An advantage of the apps over a spreadsheet is the interface with banks in the US but I don’t know of apps that interface with Israeli banks. (If you know of any, please share that with us in the comments!)

Step 2 – Make a list of whatever income you have – salary, freelance, child benefits, disability payments, alimony, etc. Add that up and write your total income for the month, for each of the three months.

Step 3 – Now make a list of all of your expenses. You have two kinds of expenses, fixed and variable. Fixed expenses are fairly stable and predictable from month to month; variable expenses fluctuate from month to month.

Here’s a list of fixed expenses:

  • mortgage/rent
  • property tax
  • utilities – water, sewage, electricity, gas
  • insurance – car, life, house, health
  • communication – internet, phone, mobile services
  • building maintenance fee (vaad bayit)
  • tuition
  • day care/babysitter
  • extracurricular activities/tutoring
  • house cleaner
  • therapies
  • bank fees
  • debt repayment

Variable expenses:

  • food
  • take out/restaurants
  • baby supplies – diapers, etc
  • pet supplies
  • makeup/cosmetic procedures
  • haircuts
  • medical expenses
  • dental expenses
  • home maintenance
  • car expenses – repairs and maintenance
  • gas (for car)
  • transportation – buses, trains, tolls
  • clothing/shoes
  • computer maintenance
  • appliance/furniture purchases
  • holiday expenses
  • gifts
  • vacation

These aren’t going to include every possible expense, so add your own category if you find something that you spend on isn’t included above.

Now, total up the expenses in each category for each of the three months. Then total all of the monthly expenses for each month to get a total for your monthly spending.

You’ve done it – you’ve faced your worries about what you’re going to find, and you’ve tracked your expenses. Now give yourself a huge pat on the back for your accomplishment!

Once this is done, you’ll have solid information to work with to create your budget.

Is there anything that surprised or discouraged you? Don’t worry about it. This is just a starting place. There’s plenty of change possible to get you where you want to go.

Make a commitment to get this done in the next week. You may dread thinking about it but once it’s done it will be a relief and it will really help you.

Avivah

The little stuff really makes a difference

frugal strategies, personal development

Everyone wants to hear about a hack that will save them thousands a month. But there are very, very few suggestions like that out there.

If you want to cut your expenses, there are almost endless ways to do so. The problem is the small things seem so small and inconsequential that most people think it’s not worth their time and effort.

The truth is the little details add up and add up and add up. I can think of so many small things I do, and each one by itself doesn’t seem like it matters, but my ability to save as much as I do is a result of these small things combined.

I love frugality. I think it’s an incredible tool and for me it’s been expansive and empowering. It’s so unfortunate when people look at frugality as deprivation and doing without. That’s not what it’s meant to be and I understand the avoidance a person may feel if that’s what they think it’s going to be for them.

Frugality is about knowing what you want and spending your money on what matters most to you, so you can have the quality of life that you desire.

For example, for us it was really important that I stay home with our children, and I’ve been home full-time for the last 28 years even when we’ve had a very modest income. Many people will tell you that you need two incomes to make it, especially with a large family. Frugality made it possible for us to have the luxury of a big family, avoid debt and have a rich quality of life.

Your money is like a leaky faucet. Those little drips of water seem like a small amount, but they will run up your water bill quite a bit! And if you save those little bits of leaking money, over time it adds up to your benefit.

We were working with a small budget and a large family for a long time and as the years have gone by, our income has gradually gone up and our resources have grown. It’s been like a slow moving snowball that picks up more and more speed as it continues downhill. I wouldn’t be where I am now without all of those small, consistent steps, day after day, year after year.

Consistent small actions will lead to big results. I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago that we would have been able to pay off as much of our mortgage as we have – I mentioned how much we have left to one of my married sons last night and he was taken aback by how small the amount was – but we kept putting extra towards the principal and it’s been exciting and almost magical to see the loan amount and loan length melting away.

I’m going to write about different frugal suggestions and tips, and encourage you to think about what you can apply to your own lives. Everything won’t be for everyone but don’t make the mistake of dismissing the suggestions as not being big enough to make a difference. They absolutely will add up. As the saying goes, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

Avivah


Track your money, budget your money

frugal strategies

I haven’t been actively budgeting in recent months so I’ve spent some time in the last couple of days remedying that.

