Find a credit card that pays you

Some credit cards actually pay you credit interest if you keep a positive balance. This is good news for the canny saver, because paying with your credit card can be cheaper than racking up bank charges — except if you draw cash on your card. But remember if you spend all your positive balance you will have to pay debit interest of around 24 percent or higher — that’s R1200 a year on a R5000 balance.

Potential returns:

• The Virgin Money credit card pays 9.5 percent credit interest on all positive balances, so you could earn R475 a year if you have an average in-credit balance of R5000 — and there are no fees on most transactions or for having the card.

• The Blue Bean Premium credit card pays a credit interest rate of 8.5 percent — which means R850 a year on a R10 000 balance — but you need to earn at least R20 000 a month and there is a card fee of R168 per year.

• Most Nedbank Credit Cards pay eight percent on positive balances, so you could earn R400 per year on a R5000 in-credit balance.

Paying even a small amount into your mortgage is a great investment, saving you money and potentially reducing the length of your bond. And, when hopefully property prices rise again, you’ll get a better return than the average savings and investment account.

Potential returns:

• Paying off R10 000 of a 20 year R1-million mortgage at a rate of 14.5 percent over 20 years will save you R128 a month — a total of R30 720 over 20 years — bringing your month payments down to R12 672.

• If you kept on paying the higher, pre-reduction repayment figure of R12 800 a month you could shave even more money off the total amount you pay as well as reducing the length of your mortgage.