Author Topic: How many live paycheck to paycheck?  (Read 35394 times)

CommonCents

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How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« on: July 16, 2015, 12:21:50 PM »
I entered my time a bit late last week, and my boss must not have noticed to hound me, when she approved everyone's time.  (Pretty pro forma but still have to do it.)  So I got this series of emails, and I think I surprised them that I don't need a check.  I wonder how many live paycheck to paycheck where this would be a huge problem?

Good morning CommonCents,

I am not sure if you are aware that you are short in pay for your pay advice on 7/17/2015.  We are inquiring if you would like to receive an emergency check and if so would you prefer it be mailed to your home or to pick up the check here at 600 Washington Street.

HR/Accounting person

Hi HR/Accounting person,

No, I hadn’t noticed it yet.  Thank you for letting me know.  I do not require an emergency check.  Can you tell me what the discrepancy amount is, and what happened?

Thanks,
CommonCents


Hello CommonCents,

I spoke with payroll and you are missing 37.5 hours of pay because your time was not approved.  Do you still wish to not receive an emergency check?

Thank you,
MHR/Accounting person

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2015, 12:30:32 PM »
It wouldn't matter to me if my paycheck stopped for a few weeks , even a few months, but I think that is very very rare.  Even among people with high incomes- they generally have bills that get paid; need to make a mortgage payment, a car payment, a student loan payment, etc. Maybe they put some money aside, but not enough that they could skip a check entirely.

Even on this forum there are some people who live artificially paycheck to paycheck because things get auto-deposited into various investments. Not having the paycheck would mean having to scramble to stop all those deposits.  (Though I hope those people have some emergency fund it could pull from.)

« Last Edit: July 16, 2015, 12:32:05 PM by iowajes »

CommonCents

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2015, 12:34:53 PM »
Even on this forum there are some people who live artificially paycheck to paycheck because things get auto-deposited into various investments. Not having the paycheck would mean having to scramble to stop all those deposits.  (Though I hope those people have some emergency fund it could pull from.)

Yes, true.

My biggest concern was if my 401k withholding will need to be adjusted or if it'll still happen later.  I asked the HR person but told her not to stress about finding out immediately, and apparently it made her day (along with me not freaking out). 

EricP

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #3 on: July 16, 2015, 12:50:09 PM »
Depending on the study and what counts as "paycheck to paycheck" the number is between 40% and 70%.

I would imagine some around here would qualify as paycheck to paycheck because they keep small amounts of excess in their checking account and use a HELOC as their E-Fund.  Personally, I keep $5k excess in my checking account just so I don't have anything to worry about if I accidentally pay my mortgage twice or something goofy like that.

golden1

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #4 on: July 16, 2015, 12:55:36 PM »
Not anymore.  When I was a SAHM we had a 2-3 year stretch where we were living paycheck to paycheck and it royally sucked.  Never again. 

At this point I would be just fine for three months.  Any longer and I'd have to liquidate some stuff, but I'd still be okay.

Guesl982374

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #5 on: July 16, 2015, 01:01:04 PM »
Most: It's dated but http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/

I actually had a job once when I started it took 1.5 months to get me set up correctly in payroll. I wasn't too concerned about it at the time but it was funny watching HR scramble to try to figure out the error. I was never worried given the size and reputation of the company.

AZDude

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #6 on: July 16, 2015, 01:07:30 PM »
Long ago I worked someplace where they normally paid you on Friday. They decided to switch payroll processors and told everyone that we would would get paid on the following Tuesday instead for one week, and then go back to normal. People flipped the fuck out. "I won't be able to pay my rent" "My car is going to be repossessed" etc, etc, etc...

Caused enough of an uproar that they had to delay the switchover for a couple weeks so everyone could financially prepare themselves. At the time, I did not really think anything of it, but now I'm like "holy shit, those people are doomed".

I'm a red panda

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #7 on: July 16, 2015, 01:11:44 PM »
AZDude- I'm really surprised the company didn't make the switch by doing a partial paycheck on a Tuesday immediately following a Friday pay-period, rather than making everyone wait a few extra days.

