biweekly pay Archives - Our Bill Pickle

Four personal finance confessions for the last half of the year

To be honest, it’s a bit dramatic to call these personal finance confessions.

When I started Our Bill Pickle, the first thing I wrote about was the importance of being transparent when you write about money on the internet. At the time, I focused on being honest about privilege when it comes to personal finance.

That idea of privilege is relevant to this post, too. These “confessions” stem from one thing: how my privilege allows me to change my financial plans without disastrous consequences.

And heaven knows there were times this summer where my original financial plans went out the window.

So, in the spirit of keeping it real, here are a few personal finance “confessions” from the last few months.

Making the most of a bonus pay month

If you get paid biweekly, you know exactly what I mean when I say bonus pay month.

On a biweekly schedule, depending on when you get paid, there are typically two pay days a month. In every job I’ve held, I have been paid on Thursday – once near the start of the month and once near the end.

This is how it works 10 months of the year.

The other two months are a little different.

They are bonus pay months.

During those two months, instead of two pay periods, the calendar aligns to give you three. As a person who gets paid biweekly on Thursday, one of those months this year is November.

I love when this happens – the extra week of income definitely helps so close to Christmas. Additionally, because Jeff and I get paid on alternate weeks, that means instead of two three pay months during the year, we actually get four.

As a result, we’ve gotten pretty good at making the most of these bonus pay months.