[Sarape]

I wish some of you in Israel would move here to Alabama. I can't guarantee a career, but you can easily find something paying at least $20k USD a year. And the housing cost and taxes are extremely low.

My property taxes are about $500 per year. And you can buy a nice home for $100,000 USD.
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' She says, 'I am the glamorous type.' I said, 'So what?'

[simona]

Dearest Sarape, I've always loved your sense of humor. But you don't know what you're getting in. Israelis can't live without a suicide bomber every other day, they are noisy though very friendly and casual, and love to eat all day long, especially falafel and swarma. And it's hot in Alabama, isn't it? It's hot enough here. But I return the invitation: you are welcome to visit us, I'm sure we'll manage to feed you with your preferred dish of porridge-gruel-risotto and present you with a silver spoon to eat it. We pamper our tourists. Christmas in Jerusalem??!!!
Think of it!.

No more war, more tourists from Alabama to the Holy Land!

[Sarape]

I started enjoying Jews in graduate school at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. That's when I discoverd that half the faculty of the aerospace/mechanical engineering department were Jewish.

The reason: I guess the Israeli defense forces put a lot of money into aeronautics research. They were doing all kinds of innovative research on airflow over wings and controlling surfaces.

When you're a small country surrounded by enemies it pays to defend yourself with high-tech weapons.

I'm sure my relatives would love to hear me say I can't visit Cleveland this Christmas because I'm going to spend Christmas in Israel. January 2nd they'd be at the lawyers office all changing their wills.
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' She says, 'I am the glamorous type.' I said, 'So what?'

[hys]

Hello everyone,

I just signed up for the forums and felt I had to post on this topic.

We (me, partner, and 2 yr old daughter) live in Montclair, NJ, about 12 miles or 25 km outside of NYC.

Avg housing price: start at $350 000 for a fixer upper! (no including the bidding wars!)

Property tax: $7000+ per year!

Restaurant: $70 for two (2 appetizer, 2 main). Most restaurants are BYOB.

Grocery bill: we shop at WholeFoods so we spend about $200 per week for the 2.5 of us but we buy organic and most the $$ is spent on European cheeses!!!

Why we live here: Montclair actually has a town center that I can walk to and it is close enough to NYC and we are a 4 mile commute to work.

[climbeyalex]

[simona]

[quote="Sarape"]I started enjoying Jews in graduate school at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. That's when I discoverd that half the faculty of the aerospace/mechanical engineering department were Jewish.

Sarape dear, I'm so happy you enjoy Jews!! Because I know you meant well, I won't comment.(?) But that half of the faculty you speak of, were they Israeli or American Jews?Because if they were American Jews, I don't see the direct connection with the Israeli Defense Forces. Of course we buy arms and high tech weapon technologies, but we really don't discern between jewish or non jewish innovations, as long as they are good. So the number of jewish students ( or faculty) is irrelevant . But you are very very right when you say:
"When you're a small country surrounded by enemies it pays to defend yourself with high-tech weapons. "
Indeed, we are a small country, surrounded by many ennemies, and we try very hard to defend ourselves, a right which not everybody in the world takes for a granted . Thanks for the understanding.

"I'm sure my relatives would love to hear me say I can't visit Cleveland this Christmas because I'm going to spend Christmas in Israel. January 2nd they'd be at the lawyers office all changing their wills.[/quote]"
OMG! Is your family so egoistic? promise them souvenirs from the Holy Land, and maybe they'll mellow down a little.

No more war, Happy new year!

[jenjen]

Hi Sarape,

You may be interested to know that baby engineers start their first year at over $40K Australian. Salaries are easily 70Kplus for a reasonably qualified engineer. A number of specialist engineering jobs actually top the 100K mark. The sort of senior IT professionals we have in our company all command 100Kplus, we actually prefer to take professional engineers over computer science professionals.

It is very hard to buy a decent house under $400/500,000K minimum. It could be closer to 3/4million or more now. A decent rental property in a middle class suburb will set you back between $1500 and 2000 per month.

I spend about $350 per week on food and wine for 2 people. Most of that money is spent at the fresh markets, we don't buy much at the supermarket. Probably my food bills are a bit higher than most as we eat a lot of fresh fish including shell fish.

Private education per child is about $15,000 per year (plus uniforms etc).

I am stingy when it comes to the movies and go on the cheap days, either $5 or $7.50 depending on the time of day!

[Erin]

I with jenjen, I usually only go on the cheap days. Tuesdays are $4.00 at my crappy little theater down the road. It only has two screens, smells funny, terrible sound, but you usually get the theater to yourself. I love it. Sadly though Harry Potter isn't coming there, so tonight I am off to the big crowded theater in Ronkonkoma. The good thing is that they have captains chairs. At my favorite theater many of them are broken.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[Sarape]

JenJen -- $350 a week for food for two people tells me you're eating well. And your comment about being stingy on movie tickets shows your money is going to where your mouth is.

My Jewish professors at school were American born. All from New York City. These are old guys (now in their late 70s) now but they had many contacts in Israel and would bring over faculty and students for joint research projects. So easy to tell the difference between a Jewish engineer and an American engineer. American engineers watch ESPN and the Jews play the cello or go to the symphony.

I wouldn't be thinking of retirement at 46 were I living in Austrailia with home prices above $350,000.

My target for retirement is January 2006. Only a few more weeks. This is a little scary. So far, of course, I've said nothing to my colleagues.
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' She says, 'I am the glamorous type.' I said, 'So what?'