The following guide offers tips to potentially help you save money each month and help with managing your budget and finances. Many of them require you to actively monitor your expenses as well as proactively look for better prices and deals.
Each item on this list can potentially save you a minimum of a hundred shekels per year on its own, while some items can save you thousands. We recommend that you research and adopt as many of these as you can and enjoy the savings.
Contact your credit card provider and ask them to waive the Dmei Kartis – דמי כרטיס – monthly fees. If they don’t agree, you can apply for non-bank credit cards to request cancellation of the fees.
Be in touch with your bank branch to inquire if there is a way to lower your monthly bank account fees. Certain types of accounts depending on profession or income may be exempt. You might need to call every few years to renew these terms.
If you are an investor, while banks will let you start investing with any amount, their management fees tend to be much higher than those of investment firms. Once the value of your portfolio reaches 20,000 shekels, it is a good idea to check out if the fees in an investment firm are better. Make sure to compare fees and negotiate to get the best deal. Just like other investments, the same rings true for your pension plan and Keren Hishtalmut.
It is recommended to periodically review your insurance coverages to ensure that you have the right amount of coverage without any unnecessary overlap. Use this website to see your policies and find out if you are double-insured.
If you are a senior citizen, single parent, low-income, Oleh Chadash, disabled etc. you should check your municipality’s website or visit in person to ask about potential discounts.
Each member of an Israeli household is allotted a certain amount of water per month at a lower fee. Pass that threshold and the price jumps. If you have more than two people in your household, make sure to report the correct number to the water company and you should be able to do this online.
While all electricity still technically comes from the Israeli Electric Company, it is now possible to buy it from a supplier other than the electric company and save money. See our guide here for more information.
Ask your current providers to lower their rates or use sites like Kamaze (in Hebrew) to find the best deals and change providers.
If you have Netflix, Disney+, Spotify Premium, YouTube Premium, or any other monthly subscriptions (i.e. newspapers, magazines etc.) review them to determine if you need them all. Canceling one or some of them will save you money every month.
As an employee at an Israeli company, you deposit 6 or 7 percent of your gross salary into your pension plan each month. If you don’t remember actively choosing 7 percent, note that 6 is the default. Depending on your salary and years left until you stop working, adding one additional percentage point of your salary into your tax-free pension plan can earn you tens or hundreds of thousands of shekels more in retirement due to compound interest.