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It's amazing that you say your statements are logically when they aren't. The fact is the majority of people will take their pay on a weekly basis if offered. I'm disciplined and would prefer it to keep my budget the same month to month rather than having to shift it.
You have to get off this high horse where everything you say, think or do is the right way.
For some 10 checks works but for the majority 12 is preferred. Your assumption of logic is not it's just your opinion
Majority have poor spending habits then. I'd have a very minor preference for ten pay checks. It's not a huge deal but gives you more options and slightly better pay. A more extreme example would be getting paid for the entire year up front. Of course I'd always choose that given it would never be offered as if you broke your contract then they'd have to get the money back.
Wow, this thread went mostly a different direction than I assume was intended.
I know plenty of people who earn a decent income and still live paycheck to paycheck. Simply put they spend everything they make and often more. It has always been my belief that the more you make (adjusted for locale) the easier it is to live below your means. That doesn't sit well with many people which just leaves me shaking my head.
A lot of people also don't consider the cost of children and how it should reduce their other expenditures. I see a lot of people with kids buying as much home as the bank will let them when they should be greatly lowering the amount they are willing to spend on housing since they have kids.
Most people just don't think all that much about finances. Unfortunately, that makes overspending easy.
Most people just repeat the patterns of their parents. Most people had parents who were bad with money. Spending everything you make is a familiar pattern. People do what is familiar.
Well, that poster is correct. It is strange that there are people that would rather wait to get paid for the fruits of their labor. Why would anyone want to give their employer interest free loan for those two months (rhetorical)? People with that mindset are the same rocket surgeons that get all excited about a tax refund.
Maybe they see that as being paid the months of september, october, november and december in advance,...
btw I think those who have a decent pay and still struggle to go on as iperconsumerists, people who are addicted to spend/waste money on every single minutia.
We lived check to check with a very good income for many years. My base pay was about $140,000 (for 7 people), but I would get a huge bonus/profit share in December, often substantially more than my yearly base draw. Seems like we should be uber flush and able to save or invest huge amounts out of that. However that was not the case. A big chunk went into 401K (somewhow my firm had a program that allowed us to put $20 - $30 K into the 401K out of my share of firm profits). State and Federal income taxes, the employer share of social security (as a partner, I was self employed and therefore had to pay the employer side of SS - I think it was about $18,000), property tax, and property insurance ate up a surprising amount of that. We also gave 10% of our total income for the year (or more) to charity out of that check. On a few rare occasions we would buy some big ticket item, like a car, but very rarely. Usually whatever was left, just slowly trickled away through the year. Medical co-pay's and deductibles for 7 people, braces, private school tuition, other sudden unexpected expenses. . . Plus my base pay really was not enough for a family of 7 to live on in Southern California, so we had to spread out some of the bonus money to supplement. Year after year it seemed to fritter away bit by bit. After estimating what was needed to supplement my regular checks, we would put away $30,000 or so as our "savings" knowing we would have to eat into it some, but expecting to have at least $10k left as carry over savings. Rarely did that work, and then when it did work for a few years, we would have some giant whammy that would eat up whatever we were carrying as savings. Other than 401K we never managed to save anything significant.
Some people say "that is stupid" Not really stupid, but arguably not good money management. However, there is not a lot we could do except move to a cheaper state, which we eventually did.
We did eat out more than necessary or prudent, that was the California lifestyle. We were out with friends at least weekly. And we definitely bought too much crap for the kids. That was not my call. However that really did not add up to all that much.
We were rarely completely broke and had savings at times, but none of our savings lasted permanently like as an amount we can leave to our children in our will, or some extra to supplement our 401K in retirement. However we often lived paycheck to paycheck towards the end of the year, after the prior year's bonus was gone and before the next one arrived.
Later, due to other issues, we did have a time where we were not making it from check to check and sometimes struggled to find money for gas to get to work or groceries until the next paycheck arrived. But that had to do with a bad investment and some health problems that resulted in my wife managing our finances when she was unable to do so, than we couldn't actually make it check to check.
I do not worry about it overly much. The fact is you are going to spend all of your money one way or another. You can chose to live well now, or later. You can try to leave money for your kids, or help them now and leave them very little. I am glad we sent a lot of the money we did then, we had some marvelous adventures, that I could not now participate in because of worsening knee and back problems. Still waiting to learn whether they can ever make me better, but if not, it is a good thing I did all the things I did and enjoyed them while I could. As for the kids, I would much rather see them enjoy the fruits of my labor than leave them money to buy a car when they are 50 or 60 and already established on their own.
We have a little savings now, which is prudent for emergencies or employment issues or the like. Sometimes we borrow form tat savings between checks, sometimes we add to it a little bit. I am certain somewhere in the next several years, an emergency will arise and we will be back to starting over again and we may well end up living paycheck to paycheck at times, especially if we want to set aside money to build savings.
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