Tips to Boost your eBucks

[biena]

Htf do you get your elec bill to be R350 in winter?

I'm averaging around R600 pm at the moment, single person with hardly any usage. Even have a gas stove so there's no usage coming from there. Maybe a bar heater for about 2 hours per evening.

The only time I get close to R350 is in summer...

Actually not that hard, well insulated house (have not needed any heaters yet)
194 KWH this month

 

[SauRoNZA]

Actually not that hard, well insulated house (have not needed any heaters yet)
View attachment 237186View attachment 237188

That's a very good point.

I'm moving on Friday to our new place and I was sitting in my current lounge watching the curtain move from the air coming under the door and thought to myself the first thing I'm doing on the the other side is insulating everything.

Fortunately aluminium windows and doors everywhere should already help greatly with that.

 

[Neo_X]

It's a ballpoint figure.

My monthly expenses
House: R 8,542
Car: R 2,442

Essentials
Groceries for 2 people: At most = R 1800 but it never reaches that.
Elec: R 350
Water: R 30
Gas: R400 over 2 months.... so R 200/m


Telkom 2Meg uncapped R 579
Airtime for me only: R 200
Petrol is prob R 1200

SO watches DSTV so she has to pay for that shst: R 799 or something.

adding all of that gets me to R4559 - more close to a believable value

your groceries is a winner though. Dont think i will surive on 1800. even the weekly essentials (milk /bread/lunch) is close to R500 per week, not even counting dinner.

Just noticed this stupid thing...

 Online shopping
The amount on which you earn eBucks at your online shopping reward rate is
limited to a total monthly rand spend (on qualifying online purchases only) of
R7 500 on your qualifying FNB Private Clients Cheque and/or Credit Card.
Thereafter, you will earn eBucks on online purchases made using your
FNB Private Clients Credit Card at a flat rate of 0.6%.

So you need to plan your online shopping properly and not go over that limit. I guess once I'm getting close to the limit I'll swipe instead of online to get the 2.5% (of normal swipes) instead of this crappy 0.6%

yikes!! ok i believe that usually defaulted to the normal swipe rate, which it didn't bother me too much when i overspend online. will have to rethink paying the bills a bit :/

 

[zerocool2009]

I predict ... with more and more loadshedding ... more and more will get off the grid slowly in time

 

[Sinbad]

I predict ... with more and more loadshedding ... more and more will get off the grid slowly in time

with ebucks?

 

[zerocool2009]

with ebucks?

Nope ... I mean, lets say you get a solar geyser ... (that already a big portion of your elec use).

Its a once off investment for years to come where you say

I mentioned this, the topic of elec and water bills monthly. (With all the increases, where are we going .... ? )

 

[CamiKaze]

adding all of that gets me to R4559 - more close to a believable value

your groceries is a winner though. Dont think i will surive on 1800. even the weekly essentials (milk /bread/lunch) is close to R500 per week, not even counting dinner.

I did not add my DSL line and other things that fall into the "essentials" category. I also buffed my food expense up as a maximum.
Oh, I forgot the dog food as well.

That's R 1000 per month for both dogs.

I think I should go for the Gold option but they will try to put me in the platinum option as I fall within that salary range.

 

[Neo_X]

I did not add my DSL line and other things that fall into the "essentials" category. I also buffed my food expense up as a maximum.
Oh, I forgot the dog food as well.

That's R 1000 per month for both dogs.

I think I should go for the Gold option but they will try to put me in the platinum option as I fall within that salary range.

i feel you on the dog food. Makro had a special on the Husky can's i use daily - R130 down to R100 for a 6-pack. I bought 70 . Hopefully they dont get tired of Husky soon.


I also checked for a colleague today. Gold account is the easiest to get to level 5. most of the rules is achievable from the start, and only need about 5k invested. But yes - Checkers earn is severely limited

 

[RogueTr00per]

I did not add my DSL line and other things that fall into the "essentials" category. I also buffed my food expense up as a maximum.
Oh, I forgot the dog food as well.

That's R 1000 per month for both dogs.

I think I should go for the Gold option but they will try to put me in the platinum option as I fall within that salary range.

Are you not an FNB client currently?

That's R250 back per month on the dog food if you're on RL5.

It may be beneficial to be on PLatinum if you can get to RL5 as you can get free uncapped ADSL as well.

 

[CamiKaze]

Are you not an FNB client currently?

That's R250 back per month on the dog food if you're on RL5.

It may be beneficial to be on PLatinum if you can get to RL5 as you can get free uncapped ADSL as well.

Nope, not yet. Many people, well not many, on this thread recommend I get a Gold card but if I do and FNB asks me to convert to Platinum eventually, will my points be converted to a lower rate as they are carried over?

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

They won't force you to convert to Platinum. I actually downgraded from platinum because I wasn't getting the best benefit out of it...

 

[RogueTr00per]

Nope, not yet. Many people, well not many, on this thread recommend I get a Gold card but if I do and FNB asks me to convert to Platinum eventually, will my points be converted to a lower rate as they are carried over?

edit:
abudabi mentioned managed an upgrade without any negative side effects.
He upgraded on 18 June 2015.

