For other people, this might be a disaster. For me, it's kind of funny.

[Meggslynn]

I work in payroll. Unfortunately I see this stuff happen often.

System problems, timecards never made it, banking account was frozen, etc.
You can always tell the people who have their financial shit together because they are the ones who say, "ok, thanks for letting me know". And then there are the others who are on the verge of financial ruin from one delayed check and those are the people that rip you a new a$$hole when you tell them their check is going to be delayed three or four days.

[iris lily]

My place of work still mails paychecks to 2/3 or the employees. Soon we will do direct deposit only, and that's going to be a problem because many of those who receive mailed paychecks do not have bank accounts. I don't know how one functions without a bank account. They will be getting credit union debit accounts no doubt.

We had a problem with a duplicate paycheck once and some people had already spent most of the money that was not theirs within 24 hours.

[eyePod]

We are going to be getting a decent bonus this year and all it means for me is transferring money slightly differently, but boy I'm sure a lot of people will be buying lots of toys...

The only reason I care when I get paid is so my checking account has sufficient money in it for all the debits (rent, tithe, roth ira, auto-house savings transfer, etc).

But then again, I've got quite a bit of excess in there from all the money I've NOT spent over the past months so I could probably miss an entire paycheck and be fine :)

Hey now, I get excited for my bonus.  My toy that I'll buy is filling out the rest of my Roth IRA contributions. :-D

[Luck better Skill]

My place of work still mails paychecks to 2/3 or the employees. Soon we will do direct deposit only, and that's going to be a problem because many of those who receive mailed paychecks do not have bank accounts. I don't know how one functions without a bank account. They will be getting credit union debit accounts no doubt.

We had a problem with a duplicate paycheck once and some people had already spent most of the money that was not theirs within 24 hours.

  For the poor or low education checking accounts just don't happen.  If they can get one the minimum monthly fees and overdraft charges are a nightmare.  Same concept of if you cannot handle credit don't get a credit card.

[xenon5]

Even though I don't need the cash between paydays, I'm well aware of when payday is.  For my job, even though I'm salaried, I need to fill out a timesheet by the 1st and 15th of every month.  Payday is the 7th and 22nd of each month.  Our clients are billed by our work hours, and if you forget to bill your time, it could represent a loss of many thousands of dollars.  You're only allowed to forget once.  The second time, you'll be ineligible for raises or promotions for the year, and the third time you could get fired.


And maybe it's because I'm still taking care of a debt emergency but I prefer to manage my funds manually (electronically of course).  It only takes 5 minutes to allocate and fund my payments and savings and it makes me feel like I'm totally in control.  Maybe once I get to the fun part of saving money rather than paying it back I'll be more inclined to try passive management.

[Albert]

My place of work still mails paychecks to 2/3 or the employees. Soon we will do direct deposit only, and that's going to be a problem because many of those who receive mailed paychecks do not have bank accounts. I don't know how one functions without a bank account. They will be getting credit union debit accounts no doubt.

We had a problem with a duplicate paycheck once and some people had already spent most of the money that was not theirs within 24 hours.

  For the poor or low education checking accounts just don't happen.  If they can get one the minimum monthly fees and overdraft charges are a nightmare.  Same concept of if you cannot handle credit don't get a credit card.

Depends how you arrange it. My company (in Switzerland) has no system in place at all to pay with anything other than direct deposit. Having an account in a certain bank (all fees payed by the company) is a contractual obligation of every employee. Don't like it, don't take a job.

[Luck better Skill]

My place of work still mails paychecks to 2/3 or the employees. Soon we will do direct deposit only, and that's going to be a problem because many of those who receive mailed paychecks do not have bank accounts. I don't know how one functions without a bank account. They will be getting credit union debit accounts no doubt.

We had a problem with a duplicate paycheck once and some people had already spent most of the money that was not theirs within 24 hours.

  For the poor or low education checking accounts just don't happen.  If they can get one the minimum monthly fees and overdraft charges are a nightmare.  Same concept of if you cannot handle credit don't get a credit card.

Depends how you arrange it. My company (in Switzerland) has no system in place at all to pay with anything other than direct deposit. Having an account in a certain bank (all fees payed by the company) is a contractual obligation of every employee. Don't like it, don't take a job.

In white collar or government work you can make direct deposit a requirement for employment.  Restaurants, construction, and other jobs cannot find people if they required DD.  You can only bounce so many checks before the banks close your checking account.  Other issues are many business do not accept checks anymore and some immigrants do not trust banks.  So why pay a fee for an account that you can only use to pay your electric bill with?

[Longwaytogo]

Spending my whole life in blue collar (construction) work I have never had direct deposit. My wife has it for her job (teacher) and it is much nicer. I have worked for companies where we occasionally would have to wait a week or two for checks If they were behind schedule on a project.

[Eric]

Thought of this thread yesterday.  I finished my taxes this weekend.  I owe $2300 this year.  I mentioned this to a coworker:

Me:  I finished my taxes this weekend!  Pretty glad to be done with that.  But I owed $2300 so that kind of sucks.
CW:  OMG!  What are you going to do about that!?
Me:  I need to adjust my withholding some so that the bill will be smaller next year and I won't get hit with the underpayment penalty.
CW:  Oh....

I assume coworker thought "how will you ever pay that bill?", and didn't really have anything to say after it wasn't the bill that concerned me but my withholding amounts. 

[MrFancypants]

I haven't been "paycheck to paycheck" for so long I've forgotten what it feels like.

[Threshkin]

I once got a call from the accounting department at work asking me to please cash my paychecks.  My un-cashed checks were messing up their payroll system.

This was back before ATMs and automatic deposit.  I did not have a car and getting to the bank was a hassle.  I got paid weekly and one check would last me a month or more.  I had about 10 checks in my wallet as I recall.

I was 18 or 19 at the time.  I guess I was already mustachian even then

[bikebum]

Earlier this year, I received a paycheck for $0.00 on a Friday. I brought it over to someone in the payroll department, and I guess the person that normally will fix things was out for a couple days and they asked if they needed to write me a check right there to cover bills.

I laughed it off and said whenever she gets back is fine. They gave me a bit of a funny look.

I got pay checks for $0.00 for a couple months when I deferred all my pay to my 457. One of my co-workers said I should hold onto it until my next evaluation and ask for a raise.

[Paul der Krake]

I once got a call from the accounting department at work asking me to please cash my paychecks.  My un-cashed checks were messing up their payroll system.

This was back before ATMs and automatic deposit.  I did not have a car and getting to the bank was a hassle.  I got paid weekly and one check would last me a month or more.  I had about 10 checks in my wallet as I recall.

I was 18 or 19 at the time.  I guess I was already mustachian even then

This is hilarious. I can picture the confused payroll manager ordering his minions to comb the entire paper books to find the discrepancy.

[iwasjustwondering]

I don't live paycheck to paycheck, but I know exactly when payday is.  I love to look at my paystub online.  I like to calculate when I will hit the social security number.  Once I hit it, I increase my 401K withholding to make sure I invest the max there every year.  I like to see how much I've saved toward my HSA, how much I have put into the stock purchase program so far at this point in the year, etc..