We were paid twice a month (OK I'm going to say "we" but it's my husband who gets paid...I just think of it as "we" and so does he), and we thought that was good.
And then he took a job where they paid monthly. It was SCARY to switch over. We were the paycheck to paycheck types, with NO savings whatsoever. The ONLY way we made it at the beginning of that job, without having to ask my generous brother for a bit of help, is because he got a signing bonus AND they were willing to give him the bonus earlier than they normally do. (I've since found out that this is something they do for others, if asked, because they know how hard it is to switch over for some people)
I will tell you, being paid monthly is GREAT!
There's no scrambling at the end of every two weeks, just waiting for the next paycheck. You have all your money right then and there. You *can* set your bills to all come out right at the beginning of the month, and then you don't have to do anything bill-related until the following month. There's no worrying about "did I miss this bill", because it's all just being done at once. (if you choose to set it up that way...we actually don't, because I haven't needed to, but I could if I wanted to)
For someone who was living paycheck to paycheck before, even before we started paying attention to DRamsey and started getting better about things, we found we had a hard time using all of the monthly paycheck. It's like having ALL that money all at once changed our spending habits just by being there. But hubby and I both have a bit of emotional spending that gets worse when we have *less*. So having more actually reigned us in a bit.
If we didn't have the signing bonus, if HR hadn't been willing to front it to us, and if I didn't have my brother in the background, I don't know what we would have done during the switchover, because it was scary even *having* the up-front bonus. But after that first month or two, it's been the absolute BEST.
One of the main reasons to have monthly payroll is to cut costs, however the benefits to the employee are not cut. I am not sure why it matters whether the CEO is going to get more money. In our firm the partners income is directly affected by expenses . . .we will see an increase in income for cost cutting like this. However, there is a delicate balance. We want happy, well paid employees because they are productive and in the long run increase our income.
I really agree with you.
I don't like the idea of a monthly paycheck forcing strict budgeting. Not everyone is comfy and set with savings in the bank - folks who live paycheck to paycheck certainly have less of a cushion for unexpected emergencies that pop up between monthly payroll deposits.
It's really only hard in the beginning. And then it's fabulous.
Now, if you think you would truly spend ALL of the money in the first two or three weeks, then it's different, but I will tell you, it wasn't like that for us, and we were pretty bad about it. Even when we were both working, we'd spend it all to zero; not on needed things, but "hey we have this money left, let's go away for the weekend". We didn't even have credit cards then, we just, for some reason, felt the compulsive need to get the account to zero, LOL. And when we went to monthly paychecks, it was like it was too much to spend like that, and we stopped to a big extent.
