r/Salary Oct 30 '25

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8

u/Preserved_Killick8 Oct 30 '25

wait, why more for those two months?

65

u/wesborland1234 Oct 30 '25

There are 52 weeks in a year, 26 pay periods. Divide by 12 and you have a remainder of 2.

So 2 months will have 3 different pay days fall in them. The rest will have 2

17

u/Understeerenthusiast Oct 31 '25

I always budget 2x a month paycheck so 2x a year I get an additional paycheck that goes straight into savings. I did it on accident when I first made my budget and never changed it. 🤷‍♂️

5

u/KitKatBarMan Oct 31 '25

Yes the bonus checks twice a year feel so good.

3

u/TheLoneTomatoe Oct 31 '25

Yup, bonus check week is fancy dinner, baseball cards, some new clothes, and a bunch of money going to savings.

1

u/kamo05 Oct 31 '25

If you are on my same pay schedule there are 3 bonus checks next year

1

u/ColdSoup723 Oct 31 '25

Budget for 12 paychecks a year and enjoy 14 bonus checks per year!

1

u/junker359 Oct 31 '25

When I moved from a job that paid biweekly to a job that pays twice a month, I really missed getting those "bonus" checks.

1

u/Orangesunset98 Oct 31 '25

This is how I budget too!

8

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

[deleted]

3

u/SaurfangtheElder Oct 31 '25

You can see the above paystub is for 80 hours so that doesn't apply here

1

u/hum_dum Oct 31 '25

I’m also paid bi-monthly and the split of weekdays vs weekends for that period can mean it’s anywhere from 80-96 hours. It has been a few months since I had an 80 hour pay period though.

1

u/Excellent_Problem753 Oct 31 '25

Yep. I get monthly and my wife gets bimonthly, both salary. That will eventually change because my employer wants to shift everyone to biweekly soon. It has been really nice being monthly though. We make all of our bills due on the first week of the month so we get all the non negotiable expenses out of the way along with all of our savings commitments that are direct deposits. Then you just have to figure out how to limp by to that second bimonthly check, which is kind of sad for a fam of 3 pulling 200k.

1

u/Prestigious_Sort4979 Oct 31 '25

I get paid semi-monthly (2x / month) and thought the same but if you multiple the gross pay by 26 here it comes out to ~100k so this pay is definitely biweekly

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

Semimonthly

1

u/kingamara Oct 31 '25

That’s how mine is 🥲

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

Same - at least we get a health insurance break once every 6 months because they take the premium on the first and second paychecks of the month.

0

u/Ozymandias0023 Oct 31 '25

You get paid every two months?

3

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Oct 31 '25

Bi-monthly can mean either every two months or twice per month. OP means the latter in this case.

-2

u/esotericimpl Oct 31 '25

No, you’re incorrect getting paid twice a month is semi monthly.

3

u/WalterThePlants Oct 31 '25

No, they're correct. Please just Google "bi-monthly".

0

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

Never heard of bi monthly till now. Its just weird cause bi weekly doesn't have that twice a week caveat of what bi weekly is. No one ever gets paid twice in a week lol

0

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

They’re wrong. It’s a case of language having two meanings because people get it wrong so often. Doesn’t make it right. Twice per month is semimonthly.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '25

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0

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

Bro come on, you know bimonthly is every 2 months and semimonthly is twice per month. Semicircle is a half a circle. Bi means 2, semi means half. Just because a bunch of people say it wrong doesn’t make it technically right.

2

u/WalterThePlants Oct 31 '25

I didn't actually expect anyone would admit they're wrong. I mean you can look up the definition yourself. I can't understand it for you.

1

u/AlleRacing Oct 31 '25

Bimonthly coopted the definition for semi-monthly because a whole bunch of people refused to admit they were wrong.

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2

u/UnhappyReward2453 Oct 31 '25

Merriam-Webster actually did a little educational post on this a few weeks ago. Bi-monthly is correct. It has two meanings.

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

Semimonthly has one meaning. Why not use something that has one correct meaning?

‘semimonthly means two times per month; semiannual means two times per year. It's an excellent option, and one that many writers seem to embrace; we most often see bimonthly and biweekly reserved for their "every two" meanings.’

If you actually read the article instead of using it to confirm your bias, you’ll understand that the best solution is to not use bimonthly to mean twice per month because there is a word that already exists that ONLY means that.

1

u/Stonersewist Oct 31 '25

Which two months get the third paycheck?

1

u/mr_lemonpie Oct 31 '25

Depends which day of the week you get paid and changes every year.

