Public School

My brother Fred* and his wife Wilma* have decided to do 'the unthinkable' and send their daughter Pebbles* to public school starting next school year. They live in Silver Spring, MD and simply cannot afford Yeshiva tuition in their double income household. According to my brother, there are others in his community who are considering doing the same.

And I have to say, Kol haKavod to them for taking the responsible road. For having the courage to fly in the face of today's Orthodox convention and chose financial responsibility over 'Jewish education above all else'.

When I posted my support of their choice on my Facebook status, several people asked why they didn't make Aliyah. My own decision to make Aliyah over 12 years ago was mostly financially motivated and I'm sure I'm not alone.

The problem is Aliyah isn't for everyone. It also doesn't solve the Tuition Crisis in the United States.

In addition, what's really so terrible about getting a public education (provided the PS has a good curriculum) with supplemental religious studies?

I don't know about you, but in my family, my siblings, cousins and I are first generation 'Yeshiva goers'. My parents, aunts** and my grandparents all received a public school education with Hebrew school on the side and guess what? They all married Orthodox people and passed on a strong grounding in Orthodoxy to all their children. And all of us married grandkids married Orthodox.

Did going to Yeshiva have something to do with this? Of course. But so did the foundation we had from our publicly educated parents and grandparents.

* Not their real names. No, really!
** I think my mother's youngest sister went to Prospect Park a million years ago, either for her entire education or for some part of it.

Economics of eating

In a recent post on Imamother about how in just 5 months of marriage, the poster and her (mostly in Kollel) husband were in debt an anonymous poster wrote the following:

Wow I am so impressed with how people really live frugally. I am not the op but I wish I could do the same. I know that I spend way too much money but my dh would never listen to me if I tell him that we should cut down. Do people really not serve meat or chicken every night for supper? My dh would kill me if I just served him macaroni.

I have to say I am flabbergasted that people can be so pettystupidselfishblind.

Last week my husband and I sat down with all our bills and our bank statements and using Google Docs we made several spread sheets with regards to our finances.

After looking things over we decided we needed to cut down our grocery budget and the main way we were going to do that was to pretty much cut out chicken and meat during the week and limit the fish to canned tuna.

This week's menu was: Sunday we had HOMEMADE lentil burgers and baked ziti. On Monday we had potato latkes and fresh salad. Tuesday was a thick veggie-barley soup and Wednesday I bought a package of kebabs, cut them into bit sized pieces and added that to the soup. So we had meatball soup. Not sure what we'll be having tonight. (Here in Israel, dairy tends to also be crazy expensive. Ingredients for lasagna for 6 is 50NIS or more in just cheeses. Also by 'we' I mean my husband and myself, our 2 1/2 year old son and on Tuesday my 18 year old daughter)

Would I prefer fried chicken and entrecot steak? Of course.

But I also would prefer a roof over my head.

I really think that anyone who claims that their spouse will 'kill them' if they served mac and cheese for dinner needs to sit down with said homicidal spouse and plan the budget. If smacked with the cold hard facts that chicken every night is simply out of touch with the budgetary reality, I highly doubt your spouse will want to kill you.

The concept of 'generic brands'

In recent months our local supermarket has had an influx of their generic brand stocking the shelves.

Except not one item is actually priced less than the brand name and in some cases it's actually MORE expensive.

I imagine the real 'savings' is if you have their credit card, but that costs 140NIS/month. Doesn't seem like much of a savings to me.

I think the corporate board needs a lesson in the mechanics of 'generic brand'. I need a reason to buy your brand as opposed to the just as- or slightly more expensive name brand and in today's penny-pinching world, price is a big motivator to get me to drop your brand into my cart over the other guy's.

Mega has their own canned tuna in both water and oil. I bought a can to taste test and it's actually really good. Up there with the available Starkist. Starkist is priced... either 5.19 or 5.29... or maybe even 5.39. Mega brand is labeled 4.93. After deciding that we like it, I've started buying it.

Last week I noticed that it rang up at 5.29/can. It was labeled 4.93. Unfortunately I didn't notice this until I was already home and no, I never got around to taking the receipt back to complain.

However when I bought the Mega tuna again today, still labeled at 4.93/can and it rang up at 5.29, I DID say something. The cashier called over the manager and the manager had the nerve to say 'why is she complaining about 40 agurot?'.

I couldn't help myself. I told her that it wasn't an issue of 40 agurot. But 40 agurot times the 5 cans I'm buying now, and the 4 cans I bought last week.

They corrected the bill and I got the tuna for 4.93/can.

I wonder if I go back tomorrow if the cans will be labeled 5.29. If they are, I'll probably go back to buying Starkist.