Though I haven’t been budgeting, what I have been doing is tracking our expenses. Tracking is knowing what goes in and out of your account, and is something you must do to be a good steward of your money.

Here are a few things I noticed when tracking our expenses:

Last month I noticed that our mortgage payment went up 630 shekels – and our mortgage is fixed so it shouldn’t have gone up at all. I looked into it and for some reason the bank started charging us for home insurance – despite having a different insurance provider since 2023. When our insurance agent checked this for us, it showed that our paperwork was all in order and the necessary notifications had been made to the bank long ago, so we’ll get our money back. But if I didn’t track our expenses, the bank would have continued to automatically deduct this amount every month for years.

This week I noticed that a transfer I made to a different bank didn’t show up. It turns out that there were two account numbers and I sent it to the wrong one – I corrected that and the money is now in the right place.

Two weeks ago I saw that money that was supposed to be reimbursed to us by the health clinic hadn’t come in by the latest date they told me to expect. I went back into their office, and within two days the outstanding 850 shekels was in our account.

Several months ago, the horseback riding stable we had one meeting with charged us for three lessons for two children (ie six total lessons), and one lesson for another – hundreds of shekels for lessons that never took place. I got that refunded as well, and moved the kids to a different ranch for lessons.

A couple of months into the academic year, I noticed one of the tuitions wasn’t being deducted. My husband called the yeshiva and let them know they hadn’t activated the automatic withdrawal plan we had set up. If we hadn’t realized that, at some point they would have realized we weren’t paying and we would have accrued a high outstanding balance.

My husband once ordered an Adobe product. Months later, we were still being charged a monthly fee of 45 shekels for something he had forgotten about and never used – he cancelled it and we’re no longer being charged that fee.

We have another ongoing monthly expense, a charitable donation for a cause that we committed to for a year – I don’t know how long we’ve been donating for but it’s been a lot longer than that. I was glad to contribute initially but now I’d like to shift our giving to a different cause.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of things that I found, but some examples of the kind of things that come up when you track your money. What you learn when you track your expenses can save you a lot of money.

Ideally tracking includes tallying the total spent each month in each area of spending (eg, food, utilities, clothing, health, leisure, etc) so you know what you are spending your money on.

In October we reached the financial goal I shared with you last year, which was to pay off the smaller but higher interest loan of our two mortgages. (When we refinanced the track that was adjustable to a fixed rate, the two tracks of the mortgage were separated into two loans rather than one). It was an ambitious goal and tracking was critical to our success, because I controlled for the expenses that would have otherwise drizzled out with nothing to show for them, and all of that extra money in addition to the savings went to the principal of our mortgage loan.

Now I’m thinking about what I want to set as the next financial goal. It might be paying off the second mortgage loan, it might be putting it towards something more investment oriented. I’m still reflecting on that; there are pluses and minuses and I have to confront my own conservative tendencies and ask myself if that’s serving me as well as possible. Whatever I end up doing, it will benefit our finances for me to tighten up my money management even more and actively budget our money.

Let me share with you what the difference is between the two. Tracking is noting all of your expenses after the money is spent, and knowing how much you spend in each area.

Tracking is a critical preliminary step to getting your finances in order. If you’re not tracking, it’s likely you don’t have an accurate ideal of where your money is going and your money is leaking out.

Once you’ve tracked your spending, budgeting is the next step. Budgeting is looking forward, and determining how much you’ll spend in each area for the coming month. When our finances didn’t have much wiggle room, I had to carefully budget and there was no such thing as not having a budget established in advance. There’s no way we would have avoided going into debt and had an expansive life without being very on top of the details.

Budgeting is when you ask yourself, “Although I’ve spent a certain amount in a category in the past, is this really the amount I need to spend? Can I trim my expenses in that area and funnel the difference into savings? If so, what amount do I choose to allot for each area that will allow me to meet my financial goals?”

Tracking shows that I spend a certain amount of money each month on food. Budgeting is when I decide to spend the amount I want to spend, and to do whatever I need to do to keep my spending limited to that amount.

Budgeting feels very different than tracking; it’s proactive, intentional and powerful. It’s when you commit to yourself, “I’m going to set my goal and I’m going to reach it!” A good budget is a wonderful financial tool. I’m setting some parameters in my budget that will challenge me and am looking forward to seeing if I can jump over what feels like a high bar that I set.