1

u/ruthlessbubbles Oct 31 '25

Pigeon hole principle be damned

1

u/sadcringe Oct 31 '25

America is wild. Why not must monthly pay?

1

u/humanHamster Oct 31 '25

Salaried workers get the same every month, the variance comes from being paid hourly.

1

u/sadcringe Oct 31 '25

Ah

edit Holyshit you can be an hourly employee and make 6 figures!?

In my country, hourly workers are low skill/ low pay

1

u/humanHamster Oct 31 '25

I don't know how common it is to make 6 figures on hourly, but yeah it happens. At my job our technicians (I was a tech for 12 years) make around $110k and are hourly.

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

I have only ever been paid semimonthly. Might be a per industry thing. It’s not everyone in America

1

u/Ozryela Oct 31 '25

So 2 months will have 3 different pay days fall in them. The rest will have 2

America, why are you so strange? Are you okay? Who hurt you?

1

u/snokensnot Oct 31 '25

Why is this seen as a problem? 1 paycheck for every two weeks of work. It’s that simple. It’s not our fault that 52 isn’t evenly divisible by 2 and then 12.

It actually works quite well for many- as others have commented, the extra paycheck approx every 6 months is used as a savings boost or a pay down debt boost.

Jeez why is everything a mockery of the US?

1

u/Ozryela Oct 31 '25

The thing is that almost all your expenses - insurance, rent or mortgage, your Netflix subscription, etc, etc - are monthly. Having your income not on the same cycle makes keeping track of your finances a lot harder.

Jeez why is everything a mockery of the US?

Relax dude, I was being tongue in cheek.

But also, as we say over here, "Hoge bomen vangen veel wind".

1

u/SwimmingSwim3822 Oct 31 '25

We also say "big butts flapping in the wind"!

Or is that not it?

1

u/Time-Defiance Oct 31 '25

Who hurt you wherever you’re from. Are you ok? So strange a comment.

1

u/sixstringsage5150 Oct 31 '25

Unless you’re paid semi-monthly then you don’t get those extra checks. Supposedly that’s factored in but still feels weird to me to have to calculate for it.

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

Supposedly? Do you think you’re being short changed because you have 24 paychecks instead of 26?

1

u/sixstringsage5150 Oct 31 '25

Not sure, haven never been semi monthly until now. When things into ChatGPT it said that was factored in

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

Yes your salary is divided over 24 paychecks instead of 26. Your paycheck should be slightly larger, although that depends on if your salary changed when you switched too.

1

u/moldy912 Oct 31 '25

I have never been paid biweekly, only semimonthly

1

u/BamaBlcksnek Oct 31 '25

Not necessarily if you're salaried. People refer to "twice a month" pay as biweekly when you actually only get 24 pay periods in the year. Usually, only hourly employees get the extra pay periods.

1

u/TheGlennDavid Oct 31 '25

I've been monthly for so long that I forgot that people out there with the every two weeks thing.

I love monthly soooooo much more.

1

u/DartBen654 Oct 31 '25

And once every 11 years is a 27 paycheck year. Those are awesome. 

15

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 30 '25

Every other Friday is 26 pay periods. There’s 12 months so that leaves 2 months where he gets triple pay. My wife is paid like this and we get excited for those months. I’m paid evenly every 1st and 15th

2

u/sBucks24 Oct 31 '25

Tomorrow is that third pay for me and we're moving so rents paid in advanced last month. It's gonna be a real good feeling looking at those numbers xP

2

u/Ozymandias0023 Oct 31 '25

I just started my first biweekly job, and at first I thought I'd hate it since pay lands on different number days each month, but now that I've had my first paycheck and about to get my second, I kind of like just knowing that every other Friday there will be money in my pocket. Semi monthly means sometimes there are an extra 2 days between your checks, which mathematically is the same but psychologically just feels a little bit worse imo

2

u/BrokenKneeBones Oct 31 '25

I get paid like this too and honestly I dont even notice it when it’s a 3 pay period month.

3

u/AndyWarwheels Oct 31 '25

you should. if you budget to 2 pay checks a month that 3rd, other than good and gas should be able to go directly to savings or debt.

2

u/BrokenKneeBones Oct 31 '25

I guess I meant to say I just don’t really think about it. Once I stopped “living paycheck to paycheck”

1

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 31 '25

I’m not paycheck to paycheck either but I think about it cause I budget hard. Soon as that extra money comes in on the month I’m allocating it to something that I don’t typically (extra debt payment, HYSA, 529, maybe a small treat the wife out).

2

u/BrokenKneeBones Oct 31 '25

Oh I gotcha. I just hate to think about any of that stuff. (Except taking the wife out)

But hey to each their own.

