Not a Hypocrite

One of the best things about having a blog is that it typically forces you to hold yourself to a higher standard. It's hard to write about something you perceive to be an issue without at least trying to overcome the same issue yourself.

One of the major themes I've found while carrying out the Jewish Economics Survey is the troubling trend among frum Jews to not have life insurance (over 40%). My father is a financial planner who of course sells insurance himself, and when I mentioned the numbers to him he was appalled, though not surprised. At the same time, however, we didn't have ourselves. Both times we started the process before this year we never ended up actually completing it. Around the same time as the survey began and the responses started coming in, we decided we couldn't continue to go without something so important, even if the hope is that we're just "wasting" the money.

A couple of weeks ago we were told our policies were active; today our agent came by with the actual policies themselves and we handed over the first checks. While we can always add more later or get other kinds of insurance, for now we have basic term insurance ($1m on each) and we're paying $1,310 a year in total from a well-known company (and just in time - rates are about to rise, apparently). In retrospect, I don't think that what holds people back from getting life insurance is the money; it's just not on people's radar. I'm not an expert on life insurance, but it's a rather cheap investment for something you'll hopefully never need; a great primer on life insurance was posted by a guest on Orthonomics here. Just as a quick note for those who should be getting it: You may not need $1 million in coverage at this point in life, especially if you're a young couple like us. The rates are level on term, so had we gotten $500,000 on each of us we'd be paying $655/year combined. Talk to a financial advisor you trust.

Finally, Pazit.org now has a blog as well - Pazit's Money $marts - including some of the basic tips it handed out at last week's presentation. The tips are good for anyone, and women will gain tremendously by joining Pazit and especially by taking part in its Money Club.

EZ Reads 5/13/09: Oh Fine

A few good reads I've been gathering up for a while: (Hat tips to many)

• Adventures in Chinuch discusses how the year in Israel can often severely damage a person's future, due to the encouragement of Rebbeim to take certain (worse) paths.
• On a similar note, ADDeRabbi discusses having a conversation with his former self (or at least a young KBY guy who reminds him of himself at that age). Very interesting to ponder.
• A New York Times piece on black hats. (Really.)
• ...and a NYPost piece on a Brooklyn gas station that serves food at its Heimishe Coffee Shop. Like... chulent. [Too easy to make that joke.]
  
• Cool piece in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Blink) on how Davids beat Goliaths - by changing the game being played. Personally I think it has serious limits: At some point, Goliaths will simply either play the same game right back (and better) or they will use their power to assert their style. (Think of how the surge in Iraq broke down terror.)
• Another cool piece in the Wall Street Journal on how entourages are now much more business than lazy punks. Fascinating, really.
  
• Interesting NBC piece on the "Jewish Jordan", Tamir Goodman, 10 years later. Nice kiddush Hashem.
• Hirhurim links to a candid interview with R' Dr. Norman Lamm, where he (almost) says kaddish on Conservative and Reform Jewry. (On the flip side, when I saw that I immediately thought of Rabbeim who have done the same on what they see as the failure of Modern Orthodoxy.)
• And in case you've never seen this (you're probably female), girls are in fact evil. {Insert women and math joke here.}
  

Enjoy!

Erev Pesach in Cleveland Collage

Chase is Brilliant

Hat tip: Special Ed, via Consumerist

JPMorganChase is currently carrying out one of the most brilliant bank strategies I've seen in a long time. On their customers' credit card bills this month, they decided to set the minimum payment at a good old $0.

Chase is being awfully nice to their customers in tough economic times. Many of their customers received statements this month with a minimum payment of $0, even though they have balances. How nice! Customers take a month off, Chase will just let finance charges accrue for them.

Now, what would you do if you got a bill that said you owed $0 this month? Odds are, you'd say "Great!" and throw it in the trash, not paying a cent. You'd be happy, and Chase would be even happier: You'd accrue finance charges on the money you still owe. If you owed $2,000 at 18%, you'd accrue about $30 in finance charges.

One of the reasons it's advisable to not just pay the minimums on credit cards in general is that banks calculate what they think is a good level to keep you paying as much interest for as long as possible without pushing it to a level where you'll stop paying them. Chase is taking that one step further with this, by putting in a one-time break to let everyone accrue more interest for them. When paying down debt, figure out what you can reasonably pay down based on what you have available, and pay that amount, which should be well above the minimum. (Personally I find it useful to pay down to a round number, such as a -00 or -50. Not only does it give me a clear picture of how much I owe without rounding and being off, but it makes me more aware of whatever finance charges I'm getting hit with each month when the bill says I owe $-18.36 or whatever, and I immediately understand that I was just charged $18.36 in finance charges. That added awareness gives me an extra push to pay down the debt faster.

