Just a friendly reminder about the negative income tax for 2013.
**October UPDATE: the deadline has been extended to December 26, 2014**
All the information is available in Hebrew on the official income tax website, but I'll summarize it in English for you.
This is basically a tax refund for working families. There are various qualifications to meet - basically someone who works and is age 23+ with children under the age of 18, or age 55+, even without children.
This program is open to people who earned, on average, no less than 2050
shekels per month and no more than 6109 shekels per month for families
with one or two children, and no more than 6717 shekels per month for
families with 3 children and up.
The deadline to file based upon your 2013 earnings is September 30, 2014
It's easy. Just go into the post office (not all post offices do all tasks, please verify which branch to use), with your Teudat Zehut and your bank account information (take a check, everything they need is on there, or get a letter from your bank, the banker will have a form to fill out and stamp if you don't have a check. Just knowing your account # and branch # isn't enough, it needs to be "official".). Let the clerk know that you want to apply for "mas shleelee". Answer a few questions, and then go home. Your approval may take a few weeks, and you'll be given instructions for checking the status online.
Even if some months you earned more, if you were unemployed or under-employed for part of the time, you may qualify. In some cases, people who are (legally) self-employed qualify as well... If you were employed by a relative, you are not allowed to claim this benefit.
If you have questions about this program, please call the tax authority at *4954.
Check it out and see if you qualify! Some people will get a nice big "refund" and others will just get a token amount. Still many others will not qualify, because they are decently employed.
B'hatzlacha.
Please share this information with all of your English speaking friends, so those who qualify won't miss out.
And if you find me on Facebook, you'll be sure to stay up to date!
I am addicted to books, and always checking for sales.
I have no idea how I let this one slip past me till now!
Save 15% off 4 or more used books when you shop the Better World Books Memorial Day Sale all with Free Shipping Worldwide!
Be sure to enter code MEMORIALDAY at checkout!
Sale ends Wednesday, May 28, 2014 at 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time.
Enjoy your books!
Click here to go to Better World Books!
I don't usually bother to post lunches but we are having our first watermelon of the season and I just wanted to share it.
Lunch today is grilled cheese sandwiches, cherry tomatoes (got some for 2.90/kg), and watermelon. Simple stuff, but everyone is happy to have them!
THIS is what summer feels like! I love when we can just cut open a watermelon and enjoy its sweet juiciness...
What's your favorite summer treat?
I'm waiting for grapes to come into season! I love summer fruits. And smoothies made with them...
Reminder: The Lag Baomer Bonfires are all over (and yes, I made it thru without leaving the house and without an asthma attack - an amazing first for me!), and the kids are all wondering what to do.
So quick, pack a lunch, and pick a museum - there are more than 70 museums offering free admission today!
Check out the list in English HERE
I say the same thing every week - how did the week slip by so quickly?!
We've been super busy around here and we are sooo looking forward to a quiet, restful Shabbat. (And then maybe, maybe, a free museum on Monday?)
But we'll probably be a little nutty and do a Friday tiyul first.
So the plan is to do some cooking (not a lot) tonight, and then most of the work between 4 pm Friday and candlelighting time.
Focusing on getting everything into the oven and hardly using the stovetop, it is just too hot for an open flame in my kitchen these days (no, we have not begun using the A/C yet, you'll hear about it when we do. Not using the A/C should hopefully help keep our electric bills under control...)
Fresh Whole Wheat and Oat Bran Challot
Vegetarian Pate (instead of soup) - haven't written up this recipe, if I have time, I will.
Black Bean Cholent because my family doesn't think there's a problem eating cholent in the summer
Chicken in honey-mustard marinade (I never blog my chicken recipes because I only make them immediately prior to shabbat!)
Oven-baked rice
Roasted Kishuim
Potato Kugel
Purple Cabbage Salad
Make-your-own-salad with whatever other vegetables we have
Baking: Brownies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Banana Cake
Seudah Shlishit will be sandwiches, spreads, salads, and corn bread cake
This year May 19th (2014) - which seems to be a day off of school for many of the kids in this country - is International Museum Day, and there are 70 museums around Israel open to the public for free!
Many museums on this list are usually quite pricey for a family to visit, but i will warn you now - get there early or risk having the doors closed due to overcrowding.
