"I am a sucker for sales. I buy tuna cheap at one supermarket and meat at another"

What do you do with the overdraft, how much do you pay for the apartment, and what dream did you fulfill in the shadow of the war? People from all over the country talk candidly about life itself, before and in the shadow of the war. This time: the Tzurieli family from Tel Aviv. In the photo: May (36), Asaf (40), and the dog Nana. The apartment: 3 rooms, rented. Paying 6,700 shekels. Living in the apartment for 4 years already.

Tel Aviv?

May: "I grew up on Shenkin Street, and my father is still there in the Haredi community. He became religious and stayed in Tel Aviv. It's a huge community right in the heart of the city. I remember when we moved to the neighborhood, he was already wearing a knitted kippah and looking for himself, and in the end, he found what he was looking for there. My mother was in Karkur, and she has been living in Thailand on Koh Phangan for 12 years already. And Asaf and I are here because we love the city."

How did you meet?

Asaf: "At a pizza place. It's a restaurant on Bograshov Street. I was a cook and May was a waitress."

May: "I had just been discharged and was looking for work, and after 4 months we started dating. It was a secret at first, hiding in the storage room so no one would see. I was afraid that if they found out, or if it didn't work out between us, I would have to quit. So it was worth investing in the relationship. 6 years later, on our honeymoon, we flew together for the first time. We didn't do a post-army trip and decided to go to the USA for a few weeks, and suddenly we realized how fun and liberating it is to travel, and when we returned, we decided to save for a big trip to India."

Save?

May: "It's hard to save when you live in the city. So for a year and a half, we didn't go to restaurants and cut expenses to the minimum."

Asaf: "It was 'maybe we'll go out to eat?' and she says 'that's two more days in India' - and we stayed home. Every thing you want to do and spend money on - that's another day on the big trip. During that time, May was doing a degree in English teaching, so she didn't work that much, and I pretty much supported us. I was a chef at the pizza place. I started as a junior cook and moved up."

Chef?

Asaf: "I grew up in Kibbutz Reim, and after the army, I decided I wanted to work in kitchens, and Tel Aviv is the place. I took the big step of leaving the kibbutz bubble and found a shared apartment on Dizengoff. It started with sandwiches at a cafe and from there to pizza. Meanwhile, I went to study at Bishulim, but in kitchens, ultimately, the learning is hands-on while working. After quite a few years, I decided that's it, that I want a regular job for adults from eight to five. And I went to be a carpenter. Three years."

Carpenter?

May: "I'm into manifesting, and he refined what he wanted and manifested it. He said he wanted to work 4 days a week, normal hours, manual labor, and with good people, and the job arrived."

Asaf: "It was a carpenter's workshop of an artist who makes things for school yards. Climbing walls, benches, tables. I liked it, but when I saw the other guys working and their passion, I realized I didn't have it. They would invest in the finishes so everything would look fine, and I would say 'it's for a school, why this investment now?' They would tell me 'you should be proud of this, the kids climb on it afterward and play,' and I didn't feel it. And when I asked myself where my passion is - it brought me back to the dough. Today I work at a pizzeria called Brooklyn, in a niche that suits me. Morning shifts, four days a week, no Friday-Saturday."

May: "In essence, we realized we don't want to work hard now so we can have it later."

Work?

May: "We are not here to live the chase. We want to work now for now. What good will it do if he works every day from morning to night and we arrive with our tongues hanging out and only see each other on weekends? You need to live now while we have strength and energy and we can."

How do you fund it?

Asaf: "Because it's just the two of us, we manage and even succeed in saving."

May: "Understand, this is one of the most expensive areas in the city. I walk with the dog and everything here is croissants for 25 shekels. We have a coffee machine at home and I don't buy coffee outside. If I want to sit outside with a friend, I calculate it."

Asaf: "Why sit outside if it's so expensive? We bring the people here. We love to host and I cook and it's most fun at home. We save those crazy costs."

May: "The money I spend on clothes or courses that are important to me, mainly in the field of acting."

Overdraft?

Asaf: "I will fast before I go into the red. We manage to save 3,000 shekels a month. I won't buy something if I don't have the money."

May: "I am a sucker for looking for sales online, I don't know if it's stingy or frugal, but I'm not willing to be taken for a sucker. If I have to, I split the shopping and buy tuna cheap at one supermarket, and meat at another. I also manifest things for myself from benches on the street. This is Tel Aviv and people leave plenty of things on the benches. We have a Dyson that I found downstairs that only needed a battery replacement."

What do you do?

May: "I teach English, mainly via Zoom from all over the country, and simultaneously act in children's plays - there's plenty of work in that. I teach English for a living but mainly want to act. The advantage of teaching via Zoom is that I can continue to work even when we go to visit my family in Thailand."

Thailand?

Asaf: "It's like going to the parents in the kibbutz. You come to see the family and in between, you are in Thailand, going for massages and drinking a mango shake on the beach."

May: "My mother's dream is that I come to live with them, but what will I do there? I don't know, maybe it will still happen."

Asaf: "We haven't found the place yet where I'd say 'this is where I want to live.' The situation in Israel is very hard for me, the rift, the security situation, the economic one, everything here is pressure all the time."

Your leisure?

May: "Plays, stand-up, sunsets at the beach."

Asaf: "Restaurants on special occasions."