Avivah

Prices are going up but we’re still living in good times

frugal strategies, personal development

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

Excited to be planning an intimate wedding

frugal strategies, parenting

Years ago, my husband and I talked about how we would like to handle wedding planning. Our ideal was to set aside an amount of money for each child’s wedding, and then let each couple determine how they wanted to spend it. If they wanted to spent it all on a one night event, that was fine. If they wanted to make a smaller or simpler event, they could keep the difference between what they spent on the wedding and what was remaining.

That was our ideal but we never had the opportunity to make that offer until now.

When you’re making a bar mitzva, you can do what you want because it’s only your family you have to consider. When you’re making a wedding, you need to take into account the preferences of another family.

Before each engagement, we meet with the parents of the other side and agree as to what our financial contribution will be for the wedding: what will be the overall budget and how will the expenses we distributed. We did that this time as well, and our baseline number was based on the sums we spent on our last two weddings.

However, the morning after the engagement, I was thinking that this would be the time when something smaller would be a better fit for the couple as well as both families. She is from England so neither she nor her family have a huge social circle that expects to attend.

Living in a small community in the north, we also don’t have a large number of people who will be attending.

The standard wedding halls have a minimum of 300 people for the meal, and 300 for the dessert buffet. We just don’t have a need for those numbers at all.

My husband called me from work the morning after the l’chaim and told me he had been thinking that this wedding could be smaller than our usual weddings, and reminded me of what we had said our ideal was: to give the couple the money to spend as they wished. It happens so often that we both think of the same idea at the same time without discussing it with one another, but he was still surprised when I told him I had been thinking exactly the same thing!

So what are we planning for this wedding?

Three years ago the son before this one got married on a Friday and it was a very good experience for us all for a number of reasons. When my daughter got married a year and a half later in the heart of the winter, a Friday wedding wasn’t an option since Shabbos begins so early. My son who is now engaged remembered how positive an experience it was, and talked to his fiance about it, who agreed to have a Friday wedding.

Next is the wedding venue. While the scale of the wedding will be adjusted (we’re thinking we’ll have about 100 guests for the meal), our new couple isn’t looking to do something radically different to save every possible penny, like having a potluck in someone’s basement. They want a beautiful hall with a nice catered meal. But once you aren’t having a very large crowd, there are many smaller halls that become an option.

Since smaller halls don’t have room for people to be seated at tables for the meal and to simultaneously have a large area available for dancing, we’ll be changing the standard wedding schedule. First will be the chupa, then the entire meal will be served, and then dancing will take place at the end. The tables will be cleared away at the end of the meal to make room for dancing, and dessert tables will be assembled around the perimeter of the hall.

After we made this arrangement, we realized that this set up will also cut the cost of the band, since their charge is based on the number of hours they need to be there. Usually the band arrives for the chupa and stays throughout the night until the final dance; this is around five or six hours. Since my son asked two or three of his younger brothers to sing at his chupa, and someone else will arrange for recorded background dinner music to be played for the meal on the speakers the musicians will set up in advance, we only need a live band for the dancing at the end.

We haven’t yet contacted a photographer but the photographer at our last Friday wedding gave us a discounted price because it was on Friday. Friday isn’t prime time for weddings so it’s likely there will be other costs that will be less than if the wedding was held in the evening.

The hall is located in the neighborhood where the new couple will be living, the same one where his yeshiva is located. This is incredibly convenient for his friends. This makes it possible for as many of the students who want to attend to come for the chupa, leave for the meal (other than his close friends), and return for dancing.

When I told a friend our plans, she said that when her daughter got married during covid, they were only allowed to have fifty guests total. She shared that it was the nicest and most meaningful of all of their weddings, and she wishes that all of her weddings could be like that. Every single person who was there was someone they were close to and felt emotionally invested in adding to the joyous atmosphere at the wedding. She also enjoyed being able to connect with all of her guests in a way that she couldn’t at a huge wedding with hundreds of guests.

I’ve heard a number of people say they regret that when the covid restrictions lifted, weddings went back to the same way they had been before. The smaller weddings were a beautiful blip on the social scene but seen as a choice people were forced to make legally and didn’t endure as a socially normative option when people had their choice of venues afterwards.