However, I'm shocked about the paycheck to paycheckness of most people because I work in a branch office that only has high paid professionals, and they are just giddy about each payday, and talk about going out to spend because it IS payday or not being able to go out because it is the day before payday.  Just get the money to me eventually, I'm good.

deborah

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2015, 01:18:24 PM »
When I managed people I tried to make sure that no-one was ever "on higher duties" (paid for doing a higher level job) for more than a month. By three months, most people have incorporated the extra pay into their normal lives, and find it very difficult to go back to their normal pay.

EricP

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2015, 01:21:18 PM »
One thing that surprised me was when I was living in a relatively poor area the amount of people who just don't have banks.  I went to a Wal-Mart and the line for their "Financial Services" was out the door.  People paying $3.25 to get their checks cashed.

I just didn't understand it and told my Mom (works at a Credit Union) about it and she said it's likely that the majority of those people are on a blacklist because they have bounced so many checks and owe banks money and can't open an account until they pay back those debts.

TheOldestYoungMan

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2015, 01:29:17 PM »
My company was a day late paying me once, I didn't mind.  I spent the day updating my resume and applying to other jobs.

I don't live paycheck to paycheck per se, but my account does drop to zero before each paycheck.  Every last nickel goes into investments, so when something happens with a delay in cashflow it does cause me some extra work.  I try to pay in advance on everything to minimize the scrambling if there is ever a bank error.  So like, when the bill comes for internet, it shows a zero balance.  Any error would have to remain unfixed for 45 days to cause me a problem.  Can't do everything that way (water company sends a refund check when I overpay.)

I signed up for that though, I don't in any way compare the slight hassle of having to sell a few shares to the monumental headache of legitimately running out of money.

ZiziPB

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2015, 01:36:25 PM »

Even on this forum there are some people who live artificially paycheck to paycheck because things get auto-deposited into various investments. Not having the paycheck would mean having to scramble to stop all those deposits.  (Though I hope those people have some emergency fund it could pull from.)

Yes, that's me since over 50% of my net pay gets auto deposited into my brokerage account and auto invested from there.  So effectively, I do live paycheck to paycheck. I do have an emergency fund that's in a savings account and easily accessible but generally I would be rather upset if I didn't get my regular paycheck on time.

nobodyspecial

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2015, 01:38:43 PM »
Had a job at a startup that was scrapping by to pay about 1/2 regular wages so I was living paycheck-paycheck.
One week the check was late, went into overdraft and got stung with fees.

Then I remembered I had like $50K in savings accounts with the bank and rang them to try and get the fees reversed.
Never occurred to me that I wouldn't be eating Ramen and living in a tiny rental when I had a couple of years salary in the bank.



Candace

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2015, 01:46:04 PM »
I once worked for a company that switched from paying us on the last day of a two-week pay period, to paying us two weeks in arrears the way most companies did back in the 90s. To make up for the resulting gap in pay, the company extended everyone an interest-free loan in the amount of their normal pay. The loan was payable when the employee eventually left the company. So essentially the company was trying to make the change completely transparent.

You should have seen the uproar this news caused. People seemed to think the company was trying to screw them somehow. They were only trying to fix a system that caused problems (how can you pay someone on the last day of a pay period when they haven't reported their hours yet, let alone time for payroll?) to a more normal system. They were trying to do this in a very nice way. People just didn't understand.

dsmexpat

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2015, 01:47:14 PM »
My old job routinely cocked up my wages which messed with my routine of putting money in boxes on Thursday mornings. I'd bring it up, they'd apologize and offer to write me a check, do a direct deposit for a $25 fee which they'd refund me or put it in next week's. They were always very concerned and wanted to do whatever I could to fix it whereas I always told them to just throw it in next week's. I was paid weekly too so they genuinely thought I wouldn't make it two weeks between pay.

EricP

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #15 on: July 16, 2015, 01:51:04 PM »
I once worked for a company that switched from paying us on the last day of a two-week pay period, to paying us two weeks in arrears the way most companies did back in the 90s. To make up for the resulting gap in pay, the company extended everyone an interest-free loan in the amount of their normal pay. The loan was payable when the employee eventually left the company. So essentially the company was trying to make the change completely transparent.

