S/O directory for Kollel freebies

↑ synthy

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 2:39 pm

amother Indigo wrote:

No clue I never compared.

Ok but that was my point… of course there are a lot of hardworking couples. But anyone who says they’d be better off as a kollel family, well, than why aren’t they?

amother

↑ Indigo

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 3:19 pm

synthy wrote:

Ok but that was my point… of course there are a lot of hardworking couples. But anyone who says they’d be better off as a kollel family, well, than why aren’t they?

Depends how much people make. And how much kollel pays. And how much they spend. And what kollel perks are. No definitive answer.

amother

Cerulean

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 4:09 pm

synthy wrote:

Whenever someone tells me: kollel families end up being better off than most, I so badly want to tell them:ok, so why don’t you do it to? Oh, your dh can’t learn for 7 hours a day plus tutor some boys in the evening? And you don’t want to work out of the house plus a side hustle? Too bad, you’ll just have to remain poor.
Instead I just smile.

I'm a playgroup morah.
When ppl tell me that I have a dream job because I get to work at home, I get so much vacation and let's not mention the many gifts we get all year long...I tell them: "what don't you open your own playgroup? You would fill up right away!"
And they usually answer "oh no I would never be able to do that!!" LOL

The grass is always greener on the other side!! Wink

amother

Antiquewhite

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 4:21 pm

amother Indigo wrote:

Depends how much people make. And how much kollel pays. And how much they spend. And what kollel perks are. No definitive answer.

No. No kollel pays enough to make somebody wealthy.

Anybody I know who is has significant money and is in kollel has inherited it/gotten significant support/has wealthy relatives. I don't know of even a single exception.

amother

Broom

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 7:47 pm

amother OP wrote:

Smaller out of town kollel? Easily 80- 90% of todays kollel yungerleit learn in BMG and get none of the above, so I guess the other Imamother threads were generalizing. Oh well.

So because it doesn't happen in YOUR city it isn't an issue elsewhere? The other threads were talking about THEIR community. Not just BMG learners. Or even Lakewood.
But in my city there is a diaper gemach where boxes are insanely cheap. I found out a friend who is in kollel automatically got access. She told me when I told her about a great sale I saw.

Honestly this is so community dependent and any list would have detractors because it doesn't exist in that posters city. But there are a lot of special programs for kollel that may not exist in every city.

amother

Pink

Sat, Jun 22 2024, 8:04 pm

Look it all the perks you already have. I work in an office with a few other woman. We don't run on school schedule. Sometimes the kollel husband can figure out an arrangement when the kids have off. Occasionally they learn over the phone. One young bmg husband takes a carpool break. Some of my workers have to send their kids to expensive vacation camps when they can't figure out what to do with their kids on vacation while they work. You are very fortunate your husband is still able to learn in bmg does he have a lighter schedule being hazmanim? Eruv yom tov? Not everyone does.

Your husband sounds like a sincere,serious learner. Some at this stage leave Bmg. Just like a job,they do their research and go to kollels that work well for married men. They get money for taking test, gift cards before yom tov. They get other perks for learning men with families.

amother

↑ OP

Sat, Jun 22 2024, 8:24 pm

amother DarkMagenta wrote:

I guess small communities need to give these perks to attract and keep kollel members

BINGO. This is the real answer. Any kollel that is offering these incredible perks is doing so to attract kollel members to what is a harder sell than BMG. Small out of town kollelim. Kollelim that only take very high caliber or extra long hours. Specialized kollelim etc.

It’s completely understandable that a small town and its donors will consider the success of a kollel to be critical to the viability of the town. Towns and cities without kollelim often decline and age into oblivion. There are so many locations in the US where this has happened.

Little wonder that they will provide incentives to attract and retain quality kollel members. The same goes for specialty kollelim. Your average BMG kollel family isn’t seeing any of these perks.

amother

Stoneblue ↓

Sat, Jun 22 2024, 9:04 pm

amother Springgreen wrote:

I'm a young kollel wife in a yeshiva kollel (not bmg) who is bh making it now but plans to do this for more than 2-3 years. There very well might come a time where the salary from yeshiva is not enough for us but we don't want to give up the kollel life, so we would have to go OOT. Cost of living is lower, kollelim pay more... sometimes it just makes sense if you want to make things work. It's tough but sometimes you have to make a cheshbon and that turns out to be your best bet at making it

This exactly. And living a kollel life when everyone around you is doing the same is very different from being one of a few kollel families OOT. In many ways the OOT environment makes you stronger. You aren’t just going along with the flow.

amother

↑ Stoneblue

Sat, Jun 22 2024, 9:07 pm

amother OP wrote:

But I read the thread you’re spinning off from. OP was very, very clear that she was NOT referring to BMG. It’s okay to have conversations about kollelim other than BMG. If you don’t know anything about smaller kollelim, no need to get upset and try to make it about yourself. Just leave the thread.

FWIW, my dh is in BMG and has been for many years now BH. But I have multiple family members in different OOT kollelim so I can easily compare. There is a whole world out there that isn’t BMG.