It will take some time to get an idea of what all the final costs will be, but I anticipate the savings will be substantial. I love that the couple will have a beautiful wedding surrounded by all of the people who care about them most, and at the same time have the benefit of the money saved to create some financial margin as they start their lives together.

Avivah

Shop early to reduce the financial pressure of the holidays

frugal strategies, homemaking, Pesach

This is an expensive time in the Jewish calendar, with Purim being followed soon after by Pesach.

I’ve wanted to write on this for a while and realize I’m a bit tardy in sharing thoughts on navigating this, but hopefully you can still utilize some aspect of the strategies I’m sharing.

When all of the expenses pile up at once, it can be overwhelming. For the week of Pesach, we usually spend 5000 shekels on food – an amount that’s close to our usual monthly total. Then there are the clothing related expenses and that adds several thousands more. Adding in nine or ten thousand shekels of expenses is quite a bit to swallow in one month.

So we don’t.

I space out major purchases so it doesn’t feel overwhelming to pay for everything within a two or three week period.

I wanted to buy the four older boys (14, 16, 17, 21) new suits, and new hats for three of them. That’s a nice chunk of change to spend at once, but I made my purchases before Purim. There were several benefits to doing this: 1) the money for this was spent six weeks before Pesach and not on top of all the other Pesach expenses.

2) I don’t like shopping or vacationing or driving in crowds. That’s not to say I can’t tolerate it, but I’d rather have more peace and quiet in my life, and doing as much as I can do off-season adds to my serenity. In two weeks, every yeshiva bochur in the country will have vacation and will be Pesach suit shopping, together with his younger brothers and father – can you guess what the clothing stores are going to be like?

By shopping early, we had the store and staff to ourselves, with plenty of personal attention and assistance. It’s so much more relaxing and enjoyable to shop like this, rather than having to work hard to get the attention of someone who many other customers simultaneously want help from.

3) I really appreciate getting things that can be done ahead of time taken care of. My life is really full – whose isn’t? – and I would be fooling myself to push off tasks while thinking wishfully that it will be easier at a later time. It’s never easier later. There’s just as much to do later on, plus all the things that were pushed off! This is one thing that has been critical to me staying on top of all that I need to do – I try to minimize procrastination (although dealing with paperwork for Israeli bureaucracy is my weakness). There’s enough to do that can’t be scheduled in advance, so why leave this to a time when there’s so much to do?

So the clothing purchases were all finished by the beginning of March.

Now about food shopping. For our family, our biggest expenses are matza and meat. When I’ve gone to the store in recent weeks, I’ve been dismayed to see that the freezer section is very thin and the prices are very high – to me, shockingly high.

Since I buy meat by the case, I don’t need to shop at the supermarket more than once every four to six weeks. The rise in prices caught me off guard because when I last bought a case of meat two or three months ago, everything was normal. Every section in the meat freezers were full and if the sales weren’t amazing, they were nonetheless regular and the prices were fairly steady.

My infrequent shopping trips meant I didn’t see the meat slowing emptying out and the prices going up. I’ve gone every week for the last three or four weeks, and every week looks worse than the week before. I asked the person in charge of the meat section what is going on, and he said that there’s a supply issue. I asked if they expect the weekly orders to fill the gap and they said they’re making their usual orders but many items aren’t coming in. They’re hoping that some ships will come in with more supplies.

That wasn’t reassuring for me, particularly not with Pesach so close on the horizon. Even when there aren’t supply issues, prices go up for Pesach. None of this is a surprise and what’s good about that is you can plan around it. It really makes a difference to think ahead and plan ahead.

To mediate the effect of the high prices I utilize a strategy that I’ve written about in the past: stock up when the items you want are on sale. I buy my meat ahead of time when there are still bargains to be found in the meat sections; the closer it gets to the holiday, the fewer good buys there are.

I haven’t been able to buy the cuts I prefer for quite a long time, so three weeks ago I decided to buy twenty kilos of ground meat since there was plenty of that. When I went back the next week, it was yet another empty space in the freezer section with everything cleaned out – the woman working there remembered that I had bought a lot and told me how smart it was to do that.

