Category: Intentional Spending

Yesterday I had a super full and tiring day – as I wrote that, I thought to myself that lately, I could start most of my posts like that! – I went to do some thrift store type clothing shopping.

Firstly, dd10 needs uniform skirts for school. The school has uniforms available for purchase, but only had very little girls’ sizes remaining.  I went to someone locally who sells uniform skirts as well as some used items, but she was also out of that size.  (I did get ds9 and ds2 nice vests for Rosh Hashana, though.)  Then I went to someone hosting a private sale in her home, and her prices were high, way more than I wanted to spend on a school skirt.  I also needed to buy a uniform shirt for ds9.

I took stock of my choices.  Karmiel is a predominantly secular city, so there aren’t stores that sell modest clothing.  So buying something brand new locally wasn’t an option (though someone did tell me she saw one skirt in one store that might be suitable).  I was told that in Tzfat (Safed) I’d be able to buy skirts that would be comfortable and modest for about 40 shekels each, and so I decided to go there.

However, before buying something at brand new prices, I always try to start with less expensive options.  I learned about a used clothing exchange in Tzfat, and planned to go on Weds.  If I didn’t find what I wanted at the used clothing exchange, I’d buy something new while in Tzfat.  Then on Tuesday evening I spoke to a friend who made aliyah just two weeks after me.  She had a less pleasant and much more frazzled departure than I did, and ended up taking her winter clothes but not summer clothes to Israel with her. So she got here and found she didn’t have much to wear!

The family she was staying with for Shabbos in Ramat Beit Shemesh (RBS) told her there was a used clothing exchange where clothing could be very inexpensively purchased in the building next to them, and she was able to get a number of nice things for a small amount of money.  She told me the prices were 3 shekels for women’s clothing, 2 shekels for children’s clothing, and since this was less than the clothing exchange prices in Tzfat (I think I was told 5 – 10 shekels per item), I determined that it would be worth my while to make a trip to Jerusalem the next day.

There are only three buses a day to Jerusalem from Karmiel, and I was on the first one, at 6 am.  It’s a three hour bus ride, and I knew I’d have to work to maximize my time to get everything done in time for one of the two buses back to Karmiel later in the day.  Firstly, I met ds18 at his yeshiva in Jerusalem and exchanged the stuff I brought him for an empty suitcase with wheels (the lovely one I got as a goodbye present from my dear homeschooling friends before I left), which I thought would be helpful for me to transport the clothing I anticipated buying, home.  He is really, really happy with his yeshiva, and it was not only nice to see him, but to see where he’s learning and living.

From there I got the bus back to the central bus station, then got a bus to RBS.  That was a drive of almost an hour, and I’ll spare you the difficulties of getting off at the wrong stop and trying to figure out where I was (since there was no one out and about at that time of day to ask).  I finally found where I needed to go, and was pleasantly surprised to see the huge amount of clothes at the clothing exchange.  (A nice side surprise was when two minutes after I walked in, the woman who used to be my backup doula walked in – I had last seen her several years ago in the States, and she is now living in RBS!)

I wished that dd15 could have come with me, since it’s nice not only for the company, but to have another opinion when choosing clothing for the girls.  I was able to find dd10 two very nice uniform shirts, and several navy skirts for school.  Additionally, I found a skirt, shirt, and top for Rosh Hashana for her, and a few other non uniform skirts (a total of ten skirts just for dd10 alone!).  I found some shirts and vests for the littles for Rosh Hashana, five pairs of shoes and three backpacks, several long sleeve solid color shirts for dd15 and dd16 to wear under their uniform shirts (has to be black, white, or beige), and some other miscellaneous items – the whopping sum for all of these things was 77 shekels.

When I had initially entered this building, I noticed a sign for a two day sale of new and used clothing, which I made a note of.  So I got directions to that house, which became my next stop.  It was a hot day and by now the suitcase was full and pretty heavy.  As I passed a couple of women speaking on the sidewalk, I glanced back to make sure I didn’t bump them with the suitcase, and surprise! – one of the women was the director of the Baltimore camp dd15 and dd16 had gone to when they were younger; she lives in RBS during the year and goes to the States to run the camp in the summer.  So I chatted with her a bit before continuing on my way.