You should have seen the uproar this news caused. People seemed to think the company was trying to screw them somehow. They were only trying to fix a system that caused problems (how can you pay someone on the last day of a pay period when they haven't reported their hours yet, let alone time for payroll?) to a more normal system. They were trying to do this in a very nice way. People just didn't understand.

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

BonBon

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #16 on: July 16, 2015, 02:09:16 PM »
I get paid every 6 months and even then could easily skip a cheque. I might want a heads up though so not quite as much of the prior cheque was invested. Even being paid a couple months late with that cheque wouldn't be an issue, I still wouldn't have to withdraw from investments.

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #17 on: July 16, 2015, 02:17:50 PM »
One thing that surprised me was when I was living in a relatively poor area the amount of people who just don't have banks.  I went to a Wal-Mart and the line for their "Financial Services" was out the door.  People paying $3.25 to get their checks cashed.

I just didn't understand it and told my Mom (works at a Credit Union) about it and she said it's likely that the majority of those people are on a blacklist because they have bounced so many checks and owe banks money and can't open an account until they pay back those debts.

My dad said he had a check bounce once from a client and that it caused a check of his to bounce and that this caused him to get on a blacklist and that he couldn't open an account at another bank, even though he didn't owe anything to anyone. I never know if his stories are quite true, but that's what he said happened.

Zamboni

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #18 on: July 16, 2015, 02:34:04 PM »
I once took a second job where they somehow didn't get me into their payroll system correctly. First month: no check. It didn't really affect my finances in any way since it was just gravy money, but I asked about it. Boss said they would take care of it and I'd get two month pay in the next pay period. Second month: again no check. At this point my other half was getting more than a little perturbed about it, saying that most people would be having an absolute fit at this point and what they were doing was illegal. So I was more insistent that the boss really needed to take care of whatever was holding up my pay.  I did finally get 3 months worth of pay at the end of the third month.

That boss turned out to be a total train wreck in many respects . . . glad I got away from that position!

CommonCents

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2015, 03:05:36 PM »
Long ago I worked someplace where they normally paid you on Friday. They decided to switch payroll processors and told everyone that we would would get paid on the following Tuesday instead for one week, and then go back to normal. People flipped the fuck out. "I won't be able to pay my rent" "My car is going to be repossessed" etc, etc, etc...

Caused enough of an uproar that they had to delay the switchover for a couple weeks so everyone could financially prepare themselves. At the time, I did not really think anything of it, but now I'm like "holy shit, those people are doomed".

I forgot about this.  I worked once for a place that paid you a month in advance.  They switched I think to paying you a month halfway through the month (to queue up our salaries payment time with the support staff) and people were pretty dang upset, even though they were all highly paid.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2015, 09:27:18 AM by CommonCents »

teen persuasion

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2015, 07:28:13 PM »
DH was a teacher for a private agency (not a school district).  When he started there, they paid teachers year round, 1/26 of salary.  If you worked the optional Summer School, you got an additional checks for those weeks at 1/21 of salary.  They decided to change teacher pay (but not other staff) to only be paid during the school year at 1/21 of salary, and nothing during the average 10 weeks of summer vacation, unless you worked Summer School (which only ran the middle 6 weeks).

So when this new scheme went into effect, employees were surprised to not receive a paycheck until late September (after 2 weeks work + 1 week lag).  There was so much complaining, the employer eventually cut them an early paycheck, with the understanding that it was an advance, which would come off the end of the year.  By June, everyone had forgotten the advance, and were once again surprised to have no more paycheck, even earlier than planned.

Once year round checks were discontinued, another anomaly occurred: occasionally the school year would not sync with the 21 biweekly paycheck schedule.  They would have another week or two to work beyond the last payroll period!  School year can be 43 weeks instead of the normal 42, but you only get the 21 paychecks.  However, if the summer vacation fluctuated to 11 weeks, your next year's pay schedule was off by a week (you lost that 1/2 paycheck, in a calendar year, effectively).

nobodyspecial

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2015, 09:06:06 PM »
The school district here runs a scheme where teachers can request that  X% of their salary kept back each month so they continue to get paychecks during the summer - apparently it's very popular, "because you know you have money coming in"

Personally I would prefer a system where they paid me the year's salary in January and let me save it ...

