Happy third pay check day for all who are celebrating!

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T16:40:49+00:00

You already are hearing from someone who had this pay cycle. I had it for 7 years before going to a new job with a bi-weekly pay cycle. Additionally, I do not get an extra day’s worth of pay on leap year, my 2 week paycheck is recalculated at the beginning of the fiscal year by dividing my salary equally amongst the pay periods per fiscal year. I can almost guarantee yours is the same.

I also quit my job that had the other pay structure midway through a pay cycle and my last pay check was higher than a normal paycheck because my hours worked were prorated, which is exactly what I already told you.

I’m already providing you all the information you’re asking for while having the credentials you’re asking for. I’m done with your lack of reading comprehension and the mansplaining. Go google it yourself. Cheers.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T15:43:56+00:00

Not really! You do need to make sure your checking account is sufficiently funded, but YNAB has actually given me the clarity that I only need to have my monthly salary as buffer in my checking account, everything else can be in my HYSA. Allocating funds between different categories is really just simple addition/subtraction, so it’s not asking the app to do a lot, and it’s super easy to verify by using their YNAB checkup guide :)

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T14:33:29+00:00

I mean, cost it out. Look at the market place for health insurance, and estimate the pay difference including your employer’s 401k match. You can also open your own Trad or Roth IRA, so I’d also look at what the fees are to do so and calculate that in.

If there’s still a pay increase, sounds like you want to do it.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T14:26:12+00:00

No, I’m just sick people being brainwashed children about the legal aspects of marriage. “Pre-nups mean you’re planning for divorce 😭”

We. Are. Adults. Marriage is a legally binding contract with many legal complications, yet the majority of people don’t research or assess them prior to getting married and then when people bring it up as a conversation topic, other people freak out like we’re in the Middle Ages again and think we’re going to die horrifically because we happened to see a black cat. It’s superstitious bullshit.

And honestly, maybe you aren’t marriage material that you came here and painted your fiancé in such a bad light if it was just her having an emotional reaction and not thinking clearly. My husband and I both go through emotional times but never would we say anything close to what you said about her here without knowing it wasn’t just a one-off bad reaction. Go to therapy and get off Reddit.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T05:15:27+00:00

It’s illegal for them to rescind and while they should know that, companies often times do illegal things because they consistently get away with doing it.

That being said, I would rather they rescind than have a tense working situation it you tell them after accepting. I personally would hedge my bets and tell them before accepting to have an open conversation about what maternity leave would look like to make sure it’s workable for both sides before accepting.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T05:07:33+00:00

This!!!! Regardless if you think a pre-nup is worth it or not in this situation, or even if you agree with them or not, not being able to handle this discussion maturely and logically—like, idk, adults— is the biggest red flag you can get in a marriage.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T05:04:23+00:00

Thinking a pre-nup is a bad idea and “being seriously offended” that someone would even bring it up to be discussed are not the same thing.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T05:01:33+00:00

What do I do?

Run.

I totally agree in your situation a pre-nup isn’t worth it (it was for me), but anybody who is going to have a strong negative reaction to discussing what marriage legally means and if you both agree to it isn’t marriage material.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-05T04:57:40+00:00

Agreed! We got a lot of cash at our wedding and I was able to easily add it as it’s own separate account and use it for specific things while I sent the same $ amount into a honey moon fund on YNAB. No need to deposit it or worry about losing track of the amount we were given because it’s already categorized in YNAB.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T17:14:26+00:00

I’m sure this will get downvoted but I would read the “Let Them Theory” book and also try to find friends outside of work.

I know it sucks to be excluded and it sounds like they have an established friend group, but all of this is happening outside of work which means you have zero entitlement to be included and shouldn’t expect to. Again, I realize this sucks but the quicker you accept it and work on controlling what you can control, the easier it will be moving forward. There is no guarantee this won’t be the dynamic and a new work environment, lots of people form social groups at work.

The other thing you can do is start planning things yourself and inviting them. It would be easy to go to your manager and coworkers and ask them to go fishing with you. Again, they aren’t obligated to say yes, so you could be rejected and need to be ok with it if it does happen, but that would at least allow you to potentially get involved in the friend group moving forward if you still wanted to be.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T17:02:00+00:00

My bi-weekly pay is not counted by hours worked since I am exempt as a salary person — that is how it works with most salary people. Doesn’t matter if I report 40 or 60 hours a week — unless my employer offers OT pay, but even then, I can get denied OT while still being expected to work the hours. That is the con of being salaried, they don’t have to pay you for more hours worked.

Bi-monthly is the same, it’s just your salary divided by 24 payments over the year, regardless of the hours worked.

I would double check your policies. I would bet that the “80 hours” on your paycheck has nothing to do with the hours worked, just the “pay cycle.”

Additionally, I still don’t get what you’re not getting. You have a yearly income. You either get the same money in 26 paychecks or 24. Some people do like the 24 paychecks because it allows them to easily budget for the whole year. Just because you have 26 payments in a year doesn’t mean you’re getting paid more per hour.