At the next sale I found a couple of new skirts with tags for dd15 for ten shekels each, a skirt for me for 5 shekels, a pair of shoes for ds12, and then nine other items for 3 shekels. (She had a few boxes of less desirable items that were three for a shekel, things that had some kind of flaw or she felt wouldn’t sell as quickly for some other reason.)  I was able to find a couple of things that I could easily put a stitch into to make as good as new, and for the price it was worth my effort!  (Most of what I got wasn’t damaged, though.)  Another 33 shekels.

Then I went to one more clothing exchange, and this one was really a challenge since it was down a lot of steps and I had this heavy suitcase to deal with.  If I had known how many stairs there were when I first started going down, I don’t think I would have done it.  Because what goes up must come down and getting back up all those flights of stairs was a very intimidating thought.

Anyway, this place was very well organized (not to imply the others weren’t – they were) and had nice quality items, but with higher but still reasonable prices: 5 – 10 shekels for children’s items, 10 – 20 for ladies clothing.  Though I always try to start at the least expensive places and work my way up, I had never been to any of these places, and was glad it worked out in my favor this time!

At this place I found a uniform shirt for ds9 and a regular shirt for him (which I needed since I ruined his favorite shirt soon after arriving by attempting to clean it using something I didn’t realize was bleach until I saw the results!).  I also found a skirt for me, but as I was paying, asked the time and learned it was much later than I thought.  I had to leave right that minute if I hoped to make the bus, and didn’t there wasn’t time to wait for change for the skirt, I paid for the two shirts for ds9 since I had exact change for that and left the skirt behind.

I then attempted to race up the stairs with my hugely heavy suitcase – my legs were buckling when I finally got to the top and a couple of times on the way up I had to grab the handrail to keep from falling- and I raced to the bus stop.  And learned the bus to Jerusalem has just passed two minutes before.  🙁  I needed to get the last bus back to Karmiel, which left the Jerusalem central bus station at 4:15.  It would take an hour to get to Jerusalem from RBS, and another bus wasn’t scheduled for another twenty minutes, which wouldn’t get me there in time.

I was really feeling anxious when I thought to myself, “I’m where I’m supposed to be right now, and if I’m meant to get on the bus to Karmiel, I will.  If I don’t, I’ll travel to a different city in the north and get a connecting bus from one of those places.  But somehow, I’ll get home tonight.”

Amazingly, a bus pulled up 11 minutes later, and continuing to think the above thoughts kept me from tapping my foot in impatience every time people got on the bus.  I got to the central bus station with just enough time to very quickly buy something to eat – it was already after 4 pm and I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before – and got on my bus four minutes before it pulled out.  It was so nice to sit, take a deep breath, and for the first time that day, eat and relax.

Why did I feel it was worthwhile to spend so much time going to Jerusalem to buy these things?  It cost me approximately 110 shekels for my travel expenses.  I spent approximately 120 shekels on clothing, which included about 16 skirts, three uniform shirts, several ladies tops,  a number of children’s vests and dress shirts, and six pairs of shoes.  Total: 250 shekels.

If I had to purchase just two uniform skirts for dd10, I would have had to pay at least 80 shekels plus the cost of a bus ticket to Tzfat (approximately 110 shekels).  I knew that if I found just two skirts for her at the clothing exchange, the cost of my travel to Jerusalem would be comparable, and if I bought anything else, I’d be coming out ahead.  Even assuming I could have found comparable items to what I bought that day in the Tzfat used clothing exchange (I don’t know how likely a scenario that would be), I would have paid at least double for just about every single item I bought, bringing the clothing cost itself to at least 240 shekels, possibly up to 360.

Although my trip was fruitful, I don’t anticipate making this a regular event.  I went yesterday because dh is home and able to pick up the littles from kindergarten if I’m not available.  In the future, that wouldn’t be the case and this trip wouldn’t be realistic.  And it was a very long and fatiguing day.  However, because there were things I really needed for the kids for school, I wanted to go where the likelihood was highest of getting most of those things in one day, which is how it worked out.

A trip to the used clothing exchange in Tzfat can be squeezed in between the time the littles leave to school and need to be picked up, and because in a family our size, there’s always someone who needs something, that’s a trip I hope to make next week!