StartingEarly

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2015, 10:11:20 PM »
I had a maintenance supervisor at a previous job that completely forgot about checking on expenses for like 6 months since I was the only one using it. I didn't notice because sometimes it was approved on one check, sometimes on another. One day I got together a few of my stubs and noticed none of my mileage payouts had been sent. It ended up being $800 ish. I think most people that work there would have lost their minds. My coworkers were madder about it than I was.

Cressida

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #23 on: July 16, 2015, 10:36:35 PM »
I once worked for a company that switched from paying us on the last day of a two-week pay period, to paying us two weeks in arrears the way most companies did back in the 90s. To make up for the resulting gap in pay, the company extended everyone an interest-free loan in the amount of their normal pay. The loan was payable when the employee eventually left the company. So essentially the company was trying to make the change completely transparent.

You should have seen the uproar this news caused. People seemed to think the company was trying to screw them somehow. They were only trying to fix a system that caused problems (how can you pay someone on the last day of a pay period when they haven't reported their hours yet, let alone time for payroll?) to a more normal system. They were trying to do this in a very nice way. People just didn't understand.

I worked for a company that did the same thing. A few years later I found myself in charge of doing the accounting for it, and boy was that a royal pain. That was back in ... 2007, I think. I'm sure some poor schmuck in that accounting department is still having to monitor that receivable from the like four employees who took the advance who haven't quit yet.

dragoncar

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2015, 12:25:22 AM »
Might want to redact the address.  Also, why does payroll insist on calling their crap "advice"?

My old job routinely cocked up my wages which messed with my routine of putting money in boxes on Thursday mornings. I'd bring it up, they'd apologize and offer to write me a check, do a direct deposit for a $25 fee which they'd refund me or put it in next week's. They were always very concerned and wanted to do whatever I could to fix it whereas I always told them to just throw it in next week's. I was paid weekly too so they genuinely thought I wouldn't make it two weeks between pay.

They were probably accommodating because there are laws about getting paid on time
« Last Edit: July 17, 2015, 12:58:50 AM by dragoncar »

2Birds1Stone

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #25 on: July 17, 2015, 02:29:24 AM »
I work in sales in a company where the median income is well over six figures. One of my coworkers had a dry quarter last quarter and was freaking out. This is a guy that averages $200k a year and his wife's a teacher making $80k. THEY live paycheck to paycheck. He told me without commission in Q1 he will have to deplete his Savings to get by. On a separate occasion he told me that his Monthly recurring bills are to the tune of $10k+ a month......*facepalm*

I have a years worth of barebones living expenses in cash.

Lyssa

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #26 on: July 17, 2015, 02:41:30 AM »

Even on this forum there are some people who live artificially paycheck to paycheck because things get auto-deposited into various investments. Not having the paycheck would mean having to scramble to stop all those deposits.  (Though I hope those people have some emergency fund it could pull from.)

Yes, that's me since over 50% of my net pay gets auto deposited into my brokerage account and auto invested from there.  So effectively, I do live paycheck to paycheck. I do have an emergency fund that's in a savings account and easily accessible but generally I would be rather upset if I didn't get my regular paycheck on time.

This. And since I hand in my assignments on time I'd like to be paid on time. After all I would not receive understanding nods and 'neverminds' if I told a partner 'you'll get the draft next week'.

KungfuRabbit

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #27 on: July 17, 2015, 05:35:07 AM »
Dude!!!

DON"T TELL THEM THAT!!!!

Next time promotions or raises come around, your boss / HR is going to be like "Mr Moneypants over there is so rich he doesn't even need a check"

I'm a red panda

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #28 on: July 17, 2015, 06:46:34 AM »

Do you guys really still get paid by cheque? I haven't seen a cheque in at least ten years, probably 15, here in Australia. It's all direct deposit, internet transfers, etc here and wave the card to pay in shops.

