Ep. 20 Paycheck Gone Too Fast? How to Finally Keep More Money

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Are you tired of running out of money just days after payday? In this episode of the Net Wealth Nest Podcast, Jim breaks down why living paycheck to paycheck isn’t always about overspending — it’s often about when and how you pay your bills.

Learn practical money management strategies to smooth out cash flow, avoid overdraft fees, and stop relying on credit cards just to make it to the next payday. Jim shares simple steps like:
 • Mapping out your bills by paycheck dates
 • Adjusting due dates to balance expenses
 • Using bank alerts to stay on top of cash flow
 • Building a paycheck cushion to avoid financial stress

Whether you’re juggling biweekly paychecks, struggling with irregular expenses, or just want to stop feeling broke, this episode will give you actionable tips to take control of your money.

👉 If you’ve ever asked: “Why does my paycheck disappear so fast?” or “How do I balance bills when living paycheck to paycheck?” — this is your guide.

Subscribe to the Net Wealth Nest Podcast for more financial education, budgeting tips, and strategies to build long-term wealth.

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Transcript

Jim 0:31

Welcome to the Net Wealth Nest podcast. I am your host, Jim Labbe. Thanks for joining us for another episode as we help you build financial stability and grow your net wealth. ever wonder why your paycheck seems to disappear just days after it hits your account? It's not always overspending. Sometimes it's about when and how you're paying your bills and how to execute that. A great example is many people get paid on Friday and then by Monday morning, half their paycheck is gone, leaving stress until that next payday. We're gonna talk today about how to look at the, those paycheck to paycheck differences, how to view your bills, and how to make sure that you are not getting caught in the cycle where you feel like your paycheck is gone, moments after it hits your account. So let's start off with why timing matters. So bills don't always line up neatly with your paycheck dates, especially if you get paid biweekly. Um, but even if you get paid monthly or you get paid on the first, not every bill is due on the same. Day for all of your bills. So think about it like common bills that are due on the first are gonna be things like your mortgage or your rent. But other things, when we talk about utilities, when we talk about, um, your internet bill, insurance bills, any of those things that come up, they're not going to all fit nicely on the first of the month or last day of the month. They're gonna be sprinkled in between. And some of that depends on what that company is doing when they are executing their billing period. But also some of it depends on when you started that they give like your cell phone bill. When you started your service with that, it started billing that. So if you started on the 11th of a month. Guess what? On the 11th of every month it's going to hit, and that doesn't always, again, line up with your paycheck. Whether you get paid monthly or especially if you get paid biweekly, that's going to shift where that money and cash flow is coming in and coming out. That can create cash flow gaps, even if your income technically covers all your expenses. And so most people struggle with trying to figure out the best way or a consistent way to pay their bills. so some common pitfalls that happen in these types of situations is some people will pay all their big bills or, the majority of their bills at the beginning of the month when maybe their pay is spread out over the course of the month and they end up either overdrafting or even running out of, money where they can't afford the basic things like gas and groceries, until their next pay period. And that can put somebody in and. a bad situation or a situation where you start using credit cards to just get to the next pay period. some people will rely on autopay without checking their balances and understanding how it's broken out across when they're receiving their paychecks. I've seen this lead to individuals that, have a bunch of overdraft fees because they're not balancing out when they're paying even by auto paying it when they're paying their bills compared to when their income is coming in. many people forget about irregular expenses, so things like, car insurance is a great one, or a lot of subscriptions are like this, where you'll pay for six months or a year's worth of X service and then every year it renews and they just forget about it. Uh, especially with smartphones nowadays, it's really easy where it automatically renews under your Google Play or your Apple account and is charged immediately to your account. just like the monthly charges that people forget about, it's even easier to forget about a charge that only happens, twice a year or every year. and then the last thing that's a common pitfall is just the. When the paycheck hits is I've got money I can spend it now. and not accounting for and doing your kind of your bills first, and then making sure that you're not overspending that where your bills aren't gonna come out or you're not gonna be able to cover your bills until the next pay period. so strategically what you should do is map out and try to balance your bills over the course of the month, especially if you're getting paid biweekly, which is really, really common because again, that, that date will fluctuate, um, and, uh, change month to month on when those paychecks are coming in. And so trying to split up larger bills. Maybe you have your rent or your mortgage due on the first, which is common. And then you have a car payment that's several hundred dollars. if you can set up where you're. Mortgage and rent are getting paid on the first. Great, but is there a capability to move your car payment towards the end of the month or middle of the month so that when you get that second paycheck, you're not trying to pay all those big bills at one time. are you automating savings? So if you are going to save a hundred dollars a month, sometimes I see people where they'll take that out on the first check of each month versus maybe it's