Jewish Economics Survey Presentation #2

In another exciting turn for the Jewish Economics Survey (take it here), I will iy"H be speaking Shabbos, August 8th at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills as part of their summer series of speakers.

While I haven't officially decided on a topic, it will almost assuredly be at least partially focused on the survey and "Orthonomics" (the subject, not the [great] blog) in general. It will obviously be a little different without a Powerpoint presentation to show some of the numbers and other fun stuff on, but I'm really looking forward to the opportunity, and I hope that all those of you who will be in Kew Gardens Hills that Shabbos will feel welcome to attend!

8 Down, 8 To Go

As the Cavs keep rolling, a few good and fun pieces and videos to watch courtesy of a few, especially Mom. First, muppets LeBron and Kobe:

Good thing he decided against football, at least for now. Finally, I wish they had one of these from the entire series, but then again, considering this isn't even all his highlights just from Game 3, I guess it would be too long:

Quotes from the Weekend

Memphis II's status: Sometimes there's just too much month left at the end of the money.
Me: You should have come to my presentation. :)
MII: I knew you'd like that one. :)

Cleaning lady: {looking around} I can't remember what I'm looking for...!
Me: Oh yeah, happens all the time. Then you see the thing and are like "Oh, that's what I was looking for!"
CL: {looks up, sees it, shakes her head}
Me: Found it?
CL: Yup. [pause] I stopped drinking because I thought it was affecting my memory, but it's still just as bad. I'm going to start drinking again.

Elianna (3): Can I have lipstick?
Serach: Sorry, it's Shabbos, and it's muktzah. You can't have any.
Elianna: Who made it muktzah?
Serach: Hashem.
Elianna {looks skyward}: Hashem, can I have lipstick? I really want lipstick...!

For The Unemployed

I've been sent this a couple of times, and it seems like a wonderful initiative. It's a joint product of the Orthodox Union, Agudah, and National Council of Young Israel.

I wanted to make you all aware of a wonderful organization that is working diligently to place professionals who have recently been laid off, and are looking for work. “Emergency Parnossa Initiative” is a non-profit organization that was created to address the needs of our local community in these difficult times. In the past two weeks alone they have been successful in placing a number of professionals in six figure jobs.I took the liberty to attach a brief description of their services. Please take a minute to read it.Most importantly, if you know of any job openings available, or if you are looking to hire, please contact them either via email at jobs@epinetworking.org or call them at 212.612.0202. (They are offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who refers a job that leads to permanent employment).

If you or someone you know has recently been laid off and is looking for work, please contact EPI today.Please forward this email to all your contacts.

JES: Post-Presentation Musings

It's 2:00am and I'm exhausted, but post-presentation first thoughts before they fade:

• Huge thanks to: Tamar Snyder and Pazit, which women should join up forces with, Mt. Sinai for hosting and Shlomo B. for helping set up.
  
• Crowd was really great. The room was full (50-60 people someone said), the people were really interested, and they asked numerous good questions in the Q&A following the presentation. A couple people knew more about certain subjects/aspects than I did, such as Canadian information (in response to a question about international responses).
  
• As my own not-so-harshest critic, I'd give myself a B+ as a presenter; really a B, but as a first-time presenter it would be A-, so B+ works. :) One of the most interesting things when you're speaking in front of an audience is the intense awareness you have of all the things you're doing wrong: "Um"s, "okay"s, long pauses as you find yourself (which are better than trying to babble your way out of a hole), trying to babble your way out of a hole anyway, standing with your back toward part of the audience for too long when showing a slide, etc. That said, none of those were too horrible, certainly for a first time, and as it got going it calmed down. [continued this morning] Lessons learned (including that I need a printer so I can practice while viewing the slides, since I prefer speaking more off-the-cuff; over-preparing hurts, in that you end up being more rote for parts you've essentially memorized and try to "get back" to what's on the paper instead of just telling what you want to tell; etc.).
  
• Being interviewed (by TJC) was oddly comfortable.

I'll write more about the actual presentation later or next week, once I have a chance to go through some of the audio and video.

