When I shopped for some new suits, I decided to SAVE

After I lost a significant amount of weight, I needed a few new suits. Everyone I consulted said the same thing: I had to go with the high-end brand name suits, because the fit is everything. Plus quality pays, and they would last longer. And in any case it wasn’t “respectable” for someone of my age and standing to wear something cheap — your suit broadcasts who you are and how seriously people should take you. And that even if it sounded expensive, considering all the new clothing I had to buy, I would barely notice the cost.

I hadn’t realized until then how normative this way of thinking was, even from people who are familiar with my financial situation — which is stable, but definitely with no room for luxuries. I was almost convinced, but something internal held me back as I tried to work it out with myself.

It took an extra couple of days to come to a decision, and I did that after a lot of thinking and separating all of the “expert advice” from my own rational reality. In the end, I went to a regular store, and have been very satisfied with the suits I bought there. I’m honestly surprised how many people think brand names are standard. Not me!

When we made some home improvements, I decided to SPEND

This might sound unconventional, but if you do a lot of laundry you’ll understand. When we were doing some home improvements, we made the decision to buy a second washing machine. It’s more complicated than just another electrical outlet: we had to design the laundry room layout expressly to accommodate it, and pay for extra plumbing work. But it’s a luxury that reaps dividends every day; it cuts my laundry washing time in half.

When I faced pressure to buy a better, spiffier bike, I decided to SAVE

I’m a pretty avid biker. For those who are unfamiliar with this hobby, a good road bike starts at $2,000 and just goes up from there — it can cost as much as $15,000, as crazy as that sounds.

But I don’t need something top-tier. I figured $2,000 was a reasonable amount for a good entry-level model.

Once I had the money saved up, I went to the store, and the salesman got right to work. “If you go up to $3,000,” he said, “you can upgrade from an aluminum frame to a carbon frame, which is so much better.”

It was a big struggle for me. But at some point I made the decision that I’m just not doing it. I had decided to spend $2,000, and that was going to be my limit. The bike I bought is good enough for me. And when I ride it, I feel this energy: I kept my commitment; I made a decision and I didn’t allow myself to back down.

When my mother-in-law pressured me to get a baby nurse, I gave in and SPENT

When I was expecting my first baby, my husband’s family pressured me to get a baby nurse. Every sister and sister-in-law in his family uses one, and it’s just the norm, the “done” thing. Honestly, I didn’t really like the idea of someone else taking care of my baby and being around 24/7, but I’m the youngest in my family and have no younger cousins, so I had zero baby experience. I had never so much as changed a diaper at that point. I was convinced that there was no way I could manage on my own, and so I booked a baby nurse for a month, even though it was ridiculously expensive.

I quickly realized that it had been a bad decision. I really disliked the experience. The baby nanny only brought the baby to me for feedings. I wanted to keep the baby in my room at night with me, but the nanny insisted on keeping the baby in her room. I felt useless and depressed.

It was only after she left that I really got into the swing of things and was able to bond with my baby. For my next baby, I did it all myself, no baby nanny, and I had a much better experience.

When we made a bris, we decided to SAVE

Lately in my community, there’s been an uptick in super-elaborate brissim. I remember the days when a bris used to be a simple affair — some bagels, some tuna, egg salad and donuts (hopefully you ordered enough, but could you ever order enough?!). If you were fancy, you had lox and maybe some white fish salad, and that was the extent of it.

But now, brissim in my area routinely have chefs making custom gourmet omelets, all kinds of artisanal breads, cured fish platters, and a huge salad bar. It’s really next-level.

A few months ago we had a baby boy. I sat with my wife and we debated making the kind of bris that my community has become accustomed to. Technically we had the money for it, and of course everyone wants to fit in to their community. But as we continued talking, I realized I just didn’t want to spend that much money on a high-end bris. The good old bris package was perfectly fine up until a few years ago. Why did we have to go along with this new, crazy trend?