The next week they had beef tongue at a thirty percent discount, though it wasn’t marked as being on sale – I only knew because I directly asked the person in charge of the meat section. While I usually buy a small quantity of tongue, this time I bought a much larger amount. (I used to buy brisket (#3) and chuck (#10) because they were the most affordable but several months ago I discovered flanken (#9) when it was on sale for the same price as brisket. Flanken is now my absolute favorite because it’s so much fattier than brisket; animal fat is not only delicious, but very important for body and brain function and is even beneficial for your skin!)

It’s not too late to spread out your expenses even though Pesach is just a month away. Think about what your anticipated Pesach expenses are. Are there items you can buy now? I don’t buy groceries in advance because I prefer to have my home clean for Pesach before bringing in food items (other than meat), but maybe getting your Pesach staples now would work for you. What about housewares? Do you need another pot or set of silverware? (I bought two new sets of silverware for Pesach a couple of months ago when they were on sale and put them in my Pesach cabinet.) Go ahead and do some early shopping!

How do you keep your Pesach spending from becoming overwhelming? I’d love to see your tips!

Avivah

My new financial goal – focus on paying off mortgage early

frugal strategies

This past May, the engine on our van went out and we didn’t want to invest in putting a new engine into a 2006 vehicle. Though I was planning to upgrade our vehicle, I hadn’t yet built the ‘new car account’ high enough to buy what I wanted.

We brought the twins home four days later, and almost immediately needed to take them to appointments. It was an incredibly hectic time and we had not even an extra moment to shop around for car loans so we did something out of character – we took a loan for the car through our bank since it was automatically approved, with monthly payments for a year.

The interest rate started off at 11% and was up to 11.5% two months later.

I don’t like debt but that interest rate was extra motivating. I buckled down hard on getting this paid off, throwing every bit of extra money that came in at this loan. I was so relieved and gratified to make the final payment less than three months after we took the loan.

Our success in paying down the car loan inspired me to set a very ambitious goal that I’m excited about: to have our mortgage paid off by December 2025.

When we made aliya twelve years ago we started over financially at the bottom of the ladder. It was really tough and it took a few years until we began to get some traction. That has built slowly but steadily, thank G-d. When we bought our home in Israel, I felt acutely aware that taking a thirty year mortgage in our late thirties/early forties meant we would have a mortgage years after my husband’s official retirement age. By taking a home loan at a time in life that many people had paid their mortgages off, or were close to paying them off, we were financial late starters.

Though I always wished we could pay off our mortgage early, it wasn’t until we made the decision to move to Yavneel that we were able to make any progress on this goal. When we made the decision to buy a home in Yavneel, we could have purchased at a comparable cost to what we sold our previous home for, or since we qualified for a higher mortgage amount, bought something more expensive.

That didn’t fit our goal of going into retirement mortgage-free. I was adamant about buying below our budget. When we looked at different homes for sale, we chose a large home with a beautiful view, opposite fields and next to an orchard, and very easy walking distance to the shul. In was also a fixer-upper in a rundown neighborhood; there wasn’t a single indoor picture of the house shown on the online listing, or even a close up of the outside. There was a reason for that – there was no good picture to be had!

My daughter who viewed the house with us said she didn’t see what made us want to buy it, and when we moved in in March 2020, my kids looked around and later told me their first impressions were that it looked really bad. It wasn’t horrible, but there was nowhere you laid your eyes that didn’t need fixing or replacing.

We did the necessary renovations ourselves and fortunately the neighborhood has improved quite a bit since we bought. We took the difference from what we made on the sale of our previous home and what we bought our new home for, and by putting it toward our mortgage loan, we were able to pay down a third of our mortgage.

Our remaining mortgage is split into two parts: the first is the original fixed mortgage payment, set at 4.2% interest, to be paid off in 2037 (we were fortunate to get a mortgage when rates were super low). The second payment is the portion of our mortgage that we refinanced in January 2023 from a loan linked to inflation to a fixed rate of 5%. That loan was also initially set to end in 2037 but when we did the refinance, we slightly increased our monthly payments in order to shorten the length of the loan by five years, so it was reset to end in 2032.

As a homeowner in the US, it was easy to regularly put money toward the mortgage principle using a simple online payment. It didn’t have to be a large amount; I regularly put a hundred dollars toward the principle. That’s not an option here; at least not at our bank. When we asked the bank about how to make extra payments, they told us we can only do it for large amounts. I asked how much, and she told me a minimum of 50,000 shekels. We put money aside until we had enough for a payment of that amount. The process was not quick and easy and they charged us several thousand shekels as a fee for the interest they were losing. But it did bring down our mortgage some more.

