How do you define "living paycheck to paycheck"?

[DISdreamin']

I have one thing to add, if you charge everything then pay it off in full the next month, but never add anything to savings then I think you are P2P too.

Really worse, you are 30 days behind on some of your bills in a way.

We do this, but I don't consider us paycheck to paycheck. Of course, we do have flex-spending taken out that gets put into a Roth at years-end, and retirement savings are added to our 403b each paycheck - oh, and we put money into a vacation and holiday fund, but since these come out automatically and never show in our checking, it looks as though we spend most of what we make. So we essentially DO live p2p in a way, I suppose, but not in a way that *I* think of as being p2p.

To me, p2p means (as others have said) not having a cushion at the end of a pay period. IOW, if that paycheck doesn't show for some reason, there isn't any money for anything!

 

[mominwestlake]

We live paycheck to paycheck. I get paid weekly and my DH gets paid biweekly. We have $0 in savings. My checking account balance is $1.90 today because my mortgage payment came out. I get paid on Tuesday, so we have no money til then.

We do have credit cards that we can fall back on. I need to do grocery shopping and buy pet food this weekend so I will charge that. But I already have that factored into my budget for next week and will pay that off next Friday when DH gets his next check.

It didn't used to be this way, but DH lost his job 3 years ago and it took him awhile to find work so we depleted our savings then and have never been able to build it back up. I lost my job in June and have been doing a temp position since September. It is about 1/2 my formal salary right now (but a hair more than unemployment would be. We have cut back a lot of things but barely break even most months. WE have had a few unexpected things that we have had to charge. Plus, being a temp, December was horrible. I didn't get paid for any of the holidays and that really hurt us.

So yes, we currently live paycheck to paycheck Fingers crossed that a permanent job comes up soon...I send out at least 4-5 resumes a week!

This is us too and it stinks. I think it's worse because I know it wasn't always this way. DH is self-employed. The economy hit his business very hard. We went through our built up savings pretty quickly when he wasn't drawing a paycheck. I am having a tough time finding a teaching job so I've started babysitting the kids of some teachers I know. The hardest part is that since dh is self-employed he takes a check when he can. I never know when that will be. He hasn't taken one since December 31st and I am waiting. I hate to ask him because I know it stresses him out. I hope I will find a teaching job for next school year so that I will have a set pay.

 

[LovableGluttons]

DH and I met with a financial planner in 1990. He explained to us that "living paycheck to paycheck" meant the delay or absence of one paycheck would cause financial difficulty as the earner is depending on that income for basic needs, like food or shelter.

That was eye opening to us! We were DINKs at the time and just freely spent whatever wasn't earmarked for bills or savings.

This year marks 20 years since that eye opening event.

I won't say we haven't made some financial mistakes over the years, but that phrase stuck with me.

In the military community, there was a phrase tossed around "rubber check day". It was the day before military members were to receive their pay. They would go to the base grocery store to food shop and write a check, knowing the funds would not be deposited until the following day.

I remember the neighbor coming over to our house one evening to borrow money from DH because there was an error in his pay deposit and they had written too many checks the day before and were going to have overdrafts.