My first paycheck came by check- because it takes a month to set up direct deposit. But after that, everything is electronic. But I call it my paycheck despite it being electronic. 

I'd imagine an emergency paycheck would be cut as an actual check though.

The_path_less_taken

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #29 on: July 17, 2015, 06:47:19 AM »
Dude!!!

DON"T TELL THEM THAT!!!!

Next time promotions or raises come around, your boss / HR is going to be like "Mr Moneypants over there is so rich he doesn't even need a check"


Yep. Stealth wealth is good.

My general manager is such a control freak that on payday, he sits on the checks until a few moments before 5pm. My bank closes at 4pm.

So while everyone else is flailing into the melee to nab the check and race to the bank...I'm ok. Then they switched my days off and now I'd have to drive into town (50 minutes roundtrip) to get it so I just pick it up on my next work day: the LOOK on their face when they hand it over is priceless.

It's "what the hell is wrong with you that you didn't pick it up two days ago?" combined with "How the fuck can you afford that?"

They get a zen nod and a  :-0
which I think confuses them more.

igm

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #30 on: July 17, 2015, 06:49:32 AM »
We could miss some paychecks and still live well.

We haven't automated paying bills since my DW prefers knowing what is going on. I send money to investments, which varies month to month.

I am in the U.S. and our pay is directly deposited in our bank's checking account. We get a statement in the mail or online. We still call it a paycheck.

shawn77777

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #31 on: July 17, 2015, 06:52:16 AM »
What kungfurabbit  said.

dragoncar

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #32 on: July 17, 2015, 09:56:10 AM »
We could miss some paychecks and still live well.

We haven't automated paying bills since my DW prefers knowing what is going on. I send money to investments, which varies month to month.

I am in the U.S. and our pay is directly deposited in our bank's checking account. We get a statement in the mail or online. We still call it a paycheck.

My plan is to be able to miss all the paychecks and still be able to live well.  Not quite there yet, but ...


EricP

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #33 on: July 17, 2015, 10:03:31 AM »
One thing that surprised me was when I was living in a relatively poor area the amount of people who just don't have banks.  I went to a Wal-Mart and the line for their "Financial Services" was out the door.  People paying $3.25 to get their checks cashed.

I just didn't understand it and told my Mom (works at a Credit Union) about it and she said it's likely that the majority of those people are on a blacklist because they have bounced so many checks and owe banks money and can't open an account until they pay back those debts.

My dad said he had a check bounce once from a client and that it caused a check of his to bounce and that this caused him to get on a blacklist and that he couldn't open an account at another bank, even though he didn't owe anything to anyone. I never know if his stories are quite true, but that's what he said happened.

This is one thing I don't understand about the Dave Ramsey No CC card crowd.  One person I ran into on reddit was claiming that my CC was playing with snakes and eventually I'll get bit, but he uses debit cards and checks that have the potential to bounce and overdraw.  I see it as my CC consolidates it all into one good auto-pay and I only need to check once to see if the money is there. (Which it always is because I am scared of this stuff and keep a $5k buffer)  As for your story, I doubt it was a single bounced check is going to get him blacklisted, seems more just like victim mentality.  Here's the real reason, but I can blame it on this instead so I'll do that.

CommonCents

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #34 on: July 17, 2015, 10:11:17 AM »

Do you guys really still get paid by cheque? I haven't seen a cheque in at least ten years, probably 15, here in Australia. It's all direct deposit, internet transfers, etc here and wave the card to pay in shops.

My first paycheck came by check- because it takes a month to set up direct deposit. But after that, everything is electronic. But I call it my paycheck despite it being electronic. 

I'd imagine an emergency paycheck would be cut as an actual check though.

Yes, this.  It's automated direct deposit, but obviously not if they need to pay me midway between the automated points.

CommonCents

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #35 on: July 17, 2015, 10:13:42 AM »
Dude!!!

DON"T TELL THEM THAT!!!!