Avivah

“But why aren’t your fridge and stove working properly?”

Well, this is part of the fun of our move.  🙂

First of all, the background.  I had been perusing the online Israeli classifieds for months to get a sense of what a good price for the items I would be needing would be.  Before we left, I wrote down some phone numbers of things so we could call about them as soon as we got there.  That was very good foresight, and would have worked if we had a way to transport the items we bought home.  I assumed since so many people here don’t have vehicles, that we could hire someone to help us move something, or rent a vehicle to move something ourselves.  Logical assumption, don’t you think?  Well, that may have been logical, but it wasn’t the way it worked out.

When we arrived here, we found on the second floor of our apartment that a number of pieces of furniture had been left behind.  The real estate agent told us the tenant wanted to leave it in exchange for the cost of paint for the part of the apartment they hadn’t gotten to.  Now, a couple of months before, the tenant had offered to sell me most of these pieces at extremely high rates.  (I told you, I was checking the classifieds regularly so I would be able to recognize a bargain or a rip off.)  I passed along a message that I’d pay half the price she was charging, or buy the things I needed on my own.  No response, which was fine with me.  I’m not a stupid, rich, or desperate American.

So when I got there and saw these items, I already knew these were things she didn’t want.  Also, it was clear that they started taking the furniture apart and then it was too much work for them to take it all down the spiral staircase, so they just left it all there.  The clothes closet was totally taken apart, but no screws or clothing rods were left behind; the bookshelf of the desk had the backing ripped off and they took it with them, the bed was old and nothing I wanted for even a day in our home….and they left behind a stove.

The stove ended up being helpful, since we had no appliances, had arrived Thursday afternoon, and had no way to cook for our first Shabbos.  The stove top was cleaned and kashered, and dd16 was then able to cook our first Shabbos meal here.  However, the oven was very, very dirty – extremely.  It took another two weeks of scrubbing and cleaning before we could kasher and use it.  Once we kashered it, we learned that the door doesn’t close fully (stays about 1/4 inch open when baking).  We propped something against it to keep the heat in, which was a workable solution, but it was too small for a family our size, and trying to maximize the cooking space in it to suit our needs resulted in foods that were either burnt or undercooked.  (This wouldn’t be an issue for someone content to use just one or two shelves at a time.)

Back to our first few days here – I wanted to buy through the online classifieds, but was stymied because we had no way to transport anything home.  Dh called a couple of people who did moving, and said it would be between 200 – 400 shekels to bring something from someone else’s home ten minutes away, even if we did all the moving work ourselves.

So when someone recommended a second hand store to us, we decided to look into it.   I have a lot of experience and a high level of confidence in buying used furniture and appliances, but only buy directly from the person who used it.  I like to see not only the item, but get a sense of the person selling it, why they are selling it – particularly with used appliances that I don’t have a way to know how well they work when I buy them  – I buy only if I trust the person.  I’ve never had a problem, except with a used vehicle when I put my better judgement aside.

The sole appeal of this store was that we could see what he had, and have it home that day – and at a time when we had no way how to get anywhere to view things, and no way to bring things home even if we could view them, this was definitely a huge appeal.  The quality of his things weren’t the kind of thing I usually look for, and because he had about six different storage rooms with things piled haphazardly on top of one another, it was hard to really see what he had.

We ended up buying a fridge, washer, couches, a clothing closet, bunk bed, and another kids bed from this seller.    I felt the furniture was a decent price, though I could get much better quality for the same price from a seller directly, but the fridge and washer seemed to me to be very overpriced for what it was.  Dh said his priority was to get a fridge that day, and since we needed something, so we bought it.

When we got home, we learned the fridge didn’t close fully, and didn’t cool down well.   A mid size bottle of water after twelve hours in the freezer still wouldn’t be frozen.  When the food we cooked on Thursday night was spoiled when we served it for Shabbos, because the fridge couldn’t keep it cold enough, I told dh we couldn’t keep hoping the fridge would be usable, since it clearly was a problem.  Before we bought the fridge I had asked the seller what would happen if there was a problem with the fridge, and he said he would take care of it (definitely vague about what that meant).  So dh told him the fridge hardly cooled anything and we wanted a refund.  (He still had made plenty of money off of us with our other purchases.)

