Cracking The 2-Week Code

In October, my company will switch to a two-week pay cycle. I've spent a long time getting my online payments set up for one month deposits on the 15th, so this is a huge annoyance! However, I'm working ahead to get my financials in place for the new pay period.

The ultimate goal is to have enough money in my account so I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. I'm at the point where I can start to think about this, but I'm not there yet. In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out how I can get all my payments made on time, with the least amount of hassle.

My solution?


At first I was going to stagger the payments, but then I realized that there's really no need for me to send out payments once a month. I can send out partial payments every other week, instead. I checked and my billpay can be set up on that cycle. Because I have eight reoccurring payments, and I can send out up to 25 checks a month without incurring any other charges, I can afford to send out all my checks 3 times a month. That's not exactly how I plan to handle things. There will be a few deviations, but for many of my payments, that's how it's going to work.

My rent, however, presented a small problem. I can't exactly send out partial rent payments every couple of weeks! Instead, I set up a second free checking account with Wells Fargo, which is attached to my first account. Instead of sending partial rent payments, I'm going to set up an auto transfer so that half the rent goes into the new checking account every-other week. On the 25th of every month, the second account will send $755 to the first account, and on the 26th, the first account will mail a $755 rent check. I'm putting a little buffer money in the second account so it will always have enough on the 25th to transfer back.

Complicated? Well, it takes a little thinking to get it set up and running, but again, I only have to do it once.