Next time promotions or raises come around, your boss / HR is going to be like "Mr Moneypants over there is so rich he doesn't even need a check"

I strongly suspect this is part of my problem I'm having with my current employer. Because of when I started last year, and given the waiting period to be eligible for a 401k, 90% of my salary (the maximum) was going into my 401k from last August until April. Then I took a 3 month unpaid leave. The way they treated me took a drastic nosedive when they realized I didn't need the money in quite the same way as the other employees. And in a small business, unfortunately, it's one of the owners that handles the payroll, so there's no privacy on that front. My husband works for Megacorp and I'm reasonably certain his manager neither knows nor cares what he's putting into his 401k.

Yeah, I work for the state.  Many employees.  No way my boss knows what I said to the HR person on this.
I also feel that business would treat all of their employees better if they realized that employees may be dependent on a paycheck - but not necessarily their paycheck.  Voting with your feet unfortunately takes a while to get noticed by the bigwigs, although eventually it adds up.

Abe

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #36 on: July 17, 2015, 10:16:40 AM »
I didn't get paid my bonus once for three months apparently. They kept sending me emails about how I'd get the payment soon and not to worry. I said "ok". Then they wanted to give me a payment of half the bonus now, then have me write a check back once the payment came through. I thought that was ridiculous waste of time and suggested we all just calm down and wait until the full payment came. 3 months later, problem solved. Total number of emails from HR: 47!

Blonde Lawyer

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #37 on: July 17, 2015, 10:54:05 AM »
Your employer is likely freaking out because if you are a regular employee (not a contractor) they are required to pay you on time regardless of whether you turn in or they approve your hours.  This likely depends on state law but in most states the employer has the duty to track hours.  They can delegate that to the employee but if the employee screws up it doesn't matter, the employer still has to pay.  Usually, they would have to guess what hours you worked and pay you that.  If they dispute wages due they have to pay the amount they don't dispute.  If they are late willfully there is a daily penalty that eventually adds up to you being due double your wages (in my state).

A missed paycheck could be a big deal to me because I have an online savings account and it takes a few days to make a transfer from there.  I also have most of my bills on autopay and everything extra is going on my student loans so I keep a thin cushion.  I do try to keep an extra thousand or so in checking just in case something like this happened.

My employer still doesn't do direct deposit so it's quite annoying if pay day is the day after I leave on vacation.  I can usually get my check in advance but it is dated still for payday and at that point I might be somewhere where I can't access my bank.  Luckily, my bank now allows for mobile deposits but sometimes I'm over there monthly limit.  Overall I can't complain but I do expect my employer to pay me what I'm due on time.

As far as freakouts over missed pay, just look at what happened with the gov't shut down.  Many employees didn't get paid on time and for them it was a big deal.  I was more annoyed on principal.  A private employer wouldn't be allowed to let an employee work knowing they couldn't pay them on time but the gov't could (for essential employees).

StartingEarly

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #38 on: July 17, 2015, 11:06:47 AM »
I wonder what the manager who read my email thought. It said something to the extent of that I had $800 in back mileage and that I would like it taken care of but it wasn't urgent. I think I said it just needed to be done by the end of the year if possible. I think it was June or August ish. Either way it was for sure months before the end of the year.

AZDude

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #39 on: July 17, 2015, 11:13:27 AM »
If I was the boss, I would probably have a higher opinion of one of my employees if I found out that A) they did not need this job but kept coming in anyway B) Is very responsible, at least with money. Seriously, I see no downside other than possibly losing them in a few years to FIRE.

Mr. McGibblets

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #40 on: July 17, 2015, 11:15:06 AM »
I definitely don't live paycheck to paycheck, but I am young enough where I like to check my Mint account to see what my updated net worth is every two weeks after being paid. I also have auto contributions from my checking to my investment accounts, so I really just have 1-2 months worth of funds in there. I have a decent cash position in my brokerage account if I ever need to transfer funds over for emergencies. I like this arrangement because it allows me to stay on top of my positions.

I'm a red panda

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #41 on: July 17, 2015, 11:24:59 AM »
Your employer is likely freaking out because if you are a regular employee (not a contractor) they are required to pay you on time regardless of whether you turn in or they approve your hours. 