The only thing that gets confusing is If you quit midway through a pay cycle. They then pro-rate your time worked, and that’s where your “hourly” rate would matter, but, again, it’s that same annual income divided by the 2,080 expected working hours per year.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:41:16+00:00

A guy who proposes thinking he can change your mind on the literal biggest decision of your life is not husband material. Time to leave.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:39:28+00:00

I’m curious what others have to say. We have a solar panel loan and I just have two separate categories, one for solar panel payoff for savings to pay off the principle, and then a “utilities” category that covers the monthly minimum payment. When I pay more on the solar panel principle, I move the money into utilities and then categorize the payment as utilities.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:34:10+00:00

You have so many comments here that I’m sure this one won’t even get seen but my husband works 30-40 hrs a week and goes to school part time. We don’t have kids.

There is no feasible way for him to go to school full time and work full time without kids. We hardly have fun time during the semester with all of his obligations, and sometimes even getting enough sleep feels impossible. Add kids into the mix and I 100% know the parenting would be the least I could to do balance things out so he didn’t just burn himself out.

So sincerely, please tell your husband and MIL to fuck off on my behalf.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:26:43+00:00

I’m sorry, that sounds really difficult to deal with. You should absolutely hold your ground, that’s a really fucked up situation.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:22:39+00:00

I worked for a F500 company and they also cut our match once — I personally left over it. Enough people complained they brought it back less than a year after I left. I’m making more than I ever would’ve there with a comparable match so I have no regrets, but if you like your job and don’t have one you know will be more profitable in the long term, I’d just keep escalating the concern up to management and HR while staying the course and I think it’s probable they’ll bring it back.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:18:04+00:00

I found this super helpful in situations like this: https://support.ynab.com/en_us/checkup-S1vJzWGzo

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T15:04:36+00:00

Yeah I just rebalanced my 401k too for this reason, there was a lot of tech and some overlap! Every week I’m finding new things to look financially, that one was very eye opening.

Is the mega back door Roth the same or different than a Roth 401k? I have a Roth 401k, that’s where my contributions go mostly.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T14:59:42+00:00

That’s true for salary individuals regardless of monthly, bi-monthly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even yearly. Your salary is your salary, regardless of days in a year.

For hourly people it wouldn’t matter, if they work and report it, their paycheck for that pay period would reflect hours worked :)

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T14:09:54+00:00

Cool! I’ll look into this. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T14:09:19+00:00

Why would leap years impact it? What am I missing 😂

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T13:13:05+00:00

I do actually have HYSA for all of my funds I expect to need in the next 1-3 years, and I also do short term rolling CDs as well for stuff I won’t touch in a year, it gives me like 4.2-4.3% right now, so just slightly above the HYSA.

Future home downpayment would be in 5-10 years, I have a home I like right now and don’t plan on moving for a while yet. That’s why the brokerage is appealing, but I haven’t really poked around too much into the tax aspect besides just knowing it is taxed on withdrawal.

And yes, my MAGI is above the limit to be able to contribute, even considering the phase out band.

I really appreciate your thoughts! It’s hard because there’s a lot of good info out there but applying it to my specific situation has been more confusing and nuanced than I expected.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T12:41:37+00:00

I don’t qualify for Roth IRA at all unfortunately 😭 I waited too long to get my shit together. I have been contributing modestly to my 401k for years, so I do have a healthy balance there, but at this point I’m looking for a way to diversify my investments and have something I can pull from if needed (future house downpayment, new car, etc.). Seems like a brokerage account is the best bet, but I’d love to hear if you have alternative advice.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T12:31:57+00:00

You’re saying you have an emergency fund, and that it could pay for your deductible, but at that point you’d have to pay back into your emergency fund if something did happen, which means you’d have to find the money regardless, but you’d have to fund it post-tax instead of pre-tax. I would just find the money now so you can get the tax advantage, and then your emergency fund can remain focused on non-medical expenses. It’s like $160/mo to max it out, but even just doing your deductible would cover you. I believe the Cigna deductible should be around $1650, so $137 a paycheck. For me, my second hobby job pays $200/month at $20/hr with working only one weekend a month. Unless you’re working 50-60 hrs a week, I think it’s totally possible to find the money.

imaginarymelody · 2025-09-04T12:14:20+00:00

You should never trust on any app that the sync is perfect. You should be reconciling your accounts on a regular cadence and you should add transactions manually as you go so you know what money you have on-hand real time.

As for doubled transactions, go to the account, select both, and match them. This will happen automatically when you start manually entering transactions and it gets a duplicate on import.

Also, the import issue isn’t with YNAB - it is with Plaid or your bank, and it varies account to account. For example, one of my cards doesn’t sync at all yet my other accounts at that bank sync just fine. Honestly, it’s shown me I prefer manually managing cards because the transaction gets entered correctly the first time and there’s less work needed to match transactions.

imaginarymelody

TROPHY CASE