I hope everyone enjoyed as much as I did (and it seemed people did), and if you were there, feel free to leave any comments or critiques on the presentation, delivery, content, Q&A, the handouts at the end, etc. Thanks so much for coming!

Speak With Conviction

In the spirit of Speaking Day here at SerandEz (see the post below), I figured I'd share this with y'all:



Good luck today, Ezzie! Speak with conviction. :)

JES Presentation - Tonight!

Just as a reminder, tonight I'll be giving the first presentation about the Jewish Economics Survey: [take it here]

Playing - and Praying - in the Black, But Living in the RED
...just how much does being an Orthodox Jew cost?

The presentation will be at the Mt. Sinai Jewish Center in Washington Heights, 135 Bennett Avenue, New York, NY, 10040. It's called for 8:00pm, but there's a mincha/ma'ariv minyan there [7:40] so it probably will actually start closer to 8:20 or so.

The Jewish Channel will also be there recording the event, and Tamar Snyder of the Jewish Week will be talking briefly about her new organization, Pazit.org.

After Tamar speaks for a few minutes, I'll give my presentation, followed by an open question-and-answer session.

I'd love to see all of you there!

JES: Video Cutout

This is the video I wish I could play at some point during the presentation. It's hilarious. Thanks to my good friend AppleJuiceGuys for reminding me of its existence; we were talking about all the problems people have been listing as the largest problems facing the Orthodox community, and he said "Forget all the other ones, there's really just one: STOP BUYING STUFF YOU CAN'T AFFORD. It's like that old SNL skit..." So, I hope you enjoy it as much as we have:

JES: Ready

:::Whew!::: (If you haven't taken the survey yet, please do so here.)

Bas~Melech put it well when she asked me a couple of hours ago:

"You're ready with more than a day left? What's that like?!

Honestly, it's odd. While it's nice that that pressure of preparing is off, and I don't have to worry about that, I'm the type that actually thrives off the pressure. I enjoy being given more difficult or time-impossible tasks, then coming up with ways to pull them off anyway. That said, I now have over a day to drive myself crazy about it. Ah well.

The responses have been flying in the last couple of days. Rather than analyze more numbers (I think my head is about ready to explode, and I like this stuff), I'll just note a few interesting comments left on some of the questions near the end:

• Great idea. The current system is broken. There are years when my wife and my take-home pay is less than our combined tuitions for just 4 children. Yeshivas and girls schools are teaching the children that it is wrong for a young married man to earn any money at all until several years into the marriage, yet yeshiva and girls' school tuitions are astronomical. This paradigm cannot survive for another generation given the recent economic meltdown.
• Go to public college, not private!!
• Move to Eretz Yisroel before having children or when they are very young, where all types of Jewish education is MUCH more affordable than in the U.S.A. (I would not recommend moving with adolescent children.)
• do not buy what you can't pay for right now. practice delayed gratification
• save, save, save. forget what everyone else is doing or what you did when you were single. stop spending money.
  

I thought these were especially interesting. The first one is one heard many times, but the number is scary: Take-home pay less than tuition alone? But it's pretty understandable: Even a couple earning $100,000 is only taking home about half that if they work in Manhattan. Sadly, $50,000 might not cover tuition for more than 3 kids.

Public college vs. private: While people take for granted that private college is somehow better, I've yet to find a frum person I know who chose public over private who later suffered for it. Or for that matter, someone who chose a "name" school over a non-name school. Interestingly, there was a study (either UCLA or Harvard) years ago that tracked similar students - one who would pick an Ivy school and the other who would pick a decent state school. The students years down the road were doing equally well. It's definitely something worth at least thinking about.

I thought the Israel approach (while mentioned by nearly anyone who moved to Israel) was interesting, and I thought it nice that the person balanced a non-economic consideration. Whenever people discuss finances there's typically a weight of economics over everything else, and not without reason; but it's important to find a good balance there. That exists on the other side, too, as noted well by the next comment: An overwhelming number of comments feel that delayed gratification is something that simply does not exist among their peers, whether due to pressure to "keep up" or something else.

Finally, I especially enjoyed the last comment. While many people are able to ignore what everyone else is doing in terms of their expenses, they aren't necessarily able to do the same when it comes to their own self from before. People get married and can't seem to let go of some of the things they "always" spent money on, whether entertainment (baseball games), clothing (shoes), food (eating out), or the like. Marriage is a whole new financial ballgame compared to being single.

