Mother Avital (29) and father Kafir (34), parents of twins Ido and Uri
Where we live: Mevasheret Zion
How do you make a living: Intensive care nurse in Hadassah; Economist, sales manager in a medical company
Household income: NIS 22.4 thousand net
The heaviest expense: Kindergarten for twins NIS 6,500
“We try to conduct ourselves responsibly, track in Excel every shekel that goes out, and we still can’t keep our heads above water without help from our parents.” This is what Avital and Kafir Neiman from Mevsheret Zion, parents of twins Ido and Uri, say.
Avital works as an intensive care nurse at Hadassah Hospital, and earns NIS 10,900 net per month. Kafir is an economist, a sales manager for a medical company, and earns about NIS 11.5 thousand net per month. According to him, “Avital earns about 11 thousand net only thanks to night and weekend shifts. If she only works in the mornings, her salary will drop to NIS 8,000 a month. Together with my salary, NIS 22,400 net for both of us is not enough.
“Our main expenses are for rent, which currently costs NIS 5,900 and will become more expensive by NIS 300 in June. Kindergarten for the twins is another NIS 6,500 a month – that’s starting the month like this even before the bills. Avital is on standby, she must have a way to return. We bought her car with a loan A balloon for three years, at a prime plus 0.4 interest rate – the prime rate has increased and the interest rate has also increased – this is an addition of another NIS 100 a month, to NIS 1,100 a month in repayment of the loan. We have another loan that we are taking, amounting to NIS 1,800. Along with the other bills and all the expenses The others – this month we reached a total expenditure of NIS 25 thousand.
“We work hard to increase our salary and we still lack about NIS 2,500 every month. This month we did not shop for meat because Avital’s mother brought it to us and we still lack it. We do everything to not end up in the red, Avital’s parents help us with this, we have arrived To a situation where I can’t pay from the current account for kindergarten. My mother transfers money to me and I pay her back so as not to be in the red.”
You harnessed the whole family envelope for help.
“My parents buy us diapers and groceries. It helps us a lot. Her mother comes with a bag of meat from Be’er Sheva on Tuesday, because they have some kind of sale on Tuesdays, also diapers and similar things. It feels like everyone in the family works for us and we still don’t finish the month How do couples like us manage without this help?”.
Avital: “Our mothers really have a ‘work schedule’. Each one knows when she arrives, including when we stay here to sleep. When I work nights, Kafir cannot be here alone. He travels a lot, and will fall asleep at the wheel if he stays up all night, and the children every Time wakes up. There is a couch that is the standby bed in our house.”
The expenses for the garden especially upset them. “The kindergarten is crazy! All in all, Vizzo, something relatively minimal, it’s not Montessori education now. The payment is based on income per person, they look at the gross which looks very nice, and divide it into four people, the problem is that it’s twins, which is so burdensome and frustrating for us Us,” says Avital.
Kafir: “As far as the Ministry of Economy is concerned, our children are considered ‘babies,’ which is the higher payment rate. They decided to place them in the toddler class, but charge us the more expensive infant rate. It costs us NIS 1,300 more (out of NIS 6,500 for both children). This Absurd, literally our Achilles’ heel. And with us the deprivation is double…”.
What are you giving up? on vacation? The apartment dream?
Avital: “We didn’t go on vacation, for example.” Kafir: “I proposed to her in December 2019 and since then we have not traveled abroad. We wanted, but the prices accordingly. You can sit at home, not go out, not live, not breathe and put an X on another past day. I can also live in an igloo. But this is not life.” According to him, “We failed in the competition for a price for the tenant. I don’t want to be the owner of walls and a millionaire on paper with today’s crazy interest rates.”
Avital: “We’re suffocated anyway, so you also took out a mortgage? If we don’t meet the repayments, the bank will strip us of our skin.”
Monthly expenses in shekels
Kindergarten for twins: 6,500
Shopping at the supermarket: 4,500
House and Accounts Committee: 1,550
Car loan: 1,100
Telephones, TV, fuel: 1,000
Date and exits: 900
Personal care and clothing: 900
Total: 25,000 shekels