How should I divide my paycheck?
Without guidance on managing income, people often just pay for immediate wants and sweep whatever happens to be left into savings at the end of the month. This leaves them unsure if they are being responsible with large unallocated amounts, or whether it makes sense to roll over unspent category money into the next paycheck to save for bigger purchases.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Sweeping whatever is left at the end of the month into savingsDid this help you?
- 2Budgeting in advance for specific categories instead of lumping everything into wants and needsDid this help you?
- 3Asking online communities for validationDid this help you?
- 4Following personal finance wikis and flowchartsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I come from poverty so I don't have much guidance on retirement and managing income.”source ↗
“Does this seem responsible and what should I do with the remaining 2,500?”source ↗
“I usually held my 2 biweekly checks into my checking, spend on my wants and needs and then sweep whatever is left at the end of the month to savings and investments.”source ↗
“If I had $30 of guilt free money left over, and my new paycheck hit, and I put more guilt free money over, lets say $50, does it make sense to just combine the $30 and $50 which would make it $80 and I could use that for a bigger purchase?”source ↗
Where this came up
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