Everywhere I've worked pays you regardless of if you turn in a timecard. They "true up" the next period if they find out you had unpaid time that wasn't recorded.

Shor

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #42 on: July 17, 2015, 11:30:04 AM »
If I was the boss, I would probably have a higher opinion of one of my employees if I found out that A) they did not need this job but kept coming in anyway B) Is very responsible, at least with money. Seriously, I see no downside other than possibly losing them in a few years to FIRE.
Except that all management decisions are somehow based on you working there for the next 100 years. As soon as it looks like they might have to replace you ever, they have to catch up to doing that part of their job that lets them easily exchange an old employee for a new one with 10x hassle (which is something they are never never prepared to do despite the fact that most employments don't even go past 10 years)

RE:OP Although according to my own expenses I have about 4 months of buffer room, that doesn't account for the fact that I need to keep a buffer for my roommate's rent and float the difference by a few weeks. This means my actual hard limit is actually 1 month shorter than my paper expenses claim them to be... Still have plenty in the investment account and Roth IRA to pull out in a pinch though.

aspiringnomad

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #43 on: July 17, 2015, 01:11:17 PM »
Depending on the study and what counts as "paycheck to paycheck" the number is between 40% and 70%.

I would imagine some around here would qualify as paycheck to paycheck because they keep small amounts of excess in their checking account and use a HELOC as their E-Fund.  Personally, I keep $5k excess in my checking account just so I don't have anything to worry about if I accidentally pay my mortgage twice or something goofy like that.

Pre-MMM, I kept a large cash buffer in my checking account, but now I keep it very thin (supplemented by a HELOC) so that as much of my money is working for me as is possible. Thanks to MMM, I live paycheck to paycheck :)

EricP

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #44 on: July 17, 2015, 01:21:22 PM »
One thing that surprised me was when I was living in a relatively poor area the amount of people who just don't have banks.  I went to a Wal-Mart and the line for their "Financial Services" was out the door.  People paying $3.25 to get their checks cashed.

I just didn't understand it and told my Mom (works at a Credit Union) about it and she said it's likely that the majority of those people are on a blacklist because they have bounced so many checks and owe banks money and can't open an account until they pay back those debts.

My dad said he had a check bounce once from a client and that it caused a check of his to bounce and that this caused him to get on a blacklist and that he couldn't open an account at another bank, even though he didn't owe anything to anyone. I never know if his stories are quite true, but that's what he said happened.

This is one thing I don't understand about the Dave Ramsey No CC card crowd.  One person I ran into on reddit was claiming that my CC was playing with snakes and eventually I'll get bit, but he uses debit cards and checks that have the potential to bounce and overdraw.  I see it as my CC consolidates it all into one good auto-pay and I only need to check once to see if the money is there. (Which it always is because I am scared of this stuff and keep a $5k buffer)  As for your story, I doubt it was a single bounced check is going to get him blacklisted, seems more just like victim mentality.  Here's the real reason, but I can blame it on this instead so I'll do that.

I always thought of DR like AA. I have a lot of alcoholic relatives, so I'm familiar with it. In AA, you're told you have a disease called alcoholism and the solution is to abstain from alcohol for the rest of your life, because you can't handle it. That doesn't mean other people can't, though. I always though Dave Ramsey's target was people whose financial state was full of self inflicted gunshot wounds, people who probably shouldn't go near a credit card because they lack the ability to use one responsibly.

Dave Ramsey has a paid forum and 5 or 6 years ago I took a 30 day free trial. I got absolutely excoriated because I had decided we should max our Roths rather than pay off my $17k in student loan debt that year. My logic was that we would pay off the loans in a few years, tops, anyway, but I'd never get back those years of Roth contributions. So even if the interest on both cancelled each other out for the first few years, it would make sense to prioritize the IRAs. People absolutely freaked, told me I'd be in debt forever, was living way above my means, etc. I opted not to pay to join the forum. =D

Yeah, I understand that, except they always seem to attack people who have credit as you stated.  Someone in AA is totally aware that others can drink responsibly, but Dave Ramsey-ites think debt is bad for everyone.  Not to turn this into DR bashing, but I always chuckle when Dave tells people to pay off their mortgage before maxing retirement accounts and then says "the math will show you that it's better."  Which, we all know, is false.