Has anyone upgraded recently from platinum to PC or PW. I would like to upgrade but I'm currently on RL5 and have been told that for the transition month will drop to RL1 due to credit card system taking longer. Anyway to time this to not drop if I can get all my points in place based on the criteria for reward level points.
Thanks

I upgraded from Plat to PC on the 18th... will report what happens to me.

Managed to retain RL5 during the upgrade.

Booyakasha

@abudabi, can you elaborate on how you managed this?

 

[abudabi]

@abudabi, can you elaborate on how you managed this?

Lol.. no idea hey.

I just sent an email, they phoned me back, I said I do, they mailed me some forms, I filled them in and sent them back.

That was it. Upgrade done.

My new cards were delivered soon thereafter but I had no issues using my old cards (swipes or online) until I received and activated the new ones. And yeah.. stayed on RL5.

The initial mail was sent to [email protected] but all comms afterwards were with an individual who is now my banker.

 

[arr0w]

I applied for low cost housing at the municipality for my electricity so I get 102 units from R 100.

How do I classify my home as low cost housing to get the discount on electricity? Do I actually have to apply for low cost housing or can my home be classified as low cost housing?

 

[CamiKaze]

How do I classify my home as low cost housing to get the discount on electricity? Do I actually have to apply for low cost housing or can my home be classified as low cost housing?

Ok so first of all, we have houses on different tariff plans. It is categorised as 20, 30, 40, 60amp etc.

60amp is for factories with lots of machinery, 40amp is for houses with lots of appliances, 30amp is for houses with less appliances and so on.

Each category has a different price index. My house used to be on 40a where I had to pay R 232 pm for the municipal service, this is excluding the pre paid electricity. R 100 got me 74 units on this tariff plan.

I lowered the amp to 20a where I don't need to pay a municipal fee. R 100 now gets me 94 units (I just bought elec and I see that the bastards changed the fee structure). Me not having to pay the municipal fee and getting a lot more bang for my buck places me in the advantage of low cost housing.

Now all of the above is what I noticed in the municipality of Drakenstein. I'm not sure if this is practised by other municipalities but the places that I lived in before don't have this... Structure.

How to apply? You have to go to the municipality, fill in a form at the elec department, they send an electrician or you can request the code to punch into your prepaid box.

 

[RogueTr00per]

Lol.. no idea hey.

I just sent an email, they phoned me back, I said I do, they mailed me some forms, I filled them in and sent them back.

That was it. Upgrade done.

My new cards were delivered soon thereafter but I had no issues using my old cards (swipes or online) until I received and activated the new ones. And yeah.. stayed on RL5.

The initial mail was sent to [email protected] but all comms afterwards were with an individual who is now my banker.

Thanks, I'd imagine the best strategy to retaining RL5 would be to ensure compliance with both sets of rules (whatever you are coming from and whatever you are going to) at the time of upgrading. Possibly initiating the upgrade (or downgrade) process on the 2nd of the month might be a good idea?

 

[fruitbat]

It's a ballpoint figure.

My monthly expenses
House: R 8,542
Car: R 2,442

Essentials
Groceries for 2 people: At most = R 1800 but it never reaches that.
Elec: R 350
Water: R 30
Gas: R400 over 2 months.... so R 200/m


Telkom 2Meg uncapped R 579
Airtime for me only: R 200
Petrol is prob R 1200

SO watches DSTV so she has to pay for that shst: R 799 or something.

WOWOW - i have to comment on this!

My monthly expenses are rediculous.... just my household groceries (all from PnP/WW/Checkers/Spar) is around 8k now.. and thats good for me! It used to clock in at 10-12k in Nov-Jan and then i started tightening down after i signed up for 22seven and did some analysis on my spending! But the figure of 8k doesnt include too much fancy stuffs... but getting to a decent checkers to get more value (and ebucks) is seldom an option :-(

But hats off to you! well done!

 

[abudabi]

Thanks, I'd imagine the best strategy to retaining RL5 would be to ensure compliance with both sets of rules (whatever you are coming from and whatever you are going to) at the time of upgrading. Possibly initiating the upgrade (or downgrade) process on the 2nd of the month might be a good idea?

Agreed. Plat and PC had the same set of rules so that probably helped. They told me that I will be judged on whatever account I am on at the end of the month and also rewarded based on the month-end account type... so I think if you go from PC to PW, then you need to stick to PW criteria.

 

[air]

But the figure of 8k doesnt include too much fancy stuffs... but getting to a decent checkers to get more value (and ebucks) is seldom an option :-(

For how many people?
Wife also complains about Checkers range, the hyper is quite a trek for us, so we make do with the local one.
We do supplement with Woolies for fruit 'n veg and then PnP with smaller items during the week.

 

[Se@n]

Agreed. Plat and PC had the same set of rules so that probably helped. They told me that I will be judged on whatever account I am on at the end of the month and also rewarded based on the month-end account type... so I think if you go from PC to PW, then you need to stick to PW criteria.

Upgraded to PW on 1 July.
eBucks Allocation on 8 July was a mess up, they had to manually calculate as although I had essentially been on PC the month before everything went haywire on their side.
Allocation 8 August should in theory be fine and I will return to level 5.
Nothing lost in the process other than a discount level of 5% for a month which is not really a problem as I wasn't planning on using my eBucks this month anyways.