My wife heard my point, and we decided to grit our teeth and go with the basic bris package.

I came home after the bris and I couldn’t help but think, what if I had spent thousands of dollars more on that elaborate bris that we were seriously considering? I would have settled my wife in with the new baby, driven the rest of the kids to school, gone back to work and been like, oh my gosh, why did we spend all that money?

The whole event was an hour. Most of the people had already forgotten about it, and the ones who remembered it — my immediate family — weren’t remembering it for the food. What would have been the point?

I looked down at my baby and thought, this is the point.

I’m a new father.

I have a brand new, beautiful son.

The bris is over. He has his name.

It was literally one hour long.

I’m so happy we didn’t do it.

When my son went through a rough patch, we decided to SPEND

When one of my sons was going through a rough patch, one of his rebbeim suggested that we send him to a summer travel camp with a track record of helping boys in his situation. The price was exorbitant, and we’d never spent anywhere near this amount on a summer program. But this rebbi persisted, and tried to explain what a gamechanger this would be for my son, even arranging partial subsidy — so I relented, took out a loan, and sent him.

It’s now a couple of years later, and my son is doing well, although he hasn’t overcome all of his issues completely. To be honest, I’m still not sure it was the right decision, or if it had any major impact. But I do hope that the fact that we were willing to stretch ourselves for that possibility made an impression on my son.

When we were offered a scholarship for our daughter, we turned it down and Spent

When our daughter was accepted to two seminaries in Yerushalayim, we found ourselves in that uncomfortable space where values, money, and parenting all collide. One seminary offered a generous scholarship and made it very clear how much they wanted her. The other, the one she had her heart set on, came with full tuition and no breaks.

From a purely financial standpoint, the discounted option made perfect sense. We gently mentioned it to her, hopeful she might reconsider. She listened, thought it through, and then told us she honestly felt the full-tuition seminary was where she belonged. She had watched her sister thrive there, and something about it resonated with her.

Could we have pushed harder? Maybe. But we were more afraid of planting even a drop of resentment than we were of the price tag. So we swallowed hard, tightened the belt, and sent her where she felt she needed to be — at a cost of many thousands of dollars. Looking back, I’m grateful we did. Sometimes the “right” decision on paper isn’t the right decision for your child’s growth, or your long-term relationship. This was one of those times.

When I noticed a relative struggling, I swallowed my disapproval and SPENT

At a certain point in my life, I made the decision to stop wearing sheitels and use a more visible head-covering instead. I don’t look down on people who wear a sheitel, but it was no longer right or comfortable for me. I feel that there’s something more elevated about an easily discernable kisui rosh.

At the same time, I noticed that a close relative of mine was pretty much was wearing the same sheitel for years. It was a secondhand sheitel to start with, and as the years went on, it began to look shabby.

One day the thought hit me: Why don’t you treat her to a new sheitel? I was able to afford it, and while I no longer thought a sheitel was the right thing for me, she is a modest person who would never wear a showy sheitel. I went back and forth, wondering what to do, until I finally made the decision to treat her to a new sheitel.

When our daughter got engaged to a wealthy boy, we scrambled and SPENT

I have two daughters, both very close in age.

The older one got engaged to a boy from a simple family — just like ours — and we got him a watch that we could afford, in keeping with the standards and expectations of people with our means. He was very happy and grateful with it, and it was perfect.

Not long afterward, my next daughter got engaged to somebody from a very wealthy family. Right away, we saw the way they do things — the presents, the flowers, even the proposal — and we realized this is a “next level” kind of family, and we would have to step up to meet their standards.

We knew when it came to the watch, we would not be able to buy this chassan the same type of watch that we bought our older son-in-law. It would be considered offensive. It would almost be sending a message along the lines of “we don’t care about you and we don’t value you.”

So although we weren’t happy about it, we really, really stretched ourselves and we bought him a very expensive watch, which was completely not reflective of our lifestyle or values.

Our older son-in-law was extremely resentful:

why did you buy it for him and not for me?

