Mad Hon · Balanced budget

Cut your fixed monthly costs

Cut your fixed monthly costs. A step-by-step Mad Hon guide for your Balanced budget score, written for olim.

1. Pull two lists, not one.
Your bank app shows hora'at keva, the standing orders debited straight from the account. Anything billed to a credit card is not there: Israeli cards are issued by separate companies, and those charges appear only on the card issuer's own statement. Open both, go back three months, and mark every line you cannot identify in three seconds.
2. Cancel with the supplier, not only at the bank.
Stopping a standing order stops the payment. It does not end the contract, and the supplier can keep billing and eventually chase the debt. Israeli law on continuing services requires an online cancellation route for contracts signed online, so look for it before you phone. Where a supplier does not offer one, the Consumer Protection Authority takes complaints.
3. Re-quote mobile, internet and insurance.
Israeli suppliers price aggressively for new customers and quietly leave existing ones on old plans, so a line signed on arrival is often tens of shekels a month above the current public price. Ask each supplier what they offer a new customer today, then ask for that price on your line. The retention desk, not the sales line, is who can give it.
4. Send what you freed up straight to savings.
Without this step another line absorbs the money within two months. Open a separate savings account and set a hora'at keva, a standing order, dated to the day your salary lands, so the transfer happens before the money is available to spend.

Cut your fixed monthly costs. A step-by-step Mad Hon guide for your Balanced budget score, written for olim.

1. Pull two lists, not one.

Your bank app shows hora'at keva, the standing orders debited straight from the account. Anything billed to a credit card is not there: Israeli cards are issued by separate companies, and those charges appear only on the card issuer's own statement. Open both, go back three months, and mark every line you cannot identify in three seconds.

2. Cancel with the supplier, not only at the bank.

Stopping a standing order stops the payment. It does not end the contract, and the supplier can keep billing and eventually chase the debt. Israeli law on continuing services requires an online cancellation route for contracts signed online, so look for it before you phone. Where a supplier does not offer one, the Consumer Protection Authority takes complaints.

3. Re-quote mobile, internet and insurance.

Israeli suppliers price aggressively for new customers and quietly leave existing ones on old plans, so a line signed on arrival is often tens of shekels a month above the current public price. Ask each supplier what they offer a new customer today, then ask for that price on your line. The retention desk, not the sales line, is who can give it.

4. Send what you freed up straight to savings.

Without this step another line absorbs the money within two months. Open a separate savings account and set a hora'at keva, a standing order, dated to the day your salary lands, so the transfer happens before the money is available to spend.