Plese ignore the last line of the previous post, I screwed up the quote first time round, and accidentally left BB’s words at the bottom of my pst when trying to fix it.
When I was single, I could operate on a vague sense of if my spending was running high or low, and adjust accordingly.
With a family, my financial life has acquired a lot more moving parts, and the part of my budget that I have direct control over has shrunk significantly. The kinds of choices I make have changed. I can’t decide to skip dinner because I want to have a very nice lunch, for example. I’ve found I need to put a lot tighter constraints on my personal spending.
Having basic budgeting skills and living within one’s means, and having to think about when payday is, are two different things.
The way I’ve always thought about it is: my bank account is like a reservoir. It would be nice if the river flowed into the reservoir continuously, but it doesn’t. But if there’s enough water in the reservoir so that, given one’s spending habits, the reservoir isn’t going to be in any danger of running dry right before a payday, then the flow might as well be continuous, in terms of your budgeting. In which case the timing of payday is no longer a factor.
Ain’t that the truth. Those losers expect to eat every single day!
Thank god we don’t have to buy formula anymore - it allows us a LOT more freedom. Run out of milk, he can drink water and we don’t have to run to the grocery store right this minute. And he can eat whatever we eat, mostly, so if we’re scaring up a pantry meal he can just have that.
Because my husband and I both had jobs that paid well, we decided to make our sons the beneficiaries of our life insurance policies. So when my husband died, I suddenly had to start living on my paycheck alone with no cushion provided by the life insurance. I wasn’t destitute or even poor by any means, but I had to draw up a budget and stick to it until obligations taken on as a two-income family were paid off.
I spent more years than I care to remember living paycheck-to-paycheck, and then I ALWAYS cared when payday was.
Yes, sometimes I’d get down to eating ramen because I couldn’t go grocery shopping until Thursday. Or I’d have to let the power bill go past the shut-off date because rent was more important, and rent was due before the next payday. (Hope the power company takes a few days before shutting me off, pay them when payday finally arrives. Usually worked, but would FAR rather do that with phone than power.)
A few years ago I got offered a better job of sorts. Doing the same work, but for 80% more hours at 62% more pay. This let me build up a very small amount of savings.
Now, I know the rent is paid. I have an account where enough is put from each paycheck to cover my rent, and there is enough in there to always cover a couple of months, so I don’t have to worry about what day the rent check will clear.
When you live paycheck to paycheck you ABSOLUTELY care when payday is.
Yes, I care, and not because I’m poor. When I get paid, I pay bills, and put a certain amount in savings. Then I take the rest out in cash and just live off that till the next pay day. Usually I am running low on cash around the next pay day.
And I wish Taylor Swift would stop writing all those songs about me. I mean, sure, it was flattering at first, but our time is over, honey.
And can I just say?..Taylor overshares. Can I say that? The girl overshares.
It’s worth pointing out that sometimes - especially in the context of work socializing - “Sorry, I can’t because I’m broke until payday” is a polite way to say “I don’t really want to hang out with work people after work hours” or “I just want to read my new book on my lunch hour in peace”. It steps around potential hurt feelings, plus you don’t get the reputation for being an antisocial mofo.
I no longer pay any real attention to when, specifically, payday is - although this is in large part because my share of the household chores does not include paying our bills.* I have a sketchy and fairly general idea of our financial picture, and my husband informs me if I have to be particularly frugal in my daily expenses, but that’s about as in-depth as I get into the topic. Similarly, he does not inquire with any real detail into how, precisely, dinner happens.
- A billion years ago, when we moved in together when we got engaged, we sat down and divided up the household chores based on skill set and inclination. Unsurprisingly, the accountant (my husband) got household budget and bill paying duty. If need be, I could figure it the hell out - just as he could figure out how to feed himself dinner without my intervention. I just don’t usually pay a whole lot of attention to it under normal circumstances. My husband strongly prefers it this way - I have a tendency to get a little paranoid about being broke and dying in a gutter, which drives him mildly batshit.
I don’t necessarily care what day I get paid on, but the people who hold my mortgage, car loan and utilities definitely care what day THEY get paid on, so if I’m facing a major purchase, I’m going to time it so that I have both a fresh paycheck and my house/car/electric/food bills taken care of that month.
As long as I can count on it, I don’t much care which day of the week it is, or whether I get paid weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.
I get paid weekly, but budget monthly.
…no they aren’t really. Budgeting includes forecasting. Forecasting includes knowing when the next influx of cash is coming in. You can’t separate this out and if you are then you aren’t really budgeting properly. You might not be “worried” about it, but, as the OP suggests, if “something comes up they would really want to do” but isn’t part of your normal spending habits knowing when your next influx of cash is coming in would be one of many different things you should be considering.
I do care when pay day is, because of paying bills. I pay half the bills out of the first paycheck and half out of the second. I like to send the bills out via bill pay right on payday. We do draw our checking account down very low in between paychecks because we are trying to build up our savings account. If money sits in the checking account, the temptation is there to spending it. If it goes to the savings account, we won’t take it out for non-essentials.
Well, since half of my income goes to my ex, you bet I know when payday is. I make a good salary and one day I might even see some of it.
She needs to just shake it off.
If you regularly have enough money for a month’s worth of cushion while still buying things that are not what you need to live, I’d call that pretty privileged.
You have to be dipping into that cushion, right? That’s the only way I can think it could work without knowing exactly when your money comes in. But even that would require building the cushion back up the next time you get paid.
Unless you are doing a fuzzy budget. But, for most of us, that’s going to result in overspending. It’s much easier to overestimate how much money you have than to underestimate it.
That sounds more like a euphemism to me–a way to avoid saying you don’t want to, rather than a way to clearly convey this concept.
I’ve also never met anyone who actually has money problem who doesn’t feel resentful when someone says they are broke but clearly still have disposable income. Hell, I’ve seen confrontations.: “Do you like my new shoes?” “I thought you said you were broke!”