Reply To: The Cost of Being Orthodox

We only do 3 red meat meals a week, including shabbat dafina/hamin and Friday night dinner, so we generally only do one non-shabbat meat meal per week. Sometimes, we’ll do a fourth meal of just poultry, and I’d prefer to keep this up when I am married.

I think most Jewish families end up having 2-4 kids. I wouldn’t want any more than 4 kids, partially due to costs associated with education, but also I’d like the ability to be able to spend time with my kids, play with them, take them fishing, to ball games, to see rabbanim, to learn with them, do homework with them, help them study, etc.

Most shul memberships are around $1000 a family, from what I see.