Money for shabbos and YT- what does this mean to you?

amother

OP ↓

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 3:55 pm

It's written that the money spent on shabbos and yt aren't calculated on Rosh hashana. I hear people saying things like hashem pays back money spent on shabbos.
How does this play out in your home?
We often have guests for shabbos. Yom tov we have guests almost every meal. I make beautiful meals not very over the top but community standard (2 full courses plus dessert). It's starting to get really expensive, food is so expensive. I'm not sure if I should be cutting down or if this is what it means that Hashem pays back and I should continue.
Curious what you ladies think or do....

amother

Aubergine ↓

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:00 pm

Following..always wonder about this.

When my kids ask for something for Shabbos or YT, and I say it's too expensive they say 'but we get paid back!', I tell them to lay out lol!

amother

Gladiolus

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:02 pm

I've always wondered myself. If this is literally true, why then does tomchai shabbos exist? I have trouble reconciling this so any help is appreciated.

allthingsblue

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:02 pm

It’s obviously not a black and white calculation, otherwise we’d have no need for tomchei Shabbos and kimcha dpischa because everyone would be able to pay for Shabbos and yt and get paid back

I have a feeling this is a deep and individual topic that needs depth of understanding.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:06 pm

I dont apply this thinking to clothes and toys, I'm just thinking in context of hosting.

amother

Chambray

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:20 pm

It's on everyone's individual level I think. Also sometimes you see it blatantly and sometimes not. In sem my Rabbi told us about his chavrusa who has a book of their Shabbos miracles every week. Every week they blatantly see how Hashem puts food on their table. That's their level of emunah...not sure what to say about the cheshbonos but it does happen clearly to some...idk if most of us would be ok walking to the store on Friday with no money and being confident that Hashem will cover the bill I know I wouldn't be 🫣

amother

Wine

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 4:21 pm

I learned that if you have a reasonable way to pay for it you should buy special things for Shabbos eve. If you have to borrow (like credit card nowadays). But, if you have no realistic way to pay back the money you shouldn't borrow to buy for Shabbos, as it's better to make Shabbos like weekday than to be somebody who borrows without a way to pay back.

Additionally, there are halachas about whether you need to sell something if you can't afford Shabbos candles.

Obviously halacha doesn't view Shabbos as a free for all, but anything because you're not footing the bill.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 5:10 pm

Im sitting here writing my menu and shopping list and practically speaking, it costs us hundreds more because we have guests so it got me thinking.

amother

Bluebell

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 5:12 pm

ive been paid back for things for example one day we woke up and my car window was smashed (we think from a rock during a rain storm). to fix it was 200 and something dollars which is a lot of money for us but I told myself that its all from the one above. a few days later we got a check in the mail from a govt program we never applied for and it was for the amount we paid for the window and it was made out on the day we paid for it.
the next month we got a letter that sorry your actually not eligible for it but they never asked for the money back....
Idk Hashem cheshbonos but if Hashem says He will pay back for shabbos and YT then I truly believe he will!

amother

Aconite

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 5:28 pm

I'll tell you our story, I read about Rosh chodesh and how it's on Hashem's cheshbon and decided that we would buy pizza or sushi each month. We had no wiggle room in the budget and no idea how we would pay for it.
The first month, after we had already ordered the pizza, someone who we had helped a few weeks before called my husband and said "tell your wife not to make dinner, I'm sending over pizza". He even ordered from the same place and the same amount of pies. So we were definitely in shock, Hashem was really paying. Since then it hasn't happened again but even though there was no wriggle room in the budget, somehow we manage and it doesn't seem to make a difference at the end of the month.

amother

Heather

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 6:20 pm

I don't think there's a single thing that's brought down anywhere that discusses how hashem "works" that we can apply in this world. Ever. On RH and YK we kept saying that teshuva, tefilah, and tzedakah, tear up the bad decree. Forget if it's black and white. Do we see it at all? Can we say the people who davened more had less bad decrees this past year? I don't think so.

amother

Bottlebrush

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 6:32 pm

It’s hard to see the getting back so it’s a big nissoyin. I feel that if you are responsible and not waist I h money and mean it emesdig hashem helps. Also you are doing a mitzvah by hosting and you might be able to use maser money for it.
I had a relative who used to buy 5 boxes of cake and use about half a cake and throw away the rest. Also, buy like 6 magazines they read one article from each. He said lokovid shabbos I want to make money. Guess what hashem operates in teva and they got into a huge cc debt hole.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 6:44 pm

It's not that I'm putting my groceries on the credit card and expecting Hashem to pay the bill. Honestly it's not even about our oneg shabbos it's more about the guests. When I'm looking over where all the money disappeared to this month kind of thing, I noticed very high grocery bills, high because we are hosting all these meals. I'm starting to think if we didn't host so much we would spend less on food. Then my next thought is, maybe I shouldn't be making these cheshbonis because it says Hashem pays back etc.....

TravelHearter

Sun, Oct 13 2024, 7:29 pm

Didn’t read through the answers.
OP, I host as well. And I think I remember that the expenses of hosting don’t fall into this. That’s a separate Mitzvah, one we get schar for but has no source about being ‘paid back’ financially. I host, but do so in a way that financially makes sense for me. No meat boards;)

amother

↑ OP

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 9:14 am

TravelHearter wrote:

Why would serving others on shabbos not count in the spending of shabbos?

amother

Kiwi

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 9:40 am

I've noticed it in a small way. For example, we're on a kollel budget, living month to month, I bought expensive cuts of meat and chicken for the first time this yt and our bank balance didn't seem affected.

We also decided to buy the more expensive fabric for our sukkah and half an hour later I saw a message about an item being given away that we'd been needing to replace, for around the same price as the difference, and the biggest miracle - no-one else had taken it yet!

amother

↑ Aubergine

Mon, Oct 14 2024, 9:43 am

amother Aubergine wrote:

Following..always wonder about this.

When my kids ask for something for Shabbos or YT, and I say it's too expensive they say 'but we get paid back!', I tell them to lay out lol!

None of my kids have taken me up on this yet lol! Easier to have Emunah on somebody elses's Cheshbon!!!