How do you pay for your child's wedding?

forgive me if i tell you that i don’t believe a word you are saying. Gas money became a down payment? who paid the rest of your bills? I cant believe either story. If you really had 5 kids and less then $50k income then you shouldnt have had any “extra” money to put away, and you probably werent paying any tuition, which waits for no man. There is no “extra” when someone does not have enough income to cover their expenses.

Are there poor people? Yes

The purpose of this thread is how to afford a wedding, not I am poor, I will always be poor.

1)Will anyone know if you did make a budget showing all your income and all your expenses on a monthly basis? Not unless you tell.

2)Will it cost you anything to make the budget? Only the time it takes to prepare the budget and perhaps some ink and paper if you don’t have a spreadsheet program.

3) If it doesn’t cost anything and no one will know that you are doing it, why wouldn’t people try to do it? People are afraid of change even if it’s for the better.

4) If they follow my idea and make more money then they need for the wedding what will they do with the excess funds? They will have to ask that on a different thread

There are two ways of saving money one way is to cut expenses as I have shown you. The other is to find another job. Robbing banks is not the answer? Likewise having someone else pick up the tab also isn’t the solution.

You are right if you are making $40k and spending $50K you will never get out of debt.

Please note when I use the term “YOU” I am not referring to anyone in particular.

You need to look at what you are spending your money on and cut expenses so that it is less than your income. If you can’t do this the only other solution is to find another job so that you earn more than your expenses.

When I had a car, insurance cost about $200 per month, gas for the car was another $100(which is what I was referring to) and maintenance and repairs was another $100 per month that comes out to about $5,000.00 per year for the car. Putting that into a Mutual Fund over 5 years with a little luck yielded $65K.

If you need your car, you have to look at your other expenses and try to find some where else you can cut expenses.

The first thing you must do is convince yourself that you can reduce your expenses. Look yourself in the mirror and say out loud (when no one is around) I will reduce my monthly expenses and then review your expenses. It may take months of reviewing expenses before you find the ideal way to reduce them. Please check with your spouse before implementing the cuts otherwise it create shalom bias problems and not solve the problem.

You wouldn’t be able to look at you expenses and puff find the solution. It takes time and sometimes trial and error until you find the best solution just don’t get discouraged.

Wishing you the best. This is no difference then losing weight just not going to the weight watcher meeting.

And would you also agree, Abba_S, that there may be people who manage to invest $25,000 over 5 years who do not end up with $65,000 at the end of that time period?

I’ve seen it happen…

You must have davened very very well.

You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

This is free advice. I don’t want to know who you are or what you are( Male Female Young or Old) or what your income level is? This problem is not limited to an individual the federal government has the same problem. They had to cut their expenses and once or twice had to close parts of the government because of budget problems.

MY next advice is to imagine you got $10,000 as a gift to invest in Mutual Funds. With this imaginary money make an imaginary purchase of 3-4 different funds using the funds closing price as your purchase price. Then once a month check how your mutual funds are doing. It wouldn’t cost you a cent and nobody will know you are doing it and you may learn how to invest.

As to what am I doing about the poor besides giving free advice, if one comes to my shul collecting I give them a dollar like everyone else.

The question wasn’t how to help the poor? It was how to afford a wedding?