Here's the list (the full list in Hebrew is available here)
North
The Kupferman Collection, Lochamei HaGeta'ot
The Fisher House, Kiryat Ata. 04-8440207
Ein-Dor Museum of Archaeology, Kibbutz Ein-Dor
The National Maritime Museum. 04-853662
The Open Museum in Tefen
The Open Museum in Tel-Hai
Memorial Museum of Hungarian Speaking Jewry, Tsfat
Center
Jerusalem Area
Yad Vashem
The Underground Prisoners Museum in Jerusalem 02-6233166
The Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem
The Shai Agnon House - open 9 am - 4 pm -02-6716498
The Nature Museum, Jerusalem
Hechal Shlomo, Jerusalem
Bloomfield Science Museum, Jerusalem
The Old Yishuv Court Museum, 02-6276319, 052-4002478
U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
The Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem
Tower of David Museum
The Israel Museum
South
The Museum of Philistine Culture
The Open Museum, Omer
The Negev Museum of Art, Beer Sheva
From Holocaust to Revival Museum in Yad Mordechai - 08-6720599 , 052-3923
Let me know where you decide to go!
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I am always looking for shortcuts. I like simple, easy, no fuss recipes I can throw together at the last second, because I often don't plan ahead (I roll with my days)...
Here's our latest favorite - breadsticks! We like them with garlic but you can do whatever you want with them.
I wanted a super easy, whole grain, pourable batter.... but of course, if you want to use white flour, it will work fine too. I really wanted something pourable because it just seemed so much simpler!
Quick Breadsticks (Basic)
3 cups whole wheat flour (sifted)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp coarse salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups water + 1.5 tsp apple cider vinegar
Toppings:
olive oi
crushed garlic or granulated garlic
sesame seeds
coarse salt
anything else you like
Mix together dry ingredients, then make a well in the middle and add wet ingredients. Stir with a large spoon. Combine thoroughly.
The mixture will be batter, not dough.
Pour half the batter onto a lined cookie sheet.
Spread it out with your mixing spoon. Sprinkle the top with olive oil, then top as desired.
Bake at 200 C for about 20 min (but check it because my oven is acting a little funny, it may not be heating up enough!)
Cut and serve. These
come out pretty thin and flat, but tasty. If you want them thicker,
experiment with making this recipe in just ONE cookie sheet instead of
two.
Enjoy!
You can also use this as pizza crust, by the way. Just bake for half the time, then top with your favorite pizza toppings and bake for another 8-10 min.
Let me know if you give it a try!
Banking in Israel seems to be one of the major things that confounds olim from Western countries. I get banking questions a LOT.
I've banked in Israel at several banks. I've used Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, and Bank Yahav.
By far, the one I have paid the least to hold my money for me is Bank Yahav.
When we first returned to Israel in 2010, we had planned to open a Bank HaDoar account for our sal klitah money to go into. It seemed the most portable and inexpensive option, but I was tired and worn out and I let the merkaz klitah social worker tell me I was wrong. I listened to her and we opened a Bank Hapoalim account upon her insistence (makes me wonder if she was actually getting some sort of kickback from them, but I digress). Which turned into a BIG mistake, since we ended up being charged up and down with all manner of fees, despite being told we'd gotten special olim rates, and we could not change dollars efficiently if need be, and it was in a different city than we'd ended up living in, so it was a REAL pain in the neck.
We found out about Bank Yahav from our then-landlord, opened an account, and went through the half-day arduous, wrist-exhausting ("sign on this line" about a thousand times) process of closing our Bank Hapoalim account. If only I hadn't let the social worker convince me in my post-flight traumatic state that I didn't know what I was talking about! At least if we'd opened a Bank Hadoar account we would have been able to close the account at any post office in the country!
Moral of the story: don't let social workers convince you that all your hard work researching options was futile and THEY know best (and yes, by the way, I'm a social worker so I can complain about other social workers). Oh, and open a bank account at Bank Yahav. Free checking. Almost no fees. Very good service (at least we've had a decent experience with the Tiberias branch).
