wishing my life away until payday! - anyone else?

[headlikearobbersdog]

Hi,

I have fallen foul of the early December pay trap. I get paid on Friday 24th and I have a grand total of £201. Looks like we'll be eating pasta and sauce for a couple of weeks!!

Is anyone else feeling the pain? When is your payday and what do you have left ( if you don't mind sharing, of course"). I am hoping that it will make me feel better about my own financial ineptitude!!

Snap. I get paid on the 24th and have about £50 which won't even cover my remaining direct debits. Luckily I can be very creative with meals!

Deja vu 🤔

Yes l answered this one yesterday!

I get paid on 31st and have £91 left, but I do have lot's of food in.
I'm definitely counting down. 2 weeks on Friday can't come soon enough 😫

Not so much recently but until DP's State Pension kicked in last year it was a close run thing several months of the year.

I'm waiting for my pay day for the first time in a long time.. (21st) not sure what's happened but I'm down to £450 🙈 this scares me immensely as I always like to have a £1k buffer and I've completely messed up somewhere this Christmas. I'm trying to have no spend days to keep on track with what I have left!!

We get paid in all different dribs and drabs throughout the month so it's never dire straights but it does take a lot of budgeting and working out to keep going.

My OH gets paid on the 6th of every month he's the main earner

I get paid 4 weekly so I'll be paid on the 24th

in the current account we've got £98 untill next Monday but I've got £300 food money seperate to last untill the 6th again, if needs be I can take a bit more from somewhere else but I like to try and make it work within the budget, we have various savings pots for different things all will some in, Family of 5 (3 small children)

Yep! Got paid on the 19th and my next pay day isn't until January 31st

I didn't touch my pay at all until January 1st, and all my direct debits come out then. I have £404 to last me, I have 10 working days left this month it's £30 on the bus and not much else.

Doing no spend everyday this month to make it last

I take everything for the month out the monthly money, all bills, food budget, petrol budget, paying of debt money, and whatever is left literally for day to day living, that way if we run out it's not the end of the world, we can get about, we have food in the house and petrol in the car, the bills are paid we just can't get a takeaway or go on a day out, but it's not the end of the world.

Get paid 28th, I have £2 in the bank and very little in the cupboards. All bills paid as they get put into a pot for the month.

I will get CB tomorrow for £102.40 and that will need to last us until 28th. I made the mistake last year of not starting the Park Christmas Vouchers and then we were 4 months into the year and I just never got round to it.

1ST payment for the vouchers comes out in January and I will not make that mistake again. I normally get enough every year to cover presents, food and drink with a little left over for the post Christmas sales.

I learned from previous years so I always buy extra pasta, rice, flour, sugar, tinned tomatoes, other tinned goods from September onwards so all I need to buy in January is fresh food.
I know it doesn't help now but may be a useful idea for this year.

£201 doesn't seem too difficult for just over a week unless you have a lot of other expenses you haven't mentioned or a very large family? You'll be able to afford plenty more than 'pasta and sauce'.

Most people's payday isn't for another two and a half weeks

The OP said she gets paid on the 24th, though.

That's still 11 days away. Public transport can be upwards of £10 a day, mine costs £14 a day now.

Urgh yes. I got paid on December 20th and get paid January 27th. I have £30 in my bank and get my CB and Scottish child payment on Friday thankfully keep me going xx

Wouldn't it make more sense to save that money and have it for January?

I feel like I'm being dense which means I'll probably get yelled at for being 'privileged' but why does the early Dec pay date leave you short if you aren't normally?

get paid on 23rd..£45 left in bank… I went Tesco this morning and have a basic shop in with main meals sorted. Shouldn’t have to pay for anything else now but it’s tight

get £170ish child benefit next Monday 20th which should pay for a decent food shop to set us up for the next month

@LightCameraBitchSmile because December is an expensive month, no matter how much you budget it ends up costing more than you expect

I know it is. I was just saying that the PP was just responding to the OP, who gets paid on the 24th.
Anyway I’ve just checked my balance and we have £17 in the current account (payday 20th). We have all the food we need though and cars are electric so don’t need to buy fuel. So we’ll be fine!

Because people spend more money than usual over Christmas/new year/school holidays.

Sure that I understand obviously, but that would be true no matter when you get paid wouldn't it?

@LightCameraBitchSmile no, because most people get paid before Christmas actually happens, so they've spent their previous wages and have a week or two of December to pay for

it's annoying at the time but my work don't pay us early, it's a 4 weekly pay rota that dosnt change for Christmas. I was paid on the 27th which I was actually quite thankful for because if it had come a few days earlier I would have spent it.

But your income is fixed over dec and January. So if you're short it's because you've overspent in December not because your pay was early.

Either you get paid eg 100 in Nov, spend 150 on Christmas then get paid 100 Dec and only have 50 left till Jan pay

Or you get paid 100 in Nov, 100 in early Dec, spend 150 on Christmas and only have 50 left till January pay.

So really the culprit is the mad cost of Christmas/dec and the early pay date is a red herring for those on regular annualised wages. Isn't it? Or am I being dense