But to us, it didn’t mean anything.

It didn’t mean we cared about him more.

It didn’t mean we were more excited about this shidduch

It was 100% because that is what was expected in that family, and we could not go lower.

We tried to explain this to our first son-in-law, but he didn’t get it. We ended up having to buy him cufflinks to make up for it, which is something we also had to buy for the second son-in-law, obviously.

In retrospect, I’m just wondering if I should have bought my new son-in-law a simple watch, according to our family’s standards. His parents did their research. They know who we are. They decided to do this shidduch with us regardless. So why did we feel so much pressure to operate on their wavelength?

When I made my first wedding, I resisted the pressure and SAVED

Honestly, the first time I married off a child was a very scary experience. I’m not a big shopper, I had a pretty tight budget, and here I was shopping multiple times a week, spending huge sums. I had saved up carefully for this, but I was still surprised at how much everything cost (and also by how much my daughter expected. It seemed there was always a “next” on her list).

During the engagement I met a friend who had just married off her own daughter. “I hope you’re getting yourself a new sheitel for the wedding!” she said. “You know what they say, when you make a simchah, the gates of shefa open. So take advantage and once you’re buying your daughter a sheitel, get yourself one too!”

I’ve heard that idea before, and I was very grateful that Hashem was helping us manage the wedding, the housewares, the clothing, and all the other things on the never-ending list. But I just didn’t see how or why I could justify buying myself a sheitel. The numbers in my bank account definitely did not seem amenable to the expense.

I think (I hope!) my regular sheitel looked fine at the wedding. A year or two later, when our situation eased up, I was able to buy myself a new one, without the pressure I’d been feeling during the engagement. I’m happy I waited.

When I made my last wedding, I decided to SPEND

Whenever we made a simchah, I approached it from a frugality mindset. I picked the most basic options, kept things plain and simple, went with the takanah plans whenever possible.

Then it came time to marry off my last child, and I realized: this is the last time I’m making a wedding, and I want to do it b’ravchus. I don’t want to pinch anymore. I want it to be beautiful and lavish and grand.

So I made a truly beautiful simchah. I spent more money on this child’s Shabbos sheva brachos than I spent on my other children’s weddings.

I wonder which type of simchah is closer to my values. On a logical level, I think the simple, scrappy simchahs were more in tune with what I believe in. But looking back, they felt too squeezed, too tight, like we were pinching every corner. This last wedding, where I went all out, was so beautiful. I enjoyed it more than the other simchahs I made, and even though I never imagined I’d spend so much on one night, I don’t regret it.

When we were faced with the expectation to make a huge simchah, we decided to SAVE

We have a large extended family, and daven in a large shul in a large community. When our son’s bar mitzvah approached, we realized there was this unspoken expectation to go all out and make a really big event. That’s the standard in our circles.

But as we talked about it, we realized that we didn’t want to pressure all those people who don’t really want to get dressed, hire a babysitter, miss yet another night with their kids, all to attend a simchah they don’t feel much connection to.

Yes, theoretically, we could have made a small affair for family only, but it’s so hard to do something that’s noticeably different from what your peers do without inviting judgment and talk and hurt feelings from people who’d be insulted if you don’t include them (but would have grumbled about coming).

So we decided to travel to Eretz Yisrael and make a tiny but meaningful bar mitzvah there, with just our immediate family. No big party, no hundreds of attendees, no splashy event. Was this a bit avoidant of us? Maybe, but I think some things are worth avoiding.

When I take my teenaged girls shopping, I SPEND

When I took my then eighth-grade daughter shopping for school shoes, she wanted a specific brand that all of her friends were wearing. It cost quite a bit more than I wanted to spend, so I told her no. She accepted it and we went to our regular shoe store, where we found a pair of shoes that looked nice on her. But I saw by the look on her face that she wasn’t thrilled. And it bothered me that I was spending $100-plus on shoes that she wasn’t even happy with. We ended up putting the shoes back and buying the ones that she wanted.