After making that prepayment, I felt daunted about making more early payments. In any event, our daughter got married soon afterwards and our ‘extra’ funds were being put towards that. Then the twins came soon afterwards and we had the car to pay off. When I started actively thinking again about how to prepay our mortgage loans, I mentioned to my husband how frustrating and intimidating I found the prepayment process.

He informed me there’s a webpage on the bank site where you can easily prepay whatever amount you want. I was delighted to hear this and checked it out right away, only to find the webpage was down – and has continued to be non-functional for months. Apparently making it convenient for borrowers to pay off their mortgages even a bit early isn’t a priority.

Fortunately my husband and I are a good team; I comb through our budget for funds to put towards the extra mortgage payment and he takes care of the hassle of making the payment. I’m going to share what’s involved and if you’re interested in making a one time or regular prepayment on your mortgage, knowing what is involved will make it more doable for you.

One huge thing I learned is that we don’t have to put down a very large amount, despite what I was previously told. It seems that the minimum payment you can make depends on the loan amount so you can’t throw five hundred shekels at it. And there is a fee of 60 shekels each time we make a prepayment, so it’s worth waiting a little longer and paying a larger amount to save a bit on the fee. I have no idea why we had to pay a penalty fee of thousands of shekels in the past when we prepaid a large amount.

First you have to call the bank to request a link to make the payment. It can take a long time to get someone on the phone but if you stick with it you’ll eventually get a representative. You let them know you want to make a partial mortgage payoff (siluk chilki), and choose to either make your monthly payment smaller to shorten the length of the loan. We choose the second option. They’ll send you a link to a form that tells you where to make the transfer.

Then you make the transfer, and fill out the form they sent with the details of what part of the mortgage you’re paying, the amount, the details of the transfer and upload the pdf from the bank of the transfer.

Once you do this, it will take three days until your mortgage will show the funds being credited to your account.

While this is annoying when it could easily be automated, it’s also not nearly as involved or as costly as I initially thought.

And it is so exciting to see the progress we’re making on the mortgage! I wanted to have a way to visually see our progress, so my husband made a chart that we keep on the fridge, with each block representing 5000 shekels paid off.

When I checked our mortgage balance before making our last prepayment, I was surprised to find it was ten thousand shekels less than I thought it should be based on the amount we paid off. When I did my original calculations, I forgot to take into account that our regular monthly payments were also paying off some of the principle. It was fun to be able to color in two more blocks on our chart – it felt like a freebie.

We’re working on first paying down the higher interest loan, and by making these early payments, we’ve already cut off four additional years off this loan since last year (the one that we shortened by 5 years when we refinanced last year) so after just a year, we’ve shaved nine years off the loan. It’s now set to end in 2028 versus 2037. My goal is to finish paying this one off in the next six months; assuming that happens, it will shorten the loan by thirteen years. That’s a lot of years of interest payments we’ll be saving.

Then we plan to tackle the remaining mortgage loan, using the monthly payment we previously paid for our first loan to accelerate our payments.

I was hesitant to set such an ambitious goal because I don’t like setting a goal and then not achieving it, and there are so many variables that are out of my hands that can affect my plans. But then I decided to set a goal that would energize and really motivate me, which this one does.

I talked to our teens before we did this, letting them know I’d be doing budget cutting. They were very supportive. One recently told me he thought we’d be eating rice and beans, sitting in the dark, and was disappointed by how ‘normal’ life felt. I laughed and told him we don’t have to give up all of our quality of life to do this! I’m thankful that all of our older children feel very abundant at the same time that we continue to live frugally.

I know that some people would say that the money could be invested in something that earns more interest than the interest we save by prepaying. While I’m sure there’s merit in that approach, I’m a financially conservative person and find comfort in the thought of having our primary residence paid for in full. The emotional benefits combined with the financial benefits make this a good choice for us.

Have you paid off a mortgage early, or is it something you’re currently working towards? I’d love to hear your experience!

Avivah

This week in the kitchen – compote, apple cider vinegar, sauerkraut and pickles

canning, frugal strategies, lacto fermentation

This morning I wanted to get an early start in the kitchen this morning. I needed to take dd6 to an introductory meeting at her kindergarten at 9:45, and I was hoping to get some traction on some food preservation before then.