I have a 0.5% interest loan and I've always considered calling in to fight with him about paying it off, because I can guarantee he would tell me to, despite also saying I could earn 12% on that money in the market.

Villanelle

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #45 on: July 17, 2015, 01:40:08 PM »
My lunch buddies at my old job looked shocked when I commented, "Oh, I hadn't even realized it was payday," in response to some comment.  I didn't really think before I said it, but it was the truth.  I didn't pay attention to paydays, and I often didn't check for days or even weeks to make sure I got the correct amount because it never mattered short term.

Now that I'm not working, we still don't live paycheck to paycheck.  If we missed a check, I'd need to know probably before the next pay cycle (so about 15 days) in order to shuffle things around a bit, but it wouldn't be big issue until it was several checks, at which point I'd have to tap our HELOC and stop our Roth and TSP contributions.  We are aggressively paying it down, which means keeping a but less on hand than usual, which we are comfortable with because we can always pull money back out if needed.

johnny847

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #46 on: July 17, 2015, 01:44:44 PM »
One thing that surprised me was when I was living in a relatively poor area the amount of people who just don't have banks.  I went to a Wal-Mart and the line for their "Financial Services" was out the door.  People paying $3.25 to get their checks cashed.

I just didn't understand it and told my Mom (works at a Credit Union) about it and she said it's likely that the majority of those people are on a blacklist because they have bounced so many checks and owe banks money and can't open an account until they pay back those debts.

There was a real trainwreck of a PF blogger a couple years ago (does anyone else remember C The Writer/Dealing With Money?) who had the worst time getting a bank account after multiple ones. Apparently the banks have some kind of list for this that's different than your credit rating, and they hesitate to give accounts to people with a history like that.

Yup. There's ChexSystems, which is like your credit report except for bank accounts.

As for how many people actually don't have bank accounts...
Quote
  • 7.7 percent (1 in 13) of households in the United States were unbanked in 2013. This proportion represented nearly 9.6 million households
  • 20.0 percent of U.S. households (24.8 million) were underbanked in 2013, meaning that they had a bank account but also used alternative financial services (AFS) outside of the banking system

There are far more details in the PDF of the study if you're interested.

Interestingly, by that definition of underbanked, I am underbanked, because I use an Amex Serve. But I use it for MS purposes, not to supplement my banking services.

Davids

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #47 on: July 17, 2015, 01:44:51 PM »
I am not paycheck to paycheck but with that said i would still be concerned if my employer was late with pay. If it is more than just an HR system issue then i probably would start sending out my resume and contacting recruiters.

StartingEarly

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #48 on: July 17, 2015, 02:28:22 PM »
People at work wouldn't like when I said I wasn't sure what week payday was. They said if you have so much money give me some of it. Why should I? You make more than I do, how the hell do you have money problems?

BlueHouse

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Re: How many live paycheck to paycheck?
« Reply #49 on: July 17, 2015, 03:29:37 PM »
I keep an extraordinarily large emergency fund in cash, so I don't need my checks immediately, but I make it a point whenever I start up a new contract to hound AP to make sure I get paid on time (or close to it).  there is always a delay when a contract starts up, but I don't want anyone to get the impression that it's okay to make me the one that's going to get caught in a crunch. 
I have on one occasion gone to the client site to pick up a check because they were so late in paying it and I was "at risk" on the contract.  I wanted to embarrass them even though they probably thought I needed the money badly.  Now I recognize that when funding comes in late, it gets out to me first, either because they think I need it or because they don't want to be shamed and embarrassed for not managing their own cash flow well enough.

On a related note, it is quite routine that contracts I receive have a clause about me getting paid "30 days after" the prime contractor gets paid.  I always scratch that out of the contract and explain that I am doing a job for them and whether or not they get paid has no bearing on the fact that this company hired me to do a job and needs to pay me in a timely manner.  One company even had the gall to say I would only get paid upon acceptance of THEIR work product to the end client.  Ha!  My part of that project was roughly 1/32 of the entire project.