Instead, he came to our house to fix the fridge, and the next morning, it was worse.  All the food that had been frozen was now defrosted.  So dh spoke to him again.  The store owner told him to come in and pick out another fridge, but when I got there later in the day after spending hours that morning taking care of school enrollments and going to the Ministry of Absorption, he was grumpy and irritated with me because I hadn’t come sooner.  I didn’t get to choose a fridge – he told me which fridge we could take – it was smaller than the one we had bought, too small – but insisted that’s what we could have and he was losing money because of his generosity to us.  Right.  All we had to do was pay another 200 shekels for delivery, and the delivery guys would bring it over and take the broken one out.

Well, at this point I wasn’t sure I wanted anything else to do with this guy, but hoped that the replacement fridge would be better than the first, even if it was small.  It definitely looked a lot nicer, and the seal on the fridge was good so the door actually fully closed.  An improvement.  We had already spent 1200 shekels and I thought another 200 might be more ‘spilled milk’, but it also might redeem the money already spent.  Unfortunately, this fridge also didn’t work too well, and the vegetables we bought on Thursday to last us for the week already look like they’re at the end of their life span, just three days later.

Several days ago I met a retired Israeli policewoman who took a liking to me, and we spent quite a bit of time together one afternoon, going through things she was selling/giving away.  She’s a warm and good hearted person, but when I mentioned we were going to be looking for a fridge because I bought one at a second hand store, her demeanor changed as she said, “Don’t tell me you bought from David?  That disgusting, dishonest, horrible person!”  I told her that dh and I assumed he must be honest or he couldn’t still be in business in Karmiel after so many years.  She told me all the locals know to stay away from him (interestingly, even someone I asked directions from today for a different second hand store mentioned his store, and when I said he wasn’t honest, told me he was well aware of that already), that they know his stuff is overpriced, he pushes things on people, and the fridge will break within a week of getting it.  She was so upset about our experience, though it seems like it’s typical for at least a good number of his customers.

So we’ve now spent 1400 skekels and still don’t have a fridge that works properly; right now it’s kind of like a cooler.  If something is cool, it will keep it cool.  And overnight, when no one is opening the fridge, things can actually get cold and in the freezer, frozen.  Maybe we can keep it as a backup fridge.   I’m working on getting new (used) appliances, but in the meantime, this is what I have!

Avivah

A couple of weeks ago, I placed our family eye glass order with Zenni, and yesterday we received them.  I’m trying to make sure everyone has the most predictable of the things they’ll need in the near future, and almost everyone was due for new glasses now anyway.  I ordered a backup pair for each of us – ds18, dd16,dh and me. 

Dh got his first eye exam in years, and needs some progressive lenses – his close range eyesight has gotten better which happens as people get older, but he needs a slightly different prescription for distance.  Do you know how much progressive lenses cost???   (Progressive lenses are bifocals that don’t have the line in the middle and look like normal glasses.) $320 just for the lenses.  You didn’t think I would pay that, would you?  Nope, definitely not.  It took me a bit of figuring out to work out how to enter all the different information for his prescription, but by buying online at zenni.com, it was just $32 per pair including the frames.  Those were the most expensive glasses of the 8 pairs I got; including his two pairs it was around $150 for the entire order.

A note about ordering glasses online.  You need to have your prescription, and it must include the PD (pupillary distance).  If you go to an eye doctor like mine who jealously guards this information and insists it’s for your own benefit because you might hurt yourself by ordering your own glasses using her prescription information, you’ll need to find someone else.  I suggest before you make an appointment for an eye exam, tell them that you want the PD measurement and be sure they’re willing to give it to you.  If they won’t, move on to the next name and number in the phone book.  Dh did this and it was super easy.  Otherwise, you can have the fun experience of trying to pry out information that should be freely given to you (this is what I had to do, and I don’t find it especially enjoyable to repeatedly insist I’m allowed to look at my own children’s files).  If I was staying here longer, I would switch to another eye doctor because the resistance and extreme difficulty in getting this from our optometrist was ridiculous.  

