Why count your money from payday to payday, not by calendar month?

Count your money from payday to payday, not by calendar month, because your money arrives on payday and not on the 1st. A budget by calendar month starts and ends on days when nothing happens to your money. I count mine from one salary to the next for that reason, and for one more: the question I am really asking is whether I will make it to the next payday.

Both reasons are mine, and they come from being paid once a month. They are not a survey of how everybody should budget.

What does a calendar month get wrong?

A calendar month gets the starting line wrong: it opens on the 1st, whether or not any money arrived that day. Say your salary lands on the 25th. By the 1st you are already a week into that salary, and the calendar tells you the month has only just begun.

The end is wrong in the same way. The last days of the calendar month are the first days of a new salary, the days when there is the most money. So one calendar month holds the tired end of one salary and the fresh start of the next, and neither one whole.

What does counting from payday to payday answer?

Counting from payday to payday answers one question: will this salary last until the next one? The count starts on the day the money arrives and ends the day before it arrives again, so it is one salary, start to finish.

What is left then means something plain. It is your salary, less everything you have spent since payday. And the days still to go are the days until payday, which is the only deadline the money actually has.

How do you start counting from payday?

To start counting from payday, you need two things: your salary, and the day it arrives. From that day, write down what you spend. What is left is the salary less everything written down since payday.

A bill you have not paid yet is still inside that number. So write the rent down on the day you pay it, and expect the number to drop that day.

Is counting from payday to payday right for everyone?

Counting from payday to payday fits a person with one salary that arrives on about the same day each month, and that is the only case I can speak for. If your money comes in pieces, on different days, this note has no rule for you, and it does not invent one.

HisaabFlow, the money app you text, counts this way. Tell it your salary and the day it arrives, and everything is counted from one payday to the next, not by the calendar month. It is not open yet. See how texting an expense works, or leave your email for early access and try the Guru today, before it opens.