"Your Views are not welcome in UK"

Sigh.

The UK is publicly announcing those that will no longer be welcome there due to speech that they are against.

Money quote:

Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.

Don't get me wrong. I understand entering a country is a privilege. I agree to that. I also believe any country has a RIGHT to keep anyone it wants out. The issue I have is not about rights, but about the moral slippery slope that this brings. Is the UK gov't going to start screening people on what their ideologies and values are before they can enter the country? Who gets to determine which speech and "values" will be allowed? There is a difference between letting terrorist in and people you disagree with their views. 

Digging for Gold

JES: Cutouts

Here's some good stuff that I'm cutting from the Jewish Economics Survey presentation that I found interesting, just not important enough to discuss during the presentation itself... First, a few little factoids:

• Over 75% of those who have a car own it outright. That's pretty good, I think.
• About half the respondents have two cars. About 10% don't own a car.
• About 34% have 4 bedrooms or more.
• 19.7% of the respondents are 40 and up. 34.8% are in their thirties.
• Over 15% are single.
• While 87% of married couples outside of NY/NJ (which includes West Hempstead, Monsey, and Highland Park for the sake of characterization) are members of a shul, just 72% of those within NY/NJ (which does not include those areas) are members.
• On the flip side, singles within NY/NJ are more likely to be members of a shul by a 63-56% margin.
  

I thought the average utility costs per month by residence size was interesting:

• 1-bedroom apt.: $95
• 2-bedroom apt.: $126
• 3-bedroom apt.: $255
• 3-bedroom house: $371
• 4-bedroom house: $475
• 5-bedroom house: $561
• 6-bedroom house: $626

While certainly, all else being equal, people are better off in houses, it's imperative that people who are looking to own instead of rent be well aware of the uptick in their other expenses, from property taxes and home repairs to utilities. For example, a family in Queens who rents a 2-bedroom apartment pays about $121/month in utilities; if they want to buy a 3-bedroom house* in Queens, their utilities almost quadruple to $475/month.

* smallish sample, but the numbers are mostly consistent

Actually, as I was writing that I decided to include it. I thought the next comment was interesting, as it was somewhat opposed to earlier comments by many suggesting people shoot for higher education due to the higher salaries they bring in in the long run; this respondent felt advice to young people should include the following:

Improper preparation of young people to be productive wage earners. Tell people about CLEPs, self study, industry certifications, etc. College degrees can be had in 2 years, not 4. One can earn a living as a CFA, MSCE, A+, Actuary, etc. with minimal college.

Finally, a really cool idea from a family in Lakewood:

Something we do it put all our coins into a big pretzel container at the end of the day (we don't spend coins) and that usually gives us $1,200 - $1,500 a year (no pennies). This way we can afford to go on a one or two vacation, overnight with the kids in the summer

That's a pretty clever way of doing things, and really lets you appreciate just how much small coins add up to - let alone putting aside a couple hundred dollars a month or so. On the flip side, this makes me nervous just to read, in response to the questions about debt:

We usually get "off the book" jobs here and there and are able to cover the credit card debt around August-September each year. Our credit card debt is only on credit cards with 0% interest and no fees.

While the 0% interest/no fees is great, this family (of five) is essentially living on a wing and a prayer. Not only are their jobs "off the books", which [forgetting that issue in and of itself] means that they could easily not get paid or something could go wrong. It also means the income is not steady, cannot be relied upon (especially in a year like this), and if they suddenly can't make a payment on those credit cards, they'll get nailed with fees and their interest rates will shoot up.

Feel free to add any comments, and if you haven't taken the survey yet, what are you waiting for?! If you have, please send it out to friends and family - thanks!

Cleverness

I'm a bit busy preparing for this week's presentation (just about done!), so here's something to smile about today. :)

My sister Verv told me a couple great stories from my nieces and nephew.

Smassi (6) : Am I going to get a mitzvah note for what I did?
Verv: No, you're expected to do that. You don't get a mitzvah note for that.
Smassi: Well, did I add another brick to the Bais HaMikdash?
Verv: Of course you did!

[a minute later] {Perfect (8) does something wrong}
Smassi: ...and now one just got taken out.

And another one from last week, after our grandmother fell (she's doing well now in rehab):

Verv: We're going to go visit (Great-)Grandma in the hospital.
Big E (almost 4) : Why!? Did she have a baby!?