I never regretted it, and that sort of sparked my current policy. Teens have needs that we as adults have outgrown, but that is no reason to make them feel guilty and silly when they’re acting in an age-appropriate manner. We don’t need to give in to their every whim, but if there is something that we both agree that they need (shoes, coat, backpack etc.), I’ll spend more to get them one that they are happy with. It’s worth the self-confidence that it gives them.

I’m pretty confident they’ll outgrow this need eventually, but in the meantime it’s worth the price.

When it came to my appearance, I always SAVED

I was never a person who invested in my appearance. I always saw myself as someone who was above that, who didn’t need to be image-conscious to have self-worth.

When my kids were young, I sensed that they didn’t appreciate my shabbiness, but I assumed that one day in the future they’d understand that it just wasn’t important, and they would appreciate that I focused only on the inside.

But my children are grown up now, and until today, I see that when I walk into weddings and approach them to say hello — or when they’re introducing me to their adult friends — they cringe at my shabbiness.

In hindsight, I wonder if I should have invested in being a little more up-to-date. I thought investing effort in my appearance was silly and childish, that my kids would grow up, learn more about life, and know better — but it seems they didn’t learn and they don’t know better. Or maybe there’s something to it that I don’t understand.

When I bought a house, I thought I could SPEND

After I finished my degree in special education, I got a job in Brooklyn under the Catapult program. They were paying really well and I was very excited — excited enough to buy a house and take on a mortgage.

This past year, I don’t know if it had to do with Trump and DOGE or if it was New York’s budget cuts, but Catapult shut down a lot of their big programs and my job was one of the jobs that got gutted. I wasn’t alone: tons of my friends and tons of the people that I worked with also found themselves without jobs.

And the craziest thing is that a lot of us had bought houses, and taken on mortgages, assuming that we would be making the money that we were making when we had our Catapult jobs. Now most of us are struggling to find jobs with similar salaries. But I haven’t managed to find a job that will make that kind of money.

I wish that I had understood at the time that just because I’m making a certain amount of money right now, does not mean I’m always going to be making it. I should have taken a more holistic view of my finances and purchased my home based on the lower-end potential.

I honestly don’t know how I’m going to end up paying my mortgage now. It’s a really big problem and it’s causing us tremendous, tremendous stress.

When we rented our first apartment, we decided to SAVE

When were a young newlywed couple 15 years ago, we started out in a Lakewood basement. Back then there were really nice basements that went for $1100 or $1200 per month — and our parents urged us to take one of those, because they had master bathrooms and three bedrooms, instead of the standard two. And we did have enough money, technically speaking, to cover that rent.

But we were trying to be frugal, so we took a basement rental for $600 a month and set aside the difference as savings. We were newly married, we didn’t have any kids, why jump straight to a three-bedroom?

Our rental was nice, even if it was smaller, and we had many happy years there. Even better, when the time came to buy a house, we had a nice sum of money to work with. Remember, we had been saving $500 to $600 a month for years, so we had tens of thousands of dollars to use as our down payment (ten years ago, that was a significant amount of money).

I know that today houses have gotten much more expensive and you need probably hundreds of thousands of dollars for a down payment, but it wasn’t like that before Covid. We were one of the first couples of our age to buy a house, and people made comments like “Wow, they must have money from somewhere” or “Their parents must be giving them the down payment” or “Somebody’s obviously helping them.”

But the truth is that nobody helped us. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment without a master bathroom for years, and, and because of that one little trick alone, we were able to save the money for a down payment.

I can’t believe I just spent over

$100

buying presents for the siblings of my son’s new kallah. But they say you can’t show up for that first Shabbos after the vort without gifts for the eager little brothers and sisters

I can’t believe I spent over

$1,000

outfitting my ten-year-old daughter for the new season, but I’ve been around long enough to know that once they hit a certain age you need to shop in frum stores — and it doesn’t realistically get much cheaper than this

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1092)