Financial and Banking Learnings of 2024

[cardio_guy]

What are your financial, banking, credit card, etc related learnings of 2024? List of things you learnt new, any new findings, any new hacks etc?
My list:

• Learnt that SBI reward points can be used to pay credit card bills in the rewardz.sbi portal
• Learnt about Rupay platinum debit card Friday offer (Rs 100 instant off) on bill payments using Amazon pay
• Used ICICI Sapphiro card and booked 4 movie tickets, got Rs 1000 instant discount on BMS.
• Learnt that we can do full KYC in Payzapp using any HDFC credit card, without having HDFC bank account.
• Used Appollo 24|7 circle subscription well and extracted good benefits.
• Wrote to HDFC customer care and converted both HDFC Swiggy and Tata Neu Infinity paid cards as LTF
• No use of chasing the best UPI app, best wallet and best cashback Rupay card. Stick to what is convenient.
• Closed so many unwanted, unused, idle cards and stick to a few cards for regular use.
• Hard Realization: Monthly family expenses is coming near 75000 without additional luxuries or splurges.
• Investments: Index funds are easiest and simplest option to participate in market than direct stocks.
• Bank accounts - SBI, HSBC; Most used cards - HDFC Swiggy, Tata Neu Infinity, Amazon Pay ICICI
• Got TF Legend badge in TechnoFino
• Travelled to Mumbai, Mangalore, Chennai, Trivandum, Pune.

Things in progress, things I don't know yet:

• Explore a prepaid wallet like Amazon pay or payzapp and see how it works. I haven't used wallets much yet.
• Explore the best/most rewarding way of using Tata Neu app and infinity card. This is still unresolved for me.
• Explore reward point based card - Regalia Gold, or some other card. Need to see if I need to shift from cashback cards to reward point based cards if they are better rewarding.
• Review the standing instructions for Google One, Youtube Premium, Amazon Prime, and some other online purchases and see how best can I make these payments with better rewards.
• What is Magicpin, Park+, cashkaro, gyftr and all these kinds of sites? What are its uses? Need to explore this.

Wish you all a Merry Christmas 🎄 and Happy New Year 🎉

 

[Anupama_Jha]

Merry Christmas🎁🎄

In short: I’ve learned the art of adaptability, like a chameleon. Ego is the biggest villain—don’t take things personally; just let go and move forward.

 

[akshayhs]

What are your financial, banking, credit card, etc related learnings of 2024?

That is not worth applying for any new credit card and it is better to downsize

 

[Shubham Yadav]

In short: I’ve learned the art of adaptability, like a chameleon. Ego is the biggest villain—don’t take things personally; just let go and move forward.

Art of living life peacefully very true

 

[msankadi]

You die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain - All credit cards eventually/rapidly get devalued - Learning is to continue to focus on your craft instead of attaching to any cc so that whichever new hot card launches after current card devaluation , banks chase you to give you that card

 

[pothi]

Learnt about autopay for CC in BBPS (via HDFC and Slice bill pay). Big relief as I have an ICICI CC, without savings account.

Learnt about different new scams (through multiple sources, specifically thanks to IBF).

Learnt about the importance of paying MAD (min amount due) early. Thanks for TF community for this.

 

[2025]

My list:

• Learnt that SBI reward points can be used to pay credit card bills in the rewardz.sbi portal.
• Learnt that Rupay platinum debit card Friday offer (Rs 100 instant off) on bill payments using Amazon pay

Ditto.
Additional:
1. This year itself I Lost my fortune in F&O (3x of my annual income). It's much bigger than many would think. (I won't reveal either)
2. Back to something which makes me happy.
3. Open 3-4 new bank account and 3-4 new CCs to gain a few hundreds; and to connect my family with my badly shaped financial world.
4. Realised that a stress-free gain of a few hundred rupees can give more happiness than making stressful f&o gain of few lakhs per day.
5. Realised that financial depression can be extremely extremely difficult to deal with even if we have a good steady salary.
6. Sold my favourite new and only car (cost equivalent to my annual gross salary) to manage my finances.

In short experienced / experiencing the most severe financial crisis of my life.

(I won't reply to any que related to this post).

 

[kuchbhi]

Merry Christmas🎁🎄

In short: I’ve learned the art of adaptability, like a chameleon. Ego is the biggest villain—don’t take things personally; just let go and move forward.

My friend always says, "Male ego is the most fragile thing in this world"!
and he is 101% correct!

 

[kuchbhi]

You die a hero or you live long enough to become a villain - All credit cards eventually/rapidly get devalued - Learning is to continue to focus on your craft instead of attaching to any cc so that whichever new hot card launches after current card devaluation , banks chase you to give you that card

"You're either born a genius or someday killed by one!"

 

[AlgoTrader]

Hard Realization: Monthly family expenses is coming near 75000 without additional luxuries or splurges. - ME TOO

 

[msankadi]

Btw @cardioguy kudos for coming up with such a brilliant thread... Love it this should become a part of the yearly closing tf tradition

 

[theflash]

Learnt that we can do full KYC in Payzapp using any HDFC credit card, without having HDFC bank account.

Thanks although I have bank acct wasn't able to do Full KYC but suddenly checked this and it asked for CC last 4 digits. Now I'm full kyc user.

 

[theflash]

Review the standing instructions for Google One, Youtube Premium, Amazon Prime, and some other online purchases and see how best can I make these payments with better rewards.

I have Google One and Yt Premium. I buy Google Play giftcard when in offer for these subscriptions.

Current offer ₹300 cashback on ₹1300 from amazon mostly user specific not sure if still active I used it 15 days ago.

 

[msankadi]

I have Google One and Yt Premium. I buy Google Play giftcard when in offer for these subscriptions.

Current offer ₹300 cashback on ₹1300 from amazon mostly user specific not sure if still active I used it 15 days ago.

Yes it's still active 🙂

 

[tachniki]

I have Google One and Yt Premium. I buy Google Play giftcard when in offer for these subscriptions.

Current offer ₹300 cashback on ₹1300 from amazon mostly user specific not sure if still active I used it 15 days ago.

So, how does it work? Will my credit card not charged if i but google play gift card and add to account?

 

[Anupama_Jha]

So, how does it work? Will my credit card not charged if i but google play gift card and add to account?

Change primary payment method from card to google play balance

 

[theflash]

So, how does it work? Will my credit card not charged if i but google play gift card and add to account?

Yep you have to cancel and resubscribe using Google play balance but keep in mind if there is insufficient balance then that'll lead to subscription cancellation.

 

[tachniki]

Change primary payment method from card to google play balance

Gonna try this.

 

[cardio_guy]

Change primary payment method from card to google play balance

Thanks. So I need to ensure that I have enough balance always in Google Play wallet.
Apart from that, I also get some 40-50 Rs each month from Google opinion rewards app. Keep everything in Google play wallet and use that for Google purchases. Hmm. Will try this.

 

[350modena]

I learnt how to use ESP / Millenia DCs to earn CB

I also learnt the power of PNO / RBIO and how one can get issues resolved with CC companies that otherwise would never get resolved.