Christmas Pay

A question about : Christmas Pay

Is it just me that doesnt find the early Christmas pay helpful? Mine is going to be about a week earlier! Thinking of moving it into savings til normal pay day as it seems a heck of a long haul to Jan pay day otherwise and I dont want to spend it to early!

Jodles

Best answers:

• I get the idea of being paid early, but agree that January is a long month when this happens. Good idea to move into savings and then back to current account on usual pay day
• I do the wages at our company and pay the wages before Christmas, some people need/want it before and some don't but then the people who need it before can use it and the people who don't will save it. I do agree though January is a long month when you get paid early. I save mine until my usual payday but I'm lucky to be able to do that unfortunately many others aren't.
• At work we can apply for a 25% christmas advance, but the rest of the pay is the last working day of the month as normal.
  Best of both worlds.
• Oh Newshadow that really does sound like the best of both worlds! I just cant help but think the early payment might help folk with christmas but then 5 weeks til the next pay surely messes the funds anyway...Definately going to pretend I dont get paid a week early as I will spend it if its there and my budget is for 4ish weeks! Do love Christmas though!
• I don't like early pay days in december - I think doing it encourages people not to budget for the holidays through the year and can lead to people experiencing financial difficulties in the new year.
  I'll be paid early but I won't use any of that pay packet until the new year.
• Payday is 25th, or previous working day is payday so it it will be normal. In my last job I was the payroll manager, it was the same situation but we opened an office in the north of the country who were paid weekly, they were horrified when I told them that payday would be maintained as normal coming up to & over the Christmas period. Cue emails & phone calls on return in new year thanking me, it was much better idea! It was even better when we managed to convert them to monthly pay!
• I'm not a fan either, but in a lot of places it not for budgeting reasons, it for holiday reasons.
  If your normal paydate is the 28th or the last working day of the month, and the company takes holidays between Christmas and the New Year, then there is no-one in to process the payroll.
• I get paid after Christmas and we get paid by cheque so it takes forever to clear!
• Our payday is 25th of every month anyway but we get Christmas pay around a week early. We transfer it straight into a websaver account and pretend it isn't there until we transfer it back on Christmas day (or boxing day if we forget).
• It's useful to be paid early if, like this year, there is a four-day block of non-working days - if you are timing your end-of-month bill payments, you could get caught out if you left it too late for payments to go through on time. Nice to get it sorted out earlier after getting paid & then relax during the celebrations.
• My husband gets paid on the last working day of each month and it doesn't change in December. I find him getting paid on New Years Eve a difficult one, as there is a more expensive grocery shop the week before to include the turkey, any last minute items not thought of and any socialising between Christmas and New Year, mainly being asked by people who have been paid early.
  January, however is far easier for us, though everyone else is skint and doing nothing much!
  It was far worse in the days when kids were small and I didn't work at all. Now I work ad-hoc and am thankfully in full-time next week to help as I get paid weekly in arrears. if I was permanent full-time I'd get paid 2 weeks early in December and 1 week early in Jan.
• I don't like it either! Makes January feel so long.
• Can people not just pretend it's not there and treat it like any other month?
  Perhaps it because I budget well each month for everything, nothing changes and our spare money doesn't either, so I know exactly what I have to spend.
  I get paid in December the last day if the month, but my husband gets paid a week or so earlier, makes no difference, wouldn't think I had extra money!!??
• We get paid a week early but it's more for the convenience of the payroll staff not needing to be around to run it right on top of Xmas.
  As a favour to the staff we are also doing a week early in Jan (we normally get paid on last Friday of the month).
  Because Feb is such a short month it means it avoids the 6 week wait between pay days.
  Personally, I just hold onto it until my 'normal' payday, but at least it's in my account a few extra days for my Santander interest.
• Just found out we're getting paid on the 29th. That works well for me because I am skint (thankfully some cashback came in so have withdrawn from Quidco) but it's only two days earlier than normal so shouldn't hit me hard in January.
  Unfortunately I'm just not that good at budgeting.