 Israel kind of has a castle-living problem, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that. Last year, Tel Aviv is ranked the most expensive city in the entire world. Yes, as in literally the whole world. By the way, the research was compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and they're pretty legit. Oh, and Israel's capital, Jerusalem, wasn't so far behind. It came in a 15th place. To underscore how expensive that listing may Tel Aviv, consider this. London, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore were all judged to be less expensive than Israel's famous cultural hub by the sea. So yeah, it's really, really pricey here. Israel may be known for its great achievements, but this isn't a leaderboard position anybody should be proud about. So how can normal folks like you and I get by in one of the most expensive places to live on the planet? I moved here from Ireland in 2015 and have been living in Jerusalem ever since. I make a pretty normal salary working in marketing communications. I rent an apartment with my wife in Jerusalem. Financially, life here isn't plain sailing, but we still have enough money to go on the occasional vacation for me to buy my ridiculous collection of camera equipment and for us to put food on the table. Not much more than that, but we'll get there hopefully. Like probably millions of other Israeli citizens, I've spent my fair share of time thinking about how to get by in this place. So here are a few tips I thought I would pass on. If you have some of your own, feel free to leave those in the comments. Tip one, work in high tech. The Israeli economy is essentially a two track system. It really really sucks, but that's the truth. Israelis describe the industry that includes startups and other technologically oriented companies as high tech. In Ireland, we'd probably call us IT, but we're talking about roughly the same thing. Although only about 10% of the Israeli workforce works in high tech, salaries in the sector far I'd pace the rest of the economy. There's so much higher in fact that when Israel's statistic body puts out its national salary averages, they compute a separate average just for the high tech sector and another for the economy in general. I'm recording this video in October of 2022. The last survey came out last month. It showed that in July, the average salary in Israel stood at 12,117 shekels. Salaries in Israel are quoted per month. And at the date I'm recording this video, that works out to be about 41,000 US dollars per year. I'd like to suggest that there's probably not enough money to be making in a country that feels more expensive than London and Manhattan, and often actually is. The average salary in the high tech sector, however, worked out to be 27,066 shekels per month. That works out to an annualized salary of 92,587 US dollars. So, you see what I'm talking about. These figures come from the CBS, by the way, that's the central body of statistics. They were reported on by Globes, which is the financial newspaper in Israel, and other outlets in both English and Hebrew. I'll leave a link to some of the English coverage in the video description. Now, if you think I'm swimming in money, here is the bad news. I spent a career working in marketing communications, but salaries in tech companies are still better paid than those in the nonprofit sector, even if you're not a developer. So here's a take home message. If you have any aptitude whatsoever for coding, building algorithms, data science, or anything else that's highly compensated in Israel, you should probably go ahead and do that. By the way, there are also tons of boot camps and training programs. Changing careers to reskill talent for the tech sector is also an attractive proposition for lots of new immigrants. There are ways into high tech, if you want. Tip two, invest in pension funds. I used to think that the only people who could afford to invest money were real estate tycoons and startup moguls. It turns out I was badly mistaken. If you're Jewish and move to Israel because you made Aliyah, there's a plethora of saving schemes that you can take advantage of. This won't make you more money immediately, at least in the sense of having more liquid cashier disposal, but it will make your long-term financial journey in Israel a little bit more prosperous. There's a useful Facebook group in English called Living Financially Smarter in Israel. There are also Facebook groups in Hebrew. This is Israel, by the way, so everyone's pretty accessible and most people are open to meeting for coffee or on the phone. So get yourself a good agent or learn how to invest yourself. Even if you're only putting away a little each month, the magic trick called compound interest is still working on your behalf. Tip three, be completely shameless and haggle like your life depends on it. Israelis are famous for having hutzpah. That roughly translates to being forward, direct, and sometimes a little bit abrasive. But after living here for a while, it's kind of easy to understand why people can be like that. Because without selling organs, joining an organized crime mob, or mastering the intricacies of algorithm engineering, haggling and pushing forward can be a note. That sort of means deals, by the way, is more about survival than being thrifty or trying to breed predatory. Israeli credit cards are pretty crappy deals. Yup, you heard me right. You can spend literally thousands of dollars and get a cinema ticket in return for a matinee, but only on Wednesdays between 10 and 11. To add insult to injury, they also charge a monthly maintenance fee just for the privilege of charging you more money and interest. But there's something not everyone knows. You can actually get this waived by calling up the bank and telling them, you refuse to pay it. Surviving financially in Israel is all about being very proactive. You can negotiate salaries, cucumbers, rental contracts, tomatoes, oranges, and almost anything else. So start growing your chutzpah muscles before you get here or after you get here. Tip 4, buy everything you can outside of Israel. Here's a tip that's probably going to make some people angry. With the exception of falafel, prescription medications, and intercity buses, many things, actually probably most things, are cheaper outside of Israel. Have you noticed that Israel, a tiny country of only 9 million people, is literally one of the largest consumers of AliExpress products in the entire world? There is a good reason for this. People need to get stuff for less money. In Israel, you can import most things with a custom value of less than $75 without having to pay additional VAT charges. That's a purchase tax. If it's over that amount, you'll have to pay VAT at 17%, but even with VAT and shipping expenses, many find that a lot of products still end up being cheaper than they are in Israel. I know that kind of says a lot. Personally, I bought quite a lot of camera gear while building up this YouTube channel and for my job, which now involves shooting some videos. I bought practically nothing in Israel. Besides AliExpress, there is also Amazon, which does free shipping now over $49, at least at the time I'm recording this video. There is iHerb for buying supplements. There is Book Depository for buying books. Check out a Facebook group called Live in Israel, buy online. People will argue that this isn't patriotic and that all of us immigrants have a duty to buy blue and white and support local businesses. I kind of think differently. To my mind, paying three times the retail price to prop up some oligopoly isn't patriotic. It's just perpetuating a situation that makes life difficult for millions of other Israelis. Final tip, tip five, develop local tastes. There's one last thing you can try, shopping and eating like in Israeli. In some respects, Israel is a totally unique country. It's the only Jewish state in the world, for one. But in other respects, it's pretty much the same as any other country in the world. One of those respects is that it's generally cheaper to buy local produce than foreign imported things. So you can enjoy falafel, you can grow to love shawarma. Does anyone not love shawarma? So don't waste your time tracking around the city or the country looking for specialty niche products from the old country. You and your wallet might thank me. That just about sums up my little listicle video with five ways to live in Israel without having to run back penniless a year after you made Aliyah. I realize by the way, not all these reasons apply to everyone. I realize some people will be unable to live here, even in spite of making great financial decisions. But I hope they might be useful to some people. Thanks for watching and if you enjoyed this video, please consider liking and sharing with your friends.