Ideate

3 very wise ways to spend a Christmas Bonus

by Andrew Smith on 12/12/07 at 10:26 pm
3 comments

If you did manage to get a Christmas Bonus this year, I’d bet you had one of these two thoughts about how you were going to spend it:

- Yeeeeha! A new [insert shiny gadget here] I’ve been lusting after all year!

- I hope this will just about cover the petrol for our Christmas holiday.

I hear you. It takes nerves of steel not to blow your entire bounty on one mad Saturday morning shopping spree. No one will think less of you if you do, but as January sets in I’m sure you’ll start to wonder if there was something a bit more “lasting” that you could have done with the extra cash.

Here a few ideas for purchases that will survive longer than it takes to hoof down a heartburn-inducing roast:

1) Finance a butchery in rural Kenya

I’ve written about Kiva.org before, and I’ve now been using the site for a few months. Kiva lists hundreds of entrepreneurs from around the world (mostly 3rd-world countries) who are needing finance for their business to buy stock or equipment. You choose the entrepreneur you want to give an interest-free loan to, and $25 is deducted from your credit card. In about a year’s time the money will be paid back to you, and you can lend it to someone else, or withdraw it back to your PayPal account. Kiva works with local aid agencies to distribute the loans, and the repayment rate is over 99%. If you use your Christmas Bonus on Kiva loans, you will have the money back by this time next year, and you would have helped finance a whole bunch of small businesses.

2) Invest in the Stock Market

The best time to invest in the stock market was 10 years ago. The second best time is today.

Admit it – this is something you know you should be doing, but you just haven’t got around to doing. With any type of savings or investment, the first R100 is always the hardest to part with – after that it gets easier and easier. Use the current political uncertainty in South Africa as a motivating factor. Remember that in Zimbabwe their stock exchange is somehow keeping pace with the crazy inflation rate – there’s nowhere else for people to put their money, so share prices keep rising.

Satrix is a cheap and easy way to start investing in the South African stock market. It’s like a Unit Trust, but with lower fees. You can invest a lump sum or a debit order. Click here to download the PDF application form and get cracking. You can do the whole thing via fax or e-mail, and you’ll sleep easier from tonight, guaranteed.

3) Save electricity (and our planet)

Eskom is pushing for our electricity price to raise rapidly over the next few years, and blackouts are not going away anytime soon. And of course there’s that minor issue of us destroying our planet with coal fumes.

Now would be a good time to start investigating alternate forms of energy, and one of the biggest returns on investment is solar heating for your geyser.  Companies like Sun Tank claim that you can save half of your electricity bill with their heating panels, which will pay off the installation cost fairly quickly. You’ll be smiling in 3 year’s time!

Conclusion

If solar heating, the stock market or lending to the poor is not up your alley, the point is to try and find something to spend your bonus on that will still be with you in 2008 and beyond. If you make “delayed gratification” a habit, your life will become richer in time, and you won’t feel like you’re scraping by from month-to-month, paying off last year’s debts.

Happy holidays.

Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.

Related Articles

• What to buy your customer for Christmas
• The effect of the recession on Christmas spending
• Help Entrepreneurs Practically
• Lending to businesses around the world
• Good ways to make start-up capital