Absorption

What a complex word, absorption. I am probably the least absorbed person in this country, but that is part of the problem. Thinking about living in Israel still brings tears to my eyes and I live here, it is not as easy as it is in America, in fact it is much harder, yet I am still not absorbed.

There is a certain amount of willing suspense of disbelief needed to live here, I am not sure I have it, but I am trying to build it. First off Israel makes no Finaincial sense, in the last 4 months I have learned that. But I have also learned that what I expected to be spending to live each month is shrinking as I am here and learning on what to spend and what not to spend.

The fact is we do not drive as much as we did in America, it does not make sense most weeks to drive to the supermarket as the local store on things like bread, veggies and milk has the same prices and you do not have to pay for the car use.

The other thing is I am making sense of what it takes to live on. The fact is a family of 4 living in Ra'anana assuming no outside debt (we have 150k in student loans) should be able to live on 10,000 NIS per month including rent, food, car, clothes, gan and excluding travel. Assuming the normal tax rate that means that they should be able to live on 2 average salaries, or one good salary.

Cheers,

Benjamin