Jabiru Software

Pay Day Planning – Why It Works

How frequently do you get paid? Your answer to this question is probably one of these three most common pay frequencies in the United States: every week, every 2 weeks, or twice a month. Assuming this is the case, you may have found it frustrating that virtually every personal finance planning application in the market is based on a monthly budget. Sure, we all have bills that come once every month – rent (or a mortgage), cell phone, car, etc. But where does the money to pay those bills come from? Those paychecks that don’t arrive at the same frequency as those bills. And that makes traditional budgeting methods challenging.

With Pay Day Planning, we start from your income – your real, actual income. You tell PDP how much money you received since your last paycheck. And then you enter what all you have to pay (and want to spend!) before your next paycheck. And PDP helps you make sure you will have the money to pay all those bills.

This method has several advantages:

  • Do you avoid talking about money because it’s too stressful? By planning every time you get paid, you make a habit out of talking about finances. These conversations become predictable instead of painful.
  • Did you get an unexpected bill? No need to go and make changes to your budget. Simply tell PDP when you need to pay it and it will show up as part of your plan.
  • Don’t have enough to do everything you want before your next paycheck? PDP makes that easy – move things out to the next pay period when you might have the money.
  • Does your income change from paycheck to paycheck? By using your actual income, PDP shows you exactly how much you can plan every time.
  • Do you have multiple incomes that arrive at different times? Pick the one that is the most consistent and base your planning on that. Each pay period you get to plan any money that arrived since the last time you planned – even including big items like tax refunds.

Pay Day Planning also recognizes the reality that life rarely goes according to plan. That’s why if you spend more than you planned, PDP makes you plan for less the next time – so you don’t run out of money. And PDP allows you to make small plan adjustments between paychecks – moving money from one plan item to another as needed.