Totally Inappropriate

Its not every day that someone sends me something so totally inappropriate, that I refuse to publish it on my blog. However, despite the totally insanity of this anonymously sent video, I felt it needed to be published somewhere.

Since Ezzie's a die hard CAVS fan, his blog is the only possible venue I could think of.

This youtube video was sent to me anonymously this morning, and depicts a shul (supposedly in Raanana) and it's electronic message board with Shabbat information on it.

Around 17 seconds into it, is when the Mazal Tov announcement appears that would probably cause Ezzie to get up and cheer.



Sheesh.

JES: Wordle of Problems

These are the comments people made in assessing what they think are the greatest financial problems facing today's Orthodox Jewish economy. Wordle picks out all the words people mention and sizes them accordingly in a word cloud.

See a theme? [Click to enlarge.]

Parshas Kedoshim: The Burden and Freedom of "Kedoshim T'hiyu"

I absolutely loved this D'var Torah at Adventures in Chinuch by YD, and am reposting in full (with permission).

Parshas Kedoshim: The Burden and Freedom of "Kedoshim T'hiyu"

Being holy, that's what it's all about. So why does G-d feel the need to command us specifically to be holy?

The is a highly popularized explanation of the Ramban which basically goes like this:

Yeah, mitzvos are to make us holy, but not all of life is so clear-cut. There are many details in life that are not covered by specific "do this, do that" guidelines (how much to eat, how much to spend on a car etc...) and our job is to sanctify ourselves in those areas using our own boundaries. And on the other hand, it's possible that a person can earn the dubious title naval b'rshus haTorah: someone who follows all the specific guidelines mentioned in the Torah, but is a completely unrestrained in the non-controlled areas.

Maybe you are thinking: well, maybe Ramban only meant this as a drash. However, I have seen (albeit in only one context) that R' Moshe Feinstein uses this Ramban as one of the reasons that smoking marijuana (or hashish, as he refers to it) is assur; it is an indulgent activity which flies in the face of Jewish values.

To me most interesting part of this concept is that it allows for subjective areas in halacha. So many of us were taught that "the beauty of halacha is that it touches all aspects of our lives: how we eat, get dressed, talk etc... and it tells us the proper way to serve G-d in every way possible," or something to that effect. But apparently, this isn't completely true; although the mitzvah of kedoshim t'hiyu does tell us that we should be aware of Jewish values in everything that we do, it does not always tell us what is right and wrong.

How can the Torah leave it up to us? Why should we have to ask ourselves what G-d would want us to do? What is gained?

I have two approaches, and I think both are correct:

1) G-d, better than anyone, understands the fact that we need to feel like individuals and we need to enjoy life. He also knows that every person finds meaning differently. So, in order to strike a balance between the control of the Torah and necessity of individuality, G-d allowed certain aspects of our lives to be regulated by us.

2) There are the commandments of Torah and there are Torah values. In order to impress upon us the significance of Torah values, certain areas omitted from the list of "do's and dont's." By leaving thing out the Torah forces us to to make our own decisions, decisions that are meaningful to us and based on Torah values.

There's the d'var Torah. Now, let's get political, liberally and conservatively:

Liberally:

Unfortunately, the significance of subjectivity and the beauty of individuality has been lost on much of our generation. How many people out there think that there is a specific way for a "Ben Torah" to dress and spend his free time? Lots. How many people out there think that a "Bas Yisroel"(I purposely replaced the 'a' of yisrael with an 'o') has to stay away from certain professions and has to to look for specific characteristics in a shidduch? And unfortunately, this close-mindedness has reached the point of masquerading as Halacha Moshe MiSinai.

This doesn't mean that people shouldn't strive for growth. However, every person is on a different level, and to impose your way of life on others is, I believe, contrary to the message of Kedoshim T'hiyu.

Conservatively:

The other side of this message is that we must govern our lives within the confines of the Torah, even in areas not discussed by halacha. It is often difficult to decide what is right and wrong in these areas and even harder to follows those decisions, but that doesn't remove our responsibility. However, for many Jews, this concept isn't even on the radar. Torah values include modesty and humility, two values that many in our generation ignore. Affluence and immodesty are pretty common in many of our communities, perhaps, due to the absence of the message of kedoshim t'hiyu.

As always, we must be honest with ourselves and find our own balance...