'Does early pay in December help or hurt?' poll discussion 11 January 2010 at 1:09PM edited 22 January 2010 at 1:27PM in Money Saving Polls 73 replies 11.5K views

Former_MSE_Lawrence

Poll Started 11 January 2009:

Does early pay in December help or hurt?

Many employers pay staff earlier in December so money is in their accounts in time for Christmas. Yet this means the normal monthly salary needs to stretch over a longer period, and with Christmas and January sales it's a particularly high spend time.

Do you think early pay in December helps or hurts?

A. It's a help – money pre Christmas is useful.
B. It hurts – keep it at the normal time to help budgeting.

Please vote here, or click 'post reply' to discuss below. Thanks

Also see the MSE News story: MoneySavers say 'no' to early Christmas pay

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ScarletBea

There's no option for "It doesn't really make a difference" hehe

astrid35

One place I used to work gave you a choice between
1) all your December pay early
2) all your December pay at the usual time
3) half early and half at the usual time
which I thought was brilliant (and very accommodating)

wildthing01

before we had our pay date changed permanently, we used to get our dec pay before christmas (should have been on 27th), but never early enough for it to actually be spent on christmas items, so no point really. given that my a/c goes into overdraft pretty much every month anyway, it doesn't really matter when i get paid!!!

Jennifer_Jane

Doesn't matter as I budget on the calendar month anyway.

angelflower_2

I do like making sure I can get the monthly shop in before xmas and having a bit of flexibility in being able to pay for things I wouldn't normally pay for until the end of the month such as electric, gas etc (things not on DD or SO) especially if shops are closed over this time of year or you are visiting relatives etc. Therefore, I appreciate my December pay a little before xmas.

However, January is then a long long time away. I do work to a budget but still, it throws you out a bit when a months salary (received a bit early) has to stretch to accommodate 6 weeks of the most expensive time of year.

sparrer

ScarletBea wrote: »

There's no option for "It doesn't really make a difference" hehe

Agree with Scarletbea , the options are far too limiting - makes no difference to me as I'm paid every 28days, a day or so early if it's a w/end or BH so I allow for that. Anyway it shouldn't hurt all these MS and OS followers, for obvious reasons!

ScarletBea

Mine was actually on the same day as always, because I get paid on the 21st.

tp306

"Many employers pay staff earlier in December so money is in their accounts in time for Christmas"

Companies pay staff early because they don't want to employ people doing payroll over the Christmas period - it's a cost saving exercise and isn't done out of having the staffs interest at heart.

Eleageor

Currently the result heavily weighted towards "it hurts". It would be interesting to know how people would have responded if asked two weeks before Christmas and how the result compared. I suspect I might have answered differently, am I alone?

torbrex

It doesn't matter, nothing special happens in December anyway.