For years I was a dutiful downloader just like you are. Then one year I simply quit doing that. And nothing bad happened.
I can tell from my bank account(s) that I was paid and how much. I expect you’re salaried, so the number ought to change very little from payment to payment. At year end they provide you a W2 for your taxes.
What do you actually need the 52 pay statements / stubs for?
On a larger scale, decades ago I used to file & store by year every piece of money-related paper that entered my household. Once a year when I did my taxes I’d move all of last year’s paper to a file box to free up filing cabinet space for this year’s blizzard of paper. Then after 20 years of that I stopped retaining stuff that was redundant. No need to keep credit card charge slips if I keep the monthly CC bills. No need to keep cancelled checks if I kept the checking statements, etc.
Later I stopped retaining anything past year-end that wasn’t part of my tax return. Last year’s 12 accumulated phone bills? Shredded when I finished last year’s taxes and filed away the papers that went into the taxes and shredded everything else.
Now? If it isn’t an input to my tax return, I don’t save the paper, nor download the pdf. E.g. when I get the monthly email saying some credit card statement is available and I owe $X, I’ll log onto the card’s website, scan through the charges looking for unhappy surprises, and stop right there. No need to download or print anything.
Bottom line:
For those of us who grew up in the all-paper era, we’ve each slowly and unevenly embraced the download as pdf era. But the more organized or administratively oriented of us probably are still aping our old paper filing habits. That was sure me. Until I had an epiphany that I’d been storing all that paper to no benefit. And there’s even less reason now to go to the effort to store those bits since they’re readily available later if you discover some non-routine need for them.
I’ve been bi-weekly for decades now but I was semi-monthly in the Navy. The thing I like more about bi-weekly is that you get a premium holiday in the 2 months with 3 paychecks where they don’t take a deduction for health and dental on the third payday. It also made my child support obligation easier to manage with bi-weekly paydays - with semi-monthly if you have a CSO you are forever in arrears.
I’ve worked at the same university for almost 25 years now (it will be exactly 25 years on November 1). When I first started, faculty and professional personnel (which latter category, as a librarian, I fit into) were paid monthly, on the last working day of each month. Staff, on the other hand (secretaries, clerks, and such) were paid bi-weekly.
Starting in 2019, the university switched to paying everyone bi-weekly, regardless of their position. I imagine it was easier for them to manage only one payroll calendar.
Overall, I like the bi-weekly schedule better. Yes, it’s the same amount of money, but getting a paycheck every two weeks feels better to me psychologically. It feels better to be paid more frequently, even if each actual paycheck is less. Plus, you get those occasional 3-paycheck months.
My wife decided to retire during COVID, so now she gets her pension on the 1st of every month, and her social security on the 4th Wednesday of every month. Combining that with my bi-weekly pay, we get a good spread of money hitting the bank account throughout the month. It works for us.
My wife gets paid semi-monthly which I appreciate for budgeting purposes and reliably knowing when the “big” check will be in. I get paid weekly which I appreciate for filling the gaps and keeping the finances lubricated.
I guess we’d get by if she got paid ever other week but it’s easier to just calculate how far we are from the 10th or 25th.
The difference between biweekly & semi-monthly is huge when you get that ocassional third weekend w/o a paycheck if you’re more on the paycheck-to-paycheck income. Forget going out, it’s do you have enough to run all of the errands & buy all of the groceries, which means meal prep for the week on the weekend when your next payday is on Monday.
The company I worked for years ago got bought out & the new parent switched us to monthly. There were people going to to the bar that first Friday of the month with all of that money burning a hole in their pocket, getting wasted, buying rounds, etc. I was more of the maybe I’ll join you for one but I gotta make this money last the whole month & what if something breaks mentality. Which meant the last Friday of the month I wanted to go out as I still had money in my pocket & was getting a fresh infusion in a couple of days; of course, the other guys at work were flat broke & couldn’t afford it. Being smart enough to not buy rounds & fund their money mismanagement & not wanting to drink alone that excess money went into savings; only to repeat the process again the next month…at least until we were all let go in the shutdown. For a couple of months it was good for both my liver & my saving account.
A few years ago my software biz transitioned from bi-weekly to semi-monthly. Or vice versa I forget which. But for whatever reason that led to an almost 7-day drought with no wages being paid out after the last old paycheck would have been paid.
I was shocked how far up the food chain that led to very upset employees who could not manage to live one whole extra week without any cash infusion. The transition was announced in detail about 6 weeks before. Including the fact there’d be a week gap during the changeover, but everyone would get every penny they were owed. It still led to crises, folks running out of gas for their car, etc.
I have worked many jobs over the years. Out of 11 that were paid by check, three were paid weekly, four bi-weekly or semi-monthly (I don’t remember which), two by the job, and two monthly.
The two monthlies were the biggies, teaching public high school science for 26 years. It teaches one how to budget really quick. I had to ask my parents and sister for spending cash the month of the first year- the county held back the new hires’ first paycheck for a month. I had things under control by December.
The paid by the job were three stints at corn detasseling and five year’s worth of teaching DUI school at night which was paid by the class. I usually had two classes per month. All the others were summer jobs or on-campus jobs in college.
The most enjoyable job I ever had which paid weekly was working the counter and grill at a bowling alley nights and weekends. This was while I was teaching full time. The weekly pay really helped make life more comfy between the monthly teaching checks.
We used to get paid weekly for years and I loved it. Overtime pay hit very regularly and there was never any danger of running low. We managed to hold out for a long time when the rest of the government went to bi-weekly because it was in our contract. Eventually we gave it up in exchange for something else. Bi-weekly took some getting used to but in the end it wasn’t a big deal.
Now I’m retired and get paid monthly and it sucks.
Semi-monthly for the win. Much easier to budget things that way.
My husband is paid biweekly. Every few years, due to how the stars align, there’s one pay period that covers THREE weeks.
What I do for budgeting reasons is set up automatic transfers of a certain amount from each of our paychecks, into the savings account, then the big bills (mortgage etc.) are paid from that account.
A bigger issue for me is how far in arrears the pay happens.
Back when I lived in NC, people who worked for the state got paid monthly - and several weeks in arrears. So you’d start April first, and not get paid a dime until mid May or whatever.
My last few jobs have always paid up to the date we get paid - e.g. I get my mid-April paycheck on April 15th, and I’m paid through April 15th. I’ve always wondered how that would work if someone quit a few days before, since of course payroll takes a bit of time to process. I guess they’d have to go after the person for the extra few days.
I would be hard-pressed to not download statements. In my experience, you get a window (typically 12-18 months) in which they are available to download. After that, they are very difficult to access and there may be a fee involved.
And I don’t know now what information I might need in the future.
Small example, my son is still on my EZ-pass toll account for some reason. I recently went to review/download statements to see how much he owes me for tolls (which I haven’t looked at in quite a while), but can’t go past 12 months. So everything older than that is either a guesstimate or I write it off.
And for credit card statements, having the pdfs means I can search them for specific charges if necessary. Like if a doctor’s office says I didn’t pay them my copay. Or a travel claim. Or documentation for medical expenses on my tax return.
And on my pay stubs, that’s the only documentation that includes details on my various withholdings, vacation time, sick time, etc. Having all the pay stubs means I can track down when I was overcharged for vacation time or sick time if my HR department makes a mistake (or not properly credited in the first place).
Everything is electronic, at least (i.e. pdfs). I don’t deal with paper much anymore.