For anybody who is in regular work, and has been receiving regular wages for a while, always paid on the same day of the week/month do you make life decisions based on when “payday” is? Personally I can’t understand the mentality, as unless you’ve just started in a job after having 0 in your account, it shouldn’t matter what time of the month it is when you decide whether to buy groceries/have dinner out/ go see a show whatever. All too often I see people though spend lavishly on stuff they don’t really care about at the beginning of the month, and then at the end of the month when something comes up they would really want to do, they can’t. “I’m skint” :dubious: So does anyone here who has had a regular payday for a while still let “is it before payday or after payday?” decide what you want to do?
Sort of. While I’m usually sitting on top of a nice cushion, sometimes there are circumstances (such as my heater dying just as I’ve put most of the cushion into investments) in which knowing that my fixed-date payments will take place after the day my next incoming is due is nice.
My employment is irregular: I’m a self-employed contractor, and while each of my projects tends to be pretty long, knowing that I’ll be paid on the 10th of the same month in which I’ve invoiced is definitely a lot better for my cashflow budgeting than being on “90 days if we feel like it”. Back when I had a salaried job, I’d set certain outgoings on dates in which I was sure I would already have been paid.
I don’t base my life around payday. I am a wise prudent person who saves my money and I am better than all the ignorant poors derided in the OP
I don’t understand why everyone isn’t as smart as me and doesn’t spend their money intelligently.
I’m 46 and 've been working for many years and yes, I care when payday is. I allow myself to spend a certain amount every month and the rest goes into savings and investments which I never withdraw from. Near the end of the month I can be “skint”, without really being skint.
Early in my career with a young child and a spouse in school, budgeting around payday was a way of life. Fortunately, the child is now a self-supporting adult living on her own and the spouse and I have wiped our debts down to a mortgage and our monthly expenses, and having a credit card with a large limit makes a huge difference, too.
But I am very aware of when paydays fall and I always check my bank balance to ensure the deposit has been made. Then I allot to various accounts for bills, savings, and fun money. It’s taken a lot of years to get to this point, and I wish I could teach my younger self how to be a better money manager. Still, we avoided debtors’ prison and bankruptcy, so I guess we did OK. 
I don’t spend or not spend based on the payday cycle. But I also don’t leave much money sitting around in a checking account. The typical balance is much less than I earn or spend in a month. The excess of earning over spending gets swept into investments every month. For round numbers I get paid only once a month, but the amount varies by 10-15% each month.
So I have timed some big recurring expenses such as my mortgage and primary credit card to be paid out shortly after payday. That makes it easy to see what the excess is so I can promptly transfer the appropriate portion of it into investments.
Yes, I can always reverse that flow and pull money back from investment if I have a surprise expense later in the monthly cycle. But I prefer to avoid that just for simplicity and float management.
After I graduated from college in the 1976 recession, I worked a number of jobs for minimum wage or barely above it. But even then, I was quickly able to save up a cushion so that the timing of payday became incidental. And that’s been the way of it ever since.
No, in part because I am fortunate and frugal, but also because I put everything on plastic and pay it off at the end of the cycle.
I’ve cared a few times, like earlier this year when I was spending a ton of money on a home purchase and furnishings.
But not usually, because I normally keep enough in my checking account to cover expenses between pay periods. I’m lucky to have enough money to do this, though. Not everyone is so fortunate.
Yes, I pay very close attention to pay day, and I spend most of my time feeling “skint”, even though I don’t live lavishly at any point in the month.
I hope judging me brings you some measure of satisfaction with your own life, Mr Shine.
I care about payday because regardless of what’s in my account I budget my spending. “I can’t make happy hour, I’m broke” doesn’t mean I literally have no money, it means I’ve already blown through my entertainment budget for the month.
Same here, the checking account isn’t an endless pile of money to play with. And in order to maintain a healthy savings, I allot a certain amount of fun money each month, when it’s exhausted, I stop going out. Exceptions are made now and the (a friend coming to town unexpectedly), but mostly I stick with the budget.
There have been enough times in my life where I had no money, and there will be again if I ever retire, budgeting is second nature to me.
Not now, but I sure did when I was younger and broke. If you’ve never been in that situation you should be thankful,for the life of privilege you’ve been living rather than looking down on those less fortunate.
I sometimes like to make plots of expenses, income, electrical use, what have you. They look prettier when the pay (if it’s included) is monthly, as opposes to every two weeks. I prefer it to be on the first or last day of the month just for some desire to line up edges of things.
I’ll third this. I budget about a month and a half ahead of today. My paycheques this month are budgeted to my next month’s expenses. I budget a certain amount each month for restaurants, entertainment, etc. When that is gone I’m done spending in that category for the month regardless of how much is still in the account.
You might consider me broke when I can’t go out with you but when my car breaks down and needs $600 in repairs or Christmas comes and I spend $300 on gifts, I’ve got that budgeted and it won’t affect my regular spending at all.
In my early 20’s we lived almost paycheck to paycheck so yes we waited for payday. Circumstances can be different for all of us so I don’t judge others. I have always tended to live within my means and at least save a little money so maintaining a minimum balance in the checking has always been the norm.
Half the time I don’t even know if it is pay week or not, so no.
But I remember when it mattered to me, and I understand the concern.
mmm
[Not meant as a personal attack, this is just an aside, but that kind of thing has alway annoyed me; '“broke” is milk for the kids versus gas for the car, not pina coladas at Trader Vic’s with perfect hair versus a six of the micro brewery de jour at home, watching cable.]
That’s not really fair; I think the OP was pretty clearly talking about people who are established, not just starting out, and was talking about basic budgeting skills, not income.
No, it doesn’t matter to me, but when I grew up my parents lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and it was very important. I hated that feeling, so I’ve tried to be more careful.
I have a friend to whom it matters very much. She still floats checks around payday, so if it were late for some reason, she would be in trouble.
Nope. Own the company.
In the early years the business was very up and down. Would go 3-4 months with very little income and then have 2 or 3 when I was more than flush. Over the course of a year did very well but in the middle was often lean months.
So I got in the habit of when the flush months came about to pay in advance all my bills to weather out the lean times. I am still in that habit. Both car loans are 4 months in advance, the mortgage is 6 months ahead. Here it is November and the power bill and oil bills are paid through to April about.