The one major issue we've encountered is the Bank Yahav website has some technical problems for people using any browser other than IE. In our house, we use Firefox or Chrome, so we've had to learn how to read the banking menus backwards. I've spoken to a nice tech named Josh over at Bank Yahav, who told me the problem really belongs to Bank Hapoalim, since Yahav uses Hapoalim's internet banking interface. See - I told you to stay away from Bank Hapoalim!
But to tell you the truth, it's kind of useful to read Hebrew backwards. Or I will get my kid to make a patch for my computer so I don't have to. If he does, I'll try to get him to publish it somewhere so all of you can have it too!
Check out the list of branches to see where there's one near you! And switch and start to save money on banking!
(This post was not a sponsored post, but if you do go to open an account at Yahav, you are most certainly encouraged to mention my website when they ask who referred you! Thanks!)
Update: Bank Yahav has fixed the backwards Hebrew problem! I first saw this on motsaei shabbat of May 17. Not sure exactly when it was fixed, but it was such a nice surprise to see it back to normal again.
Pasta has been my go-to solution to the constant "what should we have for supper" that comes up when there's hardly any time to think or prepare food.
Way back when, we bought the cheapest white pasta we could find (think Stop & Shop pasta on sale for the now unheard of 5 boxes for $1!! I still remember lugging that pasta home from the supermarket every time that sale came up, a young wife and mother and full time student just trying to stay afloat and keep everyone fed...) Now, we live in Israel, where even cheap white pasta is not so cheap, and we've long since moved on to whole wheat pastas. We've taste tested a lot of whole wheat pastas, focusing on finding the best one among the affordable options. In America, I tended to buy the Whole Foods brand pastas (stocked up when they were on sale) and one or two shapes from Target, but WF was far better. Now, we've tried lots of kinds here in Israel, the cheapest being the Taaman brand, but it's not so good. So now, I buy mine from Nizat HaDuvdevan for about 6.50 shekels for a 500g bag (roughly 1 lb), which is not bad for a relatively high quality pasta (and it's organic even though I didn't need it be).
In the past, I'd opted to make my own sauce using tomato paste or crushed tomatoes and spices over buying prepared sauce (although in America, I'd buy good sauces on sale and with coupons. I still miss that convenience). Lately I've decided to kick the sauce up a notch. It can be made in advance and stored in the fridge to be heated as necessary. Mine never sits in the fridge more than a few days, so I can't say how long it lasts, but I'd freeze it if I wasn't using in the next 3 days.
Homemade chunky tomato sauce
olive oil
cut vegetables - whatever you have that you have or what you think will work: onions, celery, peppers, eggplant, summer squash (kishuim), tomatoes, mushrooms, etc
tomato paste or crushed tomatoes (packaged or homemade)
water
fresh or dried basil (fresh is best!)
chopped garlic (fresh is best!)
seasonings to taste - salt, black pepper, and any others you want to add like oregano or rosemary or thyme...
Heat olive oil is a large sauce pot. Add vegetables and stir till they are soft and fragrant. Add garlic and continue stirring for a few minutes. Add tomato paste/crushed tomatoes, water, fresh basil and seasonings, and stir well. Continue to stir occasionally while you bring it all to a boil, then lower the flame and simmer for a while. Serve over pasta and garnish with your favorite cheese if you like.
I will admit that this has not come without objections from my family. They prefer when I don't do anything "funny" to their food, but I figured they'd get used to it and eventually come to appreciate it.
This was the first week that only one child objected to all the vegetables in the pasta, so that is major progress, in my opinion!
I serve this supper with a make-your own salad, as well.
What's your go-to quick, sort of healthy supper?
Usually, I talk about food or other kitchen type products I order from iherb.
You see, iherb has made my life so much easier since making aliyah. I can't actually afford to order very much from them, but I DO order some select items. Most months I spend $20 or so on an iherb order, including the $4 shipping charge for a 4 lb order (I try to get as close to 4 lbs as possible, and usually end up ordering between 3.96lbs and 4lbs).
Today, though, makeup wearers out there can rejoice!
Right now,
Physician's Formula products are ALL 20% off right now!
No coupon code is necessary, but if you've never ordered from iherb and you click thru my link, you'll find another great discount pre-loaded into your cart!
Sale ends May 14, at 10 am Pacific Time, so get it while you can. Some products may already be temporarily out of stock...
