Ex - DS2 works for the provincial government. He gets paid every other Friday
Ex - 2 DS1 works for a municipal government. He gets paid a small amount in the middle of the month (about $300), and gets the balance of his money at the end of the month. No clue on the logic of this one.
Ex - DH works for a municipal government and his pay period mirrors DS2's
As for me, I work for a provincial government and get paid once a month. Technically, I am only paid for 10 months of work. That would give me bigger paychecks during the school year, but leave me two months where there are NO paychecks. That scares the crap out of me.
As a full time employee, I can request they pay once a month x 12 months. This gives me smaller monthly cheques during the school year, but I still get 2 full pay cheques in the summer ( I just noticed I have used both pay check and pay cheque in the same blog entry)
This works for me and gives me psychological peace of mind for the routine.
Getting paid once a month takes a bit of organizing to make sure you don't run out of money before you run out of month.
Somewhere back in the first year of my blogging, I decided to create 'mini paydays' within the month for my variable expenses (jar money). This would refresh my grocery, spending, gas and entertainment money each week.
The trouble is, that months are not 4 perfectly even 7 day groupings.
Below are pics of two pay cycles and how I create 'mini paydays' to mimic a weeky reset of my variable expenses.
So you can see that my actual monthly payday is the 25th of each month. In June, that fell on a weekend, so the money entered my account on the 23rd. I literally moved it temporarily into my savings until the 25th.
On my actual payday I withdraw my $280 from my checking account and that is my variable spending for the week.
(This will NOT let me left justify my text between pictures for love or money. Super annoying)
So you can see that I have created three additional 'paydays' to simulate a weekly payday. If I had simply gone one week to one week to one week my jar refill would have been sunday to sunday to sunday which would have left my month 'done' on the 23rd of July. That leaves unaccounted days. Survivable, but it did not feel comfortable to me. I tried.
So instead I 'added' a day to each weekly pay. June 25 to midnight of July 2 is 8 days. Then I added a day to the next weekly pay. June 3 to midnight of July 10. Another 8 days. I am now in line to have Tuesday pretend paydays on the 11th and 18th until my next real payday on the Tuesday the 25th.
This only added a day to each of 2 weeks. Not even noticeable.
Real payday on July 25th and everything resets.
Pretend weekly payday is August 2 (so another 8 day week). etc
Then I came up with this plan and now, 7 + years later, I still use it.
I get my calendar at Christmas and spend a half hour over coffee putting little stars on my actual payday and the following three pretend paydays, for the whole year. Now my whole year is mapped out and ready to go.
I do actually think of those pretend paydays as paydays for my variable expenses. While my husband isn't on board, he does accept that when I say I have no grocery money left this week, he knows there is more money in the account for the next week, but that I am not willing to part with it until I hit my star day. He sees that it is working.
I no longer dread the last week of a pay month where most people have spend everything and have next to nothing in their account. I know that I have the same amount of money for groceries, or gas each week and I don't have to panic.
It may sound complicated but it is ridiculously easy to set up and was super easy to get used to. It is predictable and I know that I have $ coming to me every 7 or 8 days to refill the money jars.
I credit this system as one of the reasons I have remained mostly successful on this budget for 7 plus years.
Did that make sense? any questions??
7 comments:
Your system makes sense to me... and its working for you, which is the most important... Hope all is well.. :)
When my husband used to be pad 1X per month, and I was twice a month, those 31 day months seemed very long indeed. We were paying child care every week for two kids at that time. Now he is twice a month, and I am every other Friday, which meas I get two months a year with a third pay check, and no health insurance deducted. It boosts our savings when that happens.
It works for you. Thats what counts. We used to be paid once a month (active miitary who chose not to have some at mid month. We spent quite a bit of time by phone changing all our bill due dates one vacation week. then we Put like 200 bucks awa for the end of the month and did all of our shopping for the month. It worked but it required serious master lists, ya know?
I love being paid once a month. I arranged all my bills to be due shortly after payday. I bought groceries and filled the car. I had very little money left for the month. But, I had little to buy or spend money on. I had enough food to make lunches for five days, and the same meal once on the weekend. That only left four meals each month, and that could be a tuna salad sandwich. I needed apples and bananas. I saved out just enough for gas and never touched it. It all worked for me, and I loved it.
I'd have to read this again to make it sink it, to be honest, but the most important thing is that it works for YOU. Never mind that your husband isn't really on board with it - it's your paycheque, your budget and your plan and it works for you, so that's what matters. I get paid once a month too (29th of each month) and it was a real struggle for the first few months. I got paid bi-weekly at my job in the Yukon - every second Wednesday, strangely enough - and was getting weekly pay during my first couple of years here which was really nice. I find you have to be much more diligent with monthly paycheques but have more or less adjusted and am starting to figure out what works best for me. I can definitely use some fine-tuning, but it's all a process. Thanks for the tips! xx
My first job I was paid semi-monthly (the 15th and the 30th), next job we went to bi-weekly (technically it was the same job, it was new ownership and later the office moved) and my "new to me" job (as of 12/01/14) we are paid weekly. Thank God! :)
Love hearing the different ways you all get paid and organize your worlds. I always learn something.
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