[ZanderEarth32]

"It goes like this. The people who generally have their financial shit together don't usually realize when it's pay day. Those who live pay-cheque to pay-cheque always know, and will remind you as well! I once received an email from a colleague who signed off with Happy Payday!. It's a very telling test."

I've got my finances setup pretty well and I still know when payday is and enjoy it very much. No, I don't need the money to get through the next two weeks but it's still fun to receive money. I'd almost argue that if you don't know when payday is, and when money is coming in and out of your account, you don't have your financial shit together.

Besides that, this article doesn't really provide any tips or advice that a generic "save more money" article on MSN would offer. Some examples from the authors personal financial "hacks" would have been helpful.

[cperciva]

I'd almost argue that if you don't know when payday is, and when money is coming in and out of your account, you don't have your financial shit together.

My impression is that the usual cause of payday unawareness is when people have enough liquid funds that "getting paid" doesn't have any significant effect. There's an argument to be made that such people probably have too much liquidity and should be more aggressive about investing their wealth, but that's certainly a better position to be in than not having enough liquidity.

[ZanderEarth32]

Well, having too much liquidity is one of the reasons I know when payday is. If you have direct deposit, do you just let your check sit in your checking account (or where ever it is desposited)? I don't have funds automatically moved to various accounts, I do it by hand because sometimes things come up and funds need to be re-appropriated. That is probably why I know when payday is, I have banking to do!

[dagw]

I generally don't know exactly when payday is, but I know it's a bit before the last weekend of the month, and I know most bills have to be paid by on or after the last weekend of the month. So last Sunday of the month is banking day.