How to donate your tickets restaurants on a regular basis

Two years ago, when I landed my first job, I was also given the choice to earn a part of my salary as “tickets restaurants” (meal vouchers). It’s a kind of benefit: every month, you pay a certain amount from your base salary (say 100€), and your employer gives you twice that via “tickets”. Of course, there are a couple limitations:

• You can only spend these in restaurants, bakeries, or for some groceries.
• You can spend a maximum of 25€ per day.

Other than that, since the employer pays fewer taxes on these tickets, this is supposed to be a win-win.

Traditionally, tickets restaurants were literally paper tickets. More recently, some companies launched an electronic version, with a credit card and an app. Among them, Swile, which is the one Alice & Bob (and thus I) uses.

It turns out you can donate your tickets restaurants. I had been looking for an effective way to make regular donations, and I must say this one ticks some nice checkboxes:

• You can configure your app (Swile, at least) to make the donation on a regular basis (see below). I personally give all my tickets restaurants every month (but it also works with less!)
• Since the cash never comes to my bank account in the first place, I don’t see it leaving either.
• I don’t have to juggle between my credit card and my Swile card, or think about how to spend my remaining tickets at the end of the month.
• So basically, you configure it once and forget about it. It truly feels like a “free” good deed.

If you would like to give it a try, here is a small decision tree to help you configure the recurring donation:

• If you plan to give less than 25€ per month, configure a monthly donation on the 1st of each month.
• Otherwise, divide the monthly amount by 4.5 (the approximate number of weeks per month).
  • If this weekly amount is below the limit of 25€, set a weekly donation on any day of the week.
  • Otherwise, the weekly amount is above the limit.
    • If you are donating to a single charity, set a daily donation with the appropriate amount.
    • Otherwise, set one weekly donation per charity, on noncontiguous days. For instance, Monday and Wednesday. Yes, that’s not possible with more than two charities.

Why the noncontiguous thing? Because if the donation day happens to be a bank holiday (which will happen a lot, you are in France, remember), Swile will try to do it on the next day. If another donation was already programmed for that day, it will likely be over the daily limit and Swile will send you alarmed notifications.

You also gain on taxes

A colleague of mine argued that the limitations of the tickets restaurants made them too hard to use before their expiration date¹. To avoid the burden, they preferred opting out of the benefit, and keep the money as cash.

It is true that the loss of liquidity (king cash vs something you can only spend on specific places, under a daily limit) is annoying. However, it turns out that accepting the tickets restaurants and donating them all makes you earn more money than not accepting them at all. Yes, you read well: you earn money by donating it.

The reason is that the French state subsidizes the donation. If you donate 100€, you will be entitled to a 66€ tax reduction² at the end of the (fiscal) year³.

Let’s do the maths. Say your base salary is 2000€, and your company offers you to pay 100€ in exchange for tickets restaurants worth 200€. You either:

• Don’t accept the tickets restaurants. You thus have 2000€ cash.
• Accept the tickets restaurants. You thus have 2000 - 100 = 1900€ cash. If you then donate all your tickets restaurants (200€), the State gives you back 66% × 200€ = 132€. In the end, you have 1900 + 132 = 2032€ (provided you pay enough taxes).

Of course, this is not a loophole: if you spent your tickets restaurants on food, you would have more cash at the end of year than if you donated them and bought the same food with your salary. The benefit only appears when you compare no tickets vs donate all your tickets.