My husband brought home a bunch of apples yesterday. Sometimes I don’t get to fresh produce right away and I always regret it, because it’s so much easier to process food when it’s fresh and blemish-free. I have a apple corer-slicer-peeler but my apple corer sections apples into six pieces and is so much faster that I’m willing to use apples with peels on them. I wasn’t looking at the clock but I felt mighty quick in filling up two large pots with the prepared apples.

I haven’t done much food preservation lately, and today decided to make apple compote, which translated into fifteen quarts/liters once it was cooked. I add a little water, some vanilla and let it cook down slowly. It’s so flavorful and as it was cooking, several times dd6 and gd4 asked me what that good smell was! Usually I add cinnamon but I didn’t feel like it this time. Of course I canned all of those lovely jars so I can keep them on a shelf instead of in a fridge. It makes me smile thinking of pulling them out in a few months for dessert for Shabbos dinner.

The next logical step was to do something with all the beautiful cores, so I decided to make apple cider vinegar.

Making apple cider vinegar is really easy: first fill a jar halfway with apple scraps.

Add water to fill the jar until about an inch from the top. Add a tablespoon of sugar per cup of water you used.

Cover it with a cloth and stir it once a day for a couple of weeks.

Then let it sit for a couple of months until it’s ready, and strain it out. That’s it.

I keep mine on the counter for the first couple of weeks so I can stir it daily to be sure everything stays submerged under the liquid , then put it away somewhere out of my immediate kitchen zone to finish fermenting. Last year I was really happy with how delicious the apple cider vinegar was. I told you then that it was so good I wanted to drink it by the cupful!

I got all that finished and had about forty five minutes to spend with my grandchildren before I needed to leave with dd6 at 9:40 am.

Later in the day, I turned my attention to the cabbages.

I wanted to turn them into sauerkraut, but I don’t have a cellar or basement or even a home that is usually air conditioned to keep the temperature low for an extended time. If I would shred the cabbage as I usually do, it would ferment within three days. Everything ferments much more quickly in the heat. I decided to chop the cabbage coarsely for the next batch so it would take a longer time to ferment. I made two four liter buckets full, which will be much less once it breaks down and compacts, but will still be a nice amount.

That was enough food preservation for today, first of all because I was tired and secondly because then I needed to make dinner, put the kids to bed early and leave to ds6.5’s introductory school meeting, this one only for mothers. It was on arriving there that I learned he’s going to be going into first grade, not gan chova (pre1A). His teacher looks wonderful, as all of the teachers in this school have been. I’ve been very happy with this school and feel so fortunate that by moving here, our boys have a great place to learn.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with ds6 and his new teacher. They started hiring staff a week ago and it looks like the gan is actually going to start on time on September 1st! Since my husband and older boys won’t be home at that time of day, I’m going to be taking the other three kids with me to this meeting. It will be short and everyone will enjoy seeing his school – the twins went to Siblings Day at ds11’s school and saw his class and ds6/5’s gan. And then I took everyone to see dd6’s gan prior to the meeting today.

Back to food preservation: a couple of days ago, for the first time in ages I made lacto fermented pickles. In the past I’ve sometimes made amazing, delicious pickles, but it’s so unpredictable how they’ll turn out – sometimes they are just not good. I finally decided to try it again, this time using bay leaves as the tannin source (tannin being the ingredient that keeps the pickles crunchy). Grape leaves are recommended and I have loads of them on my vine, but I have another year until we can harvest the grapes, and I don’t know if the grape leaves have the same status. No, it wasn’t important enough to me to call a rabbi to ask.

I wanted to use tea bags but I didn’t know where my husband put them and when I saw that bay leaves are a tannin source, figured I’d use them. I bought a kilo bag of bay leaves over a year ago. Do you have any idea how huge a quantity that is? I’ve hardly made a dent in them. So if these work well for crunchy pickles, there’s a lot more I need to use up. If you live locally and want some bay leaves, I’m happy to share. 🙂

After a day and a half, I put them in the fridge. I hope the experiment will be successful, since most of us in the family really like pickles, and they’re so much healthier, tastier and cheaper when you make them yourself.

Avivah