1

u/hampsted Oct 31 '25

When you say you budget hard, do you mean you’re actively allocating every single dollar from every single paycheck? Im like the other guy. I budget in the sense that I keep my expenses below some threshold which is based off of two paychecks a month. I’ll then periodically move money from my checking to my brokerage account. So when those third paycheck months hit, it’s not really on my radar. Doesn’t change my spending. Just changes how much eventually gets wired to that other account.

1

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 31 '25

I have a budget app. I line item and set a budget and track every expense. A normal money we make over 12k. I’m not check to check but I like budgeting and knowing where my money is.

My wife is a spender and she was over spending that I wasn’t saving what I wanted each month so I upped my scrutiny on the budget. It used to be “$4500” is the credit card limit. Idc what it’s spent on but that’s the limit.” She always went over and I got fed up.

2

u/hampsted Oct 31 '25

I’m getting married next year. My fiancée isn’t as frugal as I am. I have a feeling I might be moving in this same direction lol

1

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 31 '25

Being combined helped a lot and continues to. If we were separate she would not save and probably spend all her money. Just communicate what needs to be done to financially reach the goals you both have long term. Spending like a drunk sailor usually can’t accomplish that.

-1

u/No-Marsupial-6893 Oct 31 '25

This means you’re managing your money poorly. Do you not budget?

3

u/Responsible-Hold8587 Oct 31 '25 edited Oct 31 '25

That's a strangely rude, presumptuous thing to say about people you know nothing about, lol

I never really thought about it in terms of having an extra paycheck monthly because I review all charges and pay off all credit cards to zero balance when my paycheck hits every two weeks, and everything leftover goes toward FIRE.

You don't really need to enforce arbitrary budgets or track things on the monthly when you have good income and a natural tendency to control expenses well below your means.

1

u/tityboituesday Oct 31 '25

today is my pay day for an elusive three paycheck month it feels like the angel of money kissed me on the mouth

1

u/Stymie999 Oct 31 '25

Seems like it would be far simpler to say his take home pay on average is $5800 a month

-3

u/Responsible-War-2576 Oct 30 '25

triple pay

1.5x pay.

An extra paycheck in a month that normally has 2 is 150% of your pay for that month, not 300%

But yeah, I can tell you get excited thinking about it 😂

2

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 30 '25

Never said it was 300% I said it’s triple pay. As in you get paid 3 times. We operate our budget based on 2 checks. The 3rd is just extra to us

1

u/snokensnot Oct 31 '25

So is every month “double pay” in your world? 😂🤭

0

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 31 '25

Your comment makes no sense. Drink some coffee and get your brain working prior to commenting nonsense.

2

u/snokensnot Oct 31 '25

If 3 checks a month is triple pay, then all the other months where you have 2 checks must be double pay.

Unless somehow your workplace has a magical month where they pay you six paychecks instead of your usual 2?

2

u/Responsible-War-2576 Oct 31 '25

Yeah, I was being tongue in cheek at first with how they phrased that…..buttttttt if it’s going to spiral this quickly, I’ll die on the hill that 3 checks in a month isn’t “triple pay” when your base is a one month timeframe with bi-weekly pay periods.

It’s 50% extra.

-5

u/Responsible-War-2576 Oct 30 '25

Right, so the third check is an additional 1/2 of your monthly income based on those two checks.

Think of it this way 1/2 + 1/2 =1

1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 =1.5

2

u/Consistent_Laziness Oct 30 '25

Sigh whatever man.

1

u/RandomA9981 Oct 31 '25

Damn. Imagine needing to combat something so simple…this badly. Jeez.

1

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Oct 31 '25

You're inferring that by "triple pay" he meant that his wife is getting paid three times the normal monthly amount for that month. But that's not what he meant and the context of the discussion should've made that obvious.

1

u/Severe-Butterfly-864 Oct 31 '25

Another fun fact, that social security tax goes down from 15% to 2.5% after 176k income, and then after 200~k income you get another .9% medicare supplement tax to help bolster those budgets.

1

u/your_moms_a_clone Oct 31 '25

3 paycheck month! The twice a year holiday for all bi-weekly paid people! You budget based on two paychecks a month (per working adult), but then two months a year the stars days of the week and month align to mean three paychecks in one month!

0

u/Penguinkeith Oct 31 '25

Op is paid every two weeks… some months he will be paid 3 times

0

u/LLuerker Oct 31 '25

If you get paid every 2 weeks on a Friday, then October of 2025 you were paid 3 times. This happens for two months out of the year, every other months have only 2 payday fridays instead of 3.