I cannot believe this country does not celebrate New Years! X-mas I understand. But c'mon, New Years?!

I have been complaining about this for days to friends, coworkers, taxi drivers, random people on the street - basically anyone who has the time to listen to me whine. The most common answer is that "we have Rosh Hashana!"

Let's be serious people are these holidays in any way similar? On New Years we have champaign, on R"H we have fish head. On New Years we listen to Prince and party like its 1999, on R"H we listen to the Chazzan sing about who died this last year.

Don't get me wrong, I think R"H is excellent and the irreligious are unfourtanate that they don't have it for many reasons. But I don't think we should have to get rid of December 31st new years. If R"H is our calendar year end, then New Years is our fiscal year end and we should celebrate.

The more times we have set aside to reflect on our lives the better. Some mussar seforim recommend doing a cheshbon hanefesh every night, others weekly. Most of us I believe don't do it enough.

New Years is a great time to reflect on your accomplishments of this year, as well as set realistic goals for the coming year. I realized that the goals I listed previously are too much for me, and I have to cut them down. It's a very upsetting thing to do, but better to accomplish a few than fail in all, IMO (in my opinion).

New Years really is a new year for finances as well as taxes are based on it and most companies close their books on December 31. I HIGHLY recommend everyone take the time to review their finances and set their short term and long term goals. Last year I did this and started using Yodlee as my personal financial dashboard and it has really simplified my finances. (It's a program that links to all of your bank accounts and loans so you can see your net worth calculated and keep track of it. It also lays out the information in helpful graphs.)

I hope you find it helpful.

May next year be twice as good as this one.

This has been the hardest week since my first week in Israel. It has become clear to me that my coworkers don't really care if I have a life outside of the office and would prefer that I sleep there (as long as I would pay rent). If they had chained me to the desk I would not have known as I rarely left my chair. This has been one week but I feel like I have aged a full year.

This has been extremely depressing to me as this move was supposed to be a lifestyle change. I have done this all before and I counted down the seconds that I could leave my last prison swearing to never return to that lifestyle - where I have little to no control over my life.

When I was recruited here I was definitely told my lifestyle would be different which really upsets me. I realize now that I am the same monkey working like a dog.

I do not want to get into more detail about my depressing week (as it only depresses me more), but I am seriously questioning one of my major life goals.

As you all know, I consider myself to be very low maintenance (or as some of you put it "cheap"). I have no problem living on the bare minimum as long as that allows me to have more time. Basically one of my goals is to make enough money so that I can comfortably support a family on interest.

I can't say I am close to the goal yet, but in this profession it would most likely be do able when I am still youngish (obviously later years there is higher salary). The question is, is it worth trading your best years (your 20/30's) for later years. I use to think yes, because it's a few years verse who knows how long, but I am starting to think otherwise.

I am thinking more and more the 9-5 derech is just a better way to live.

I am now exhausted and am heading to sleep.

(Oh yeah, and we don't get off for New Years or Xmas...)

Oh and sorry this blog has been such a drag lately and unfunny. Hopefully life will be better soon and I'll be humurous again... I for one hope so.

Israel Unemployment: Lowest in 20 years!

Most of this unemployment is frictional unemployment, which includes: “people quitting jobs, getting fired, moving, just graduating from school, reentering the workforce after having children, and so on.”

Israeli economy will be strong in 2008

“The bank estimates that the dollar will trade at 3.75 NIS by the end of 2008, and that this exchange rate will hold steady for 2009 as well.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3483257,00.html

Once again, my Ebay shopping for clothes has been a great success.

Some of my latest purchases:

Brooks Brothers Shirt

Ebay: $15

Brooks Brothers: $80

Total Savings: $65 or 80% (including shipping)


Ralph Lauren Shirt

Ebay: $15

Ralph Lauren
Total Savings: $65 or 80% (including shipping)

There are some people I would not recommend this type of shopping to, but for someone like me, that sits in front of the computer a lot - this is truly ideal.