Without painful compromises and without cutting back: Ten simple steps that will win back the money that credit card companies, banks, and insurance companies trim from you "blindly".
One phone call to the credit card company that can save you hundreds of shekels a year
According to the Supervisor of Banks' report, the average cost of managing a current account and credit cards jumped from NIS 349 in 2024 to NIS 378 this year. In fact, 51% of credit card companies' revenue from households comes from card maintenance fees alone. The multipliers – NIS 17 to NIS 20 a month per card, multiplied by two or three cards in the average wallet, and you easily reach NIS 500 a year on thin air. How do you save? One phone call to the credit card company, an explicit request for cancellation, and there is a good chance that the fee disappears for a year. And there is also a permanent alternative: Employees' clubs and student cards offer a total exemption, but pay attention, if you received a card that entitles you to a "first year free" – mark it in your calendar.
Stop gambling: This is how you stop losing thousands of shekels a year on the stock market
The data on day trading leaves no room for illusions: Between 60 and 70 percent of private day traders lose money, and less than one percent manage to generate a consistent return over time. The reason is not just a lack of knowledge, it is structural. About 70 to 80 percent of all stock transactions today are executed by algorithms of financial institutions, which process millions of data points per second and identify trends days before a private trader even sees them. Beyond the technological disadvantage, the human mind works against the trader: Cognitive biases such as overconfidence, revenge trading after a loss, and chasing opportunities are a permanent and known pattern for financial loss. In contrast to all this, long–term investment in diversified indices has historically yielded an average annual return of 8 to 10 percent. The big profit is found in patience, not in speed. And if you still cannot give up the thrill involved in day trading – allocate a sum of money for it, a few single percentages of the portfolio, and in any case never take a loan from the bank for this purpose.