 Then I ordered contacts for my dd who wears them – naturally, a nice supply so I won’t have to worry about this anytime soon after our move.  I ordered with Discount Contact Lenses; dd16 sent me a link to this site; I relied on her and didn’t research this at all.  I can say that the brand of lenses she ordered through our optometrist is available at this site, and even at the discounted price, is still almost double what the less expensive lenses I bought for her are. (I’m positive her name brand lenses are cheaper here than at our optometrist, but since they were covered by insurance last year, I don’t know how much they cost.) 

 The order for her was about $100 for six boxes of lenses (ie, 3 boxes for the right eye and three boxes for the left).  She only wears them on Shabbos, and one box lasted her almost a year.  Now she can wear them more often, if she chooses.

Now a note about ordering lenses online.  The law requires that the online sellers verify that your prescription is accurate with your optometrist.  I had checked with our optometrist before placing this order and told them I’d be ordering online, and was dismayed to find out a couple of days later that when the verification was requested, the optometrist refused it and said dd’s prescription is out of date.  I had to call and inquire how long after an eye exam the prescription is valid (one year), and then ask why they vetoed her order when it’s been less than a year and they told me it would be no problem just a day before.  They claimed the company never submitted the verification.  Right.  They don’t exactly have a good track record in this regard, but I told them I would have the approval request resubmitted to specifically the person I spoke to in order to avoid confusion (or passing the buck :)).   Once the approval went through, I had the lenses within less than a week. 

It’s so freeing to know that you can affordably and responsibly purchase eyewear on your own.  I’ve found online ordering extremely easy, much easier than trying on glasses in person (I ‘try them on’ the digital picture provided), and so far we’ve been happy with all of the pairs I’ve purchased as well as how they fit/look (14 pairs so far).

Avivah

Back in February, I cut our family food budget down from $600 a month for our family of 11 to $400 – this was done knowing that we’d be moving and I wanted to use up our food in storage.  Usually I’m constantly replenishing and stocking up on whatever’s a good price, but with the upcoming move I obviously could minimize how much stocking up I was doing.

Well, I didn’t do as good a job as I could have with this, because even though I stuck to $400, it still didn’t force me to rely on my pantry as I had hoped.  Last month I went down to $200 for the month, and I’m still not using up the food fast enough.  Once a month I allocate cash for the food budget for the month, and though I had budgeted $200 for this month also (to be taken out today), I realized that I really don’t need to budget that much at all. 

Firstly, we’re only here for another two weeks, so to be consistent I should allocate $100.  But my pantry….well, it’s nowhere near being empty.  So I decided that I won’t do any more shopping, in the hopes that I can whittle this down a little more.  I jokingly told ds18 when he got home to be prepared for my austerity menu.  (Our menus really aren’t austere at all, though I am relying more on frozen and canned fruits and vegetables than usual.)

As we’ve had lots of expenses related to moving, I’m grateful for not having to spend so much on food, and still being able to eat healthfully and well!

Avivah

PS – If you’re in  my area, and always wished you could buy in bulk at the prices that I pay, I’m now selling my remaining bulk foods at less than wholesale costs (ie below what even I or a retail store would pay for it!), here’s most of what’s available:

Spelt berries – 50 lb bag – $50
Spelt berries – 40 lb buckets (5) – $40 each
Millet – 1 1/2 40- lb buckets – approximately 60 lb, $30
Steel cut oats – approximately 50 lb/1.25 square buckets – $30
Rolled oats- 1.25 square buckets – $20
quinoa – approximately 25 lb/1/2 square bucket – $18
popcorn – 1 round 50 lb bucket – $30
cornmeal – 1-0 lb bucket – $25
Sunflower seeds, hulled, raw – 1 40 lb bucket – $35
Pecan meal – 1 -40 lb bucket – $60
Almond meal – 1- 40 lb bucket – $60
Shredded coconut – 1.25 40-lb buckets in volume, but not weight (since it’s not dense like the grains)- $25

There’s other stuff, like beans (individually packed by the pound – .75 lb), bulk spices, and other things I need to inventory.  But this is the bulk of what will be available, I think.  (Square buckets hold 40 lb if the grain is dense; otherwise it’s listed to give a sense of quantity but not weight.)