worth splitting that up where every paycheck you're gonna take $50 out. Again, leaving you some extra cushion between those paychecks so that you're not running out of that cash to do just the basic necessities of life. And again, we talk a lot about like things like groceries and, um. Uh, those needs that come up day to day. What I've seen be really successful is breaking out your bills and when they're due. So what I've done in the past to help me with this is I've taken like a calendar and I've literally mapped out on the calendar when every payment is due through the course of the month. And then I look at like, when I typically get paid. and so if I get paid biweekly while it's not perfect, I'm not always getting paid on the first of the month or the fourth month. Sometimes it's the sixth or the seventh, I'm looking at okay, like where does that check land and what grouping of bills can I have on kind of the first. Half of the month, and then what grouping of bills can I have in the second half of the month? And I try to map those out. Some places, depending on who you're owing and what you're paying, like what expenses you have some places will allow you to adjust where you want that bill to be due. Not always like. Typically your mortgage and all that is not movable, but other bills sometimes like your cell phone bills, sometimes like your credit card bills, you can adjust or get that adjusted so that it is made at a certain time of the month, and that will help you spread those out. But really once you map those out and by week you can kind of add 'em up and be like, okay. These two weeks when I get paid, I have X amount of bills. So I need to pay all these and these other bills kind of fall in the back half of the month. So I'm gonna make sure with my second check that comes through, I'm gonna pay these bills. And that way you don't feel that pressure where you're trying to pay all your bills, maybe at the front of the month and you're running outta money. Or even worse, putting money on credit cards just to manage to get yourself to the next paycheck. Other practical tools and tips that you can use. So using bank alerts, almost all banks will have the capability where you can go online, you can alert as payments come out. Or you can even say, once my cash reaches X amount, I need you to alert me that it's below, let's just say $300. Maybe you want a $300 cushion in your checking account. So you're gonna say Anytime my balance dips below $300, I want you to send me a text alert letting me know that, anytime I get a bill taken out, I want you to send me a text alert. And again, part of the alerts is not necessarily to change what you are doing 'cause maybe what you're doing is the, the right approach, but it is keeping you aware of what is happening. So you're not like getting through half a month the mean. I'm pretty sure I have my auto draft set up for these two credit cards. Let me go and make sure you're getting that hit every single time. So you know, yep, my credit card was drafted out today. Here's the payment. We're good to go. I'm moving forward to the next thing. The other thing you can do, kind of like your emergency savings account, and once you have that build up is building up a little bit of a buffer in your actual, Checking account or where all your expenses are coming out of. And so some, what some people try to do is they try to build up one paycheck's worth of a buffer in there. So let's say you get paid every two weeks. And you get a $1,500 check, they're looking at trying to build up. Again, I would recommend this after you build your emergency savings, But once you do that, like can you build up a little bit of, of runway or space in your checking account where even if you kind of like underestimate or overestimate what bills are coming out that. That given week or that given pay period, you've got enough to cover yourself for a little bit longer just in case. Now the key is when you have that money in there is How do you make that your new zero balance, right? So let's just say it's $1,500 and you. Do your emergency fund and now you're building that $1,500 one paycheck cushion. How do you make sure that that is your new zero? Meaning you don't dip under $1,500 unless you accidentally make a mistake. You're not saying, oh, I've got $1,500. I can go out to eat this week, or I can go do this, or I can, you know, spend that. It's not a big deal. I've got this cushion in there. That cushion is basically four mistakes. If you make a mistake, you don't get an overdraft fee, you don't get any of those things. So really what we're talking about here today and kind of to to recap and put a bow on all of this is running outta money isn't always about what you're spending. It can be sometimes when you are spending it. And so my challenge to you is if you're feeling like all of a sudden you have these really weird ups and downs and some weeks you're, you're feel flushed with cash 'cause you didn't have a lot of bills and some weeks you feel like you're can't even scrape by and you're charging things. Groceries and those types of things that are technically built in your budget and you can't figure out. Why? map out your bills, figure out why that is happening and look at it. If you can smooth it out, can you move bills around? Can you call the credit card company and be like, Hey, it's due on the eighth. Can I have it moved to the 20th? Um, that will help me pay it better on time. Those types of things. See if you can move them around so that you smooth that out, you're able to. Have the appropriate cash flow and pay your bills on time and not stretch yourself so thin that you're having to put your basics on credit cards or that you're getting overdraft fees. Thanks for joining today. Appreciate it. If this was helpful, please make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. follow us on your podcast player of choice, leave us reviews, leave us comments. We use the comments to help build future, contents to bring to you. So we just appreciate you joining us today and again, share this with others. If this was helpful to you, our goal is really to just help you build financial stability and long-term build your net wealth. My name's Jim. have a great day.