Easy Payday Routine for Financial Success

1. Setting up a payday routine

My payday routine is a practice that is absolutely essential to making sure that I keep my spending in check and that all of my bills get paid.

As a single mom, having a payday budget in place is crucial so I don’t run out of money before the end of the month. And using a payday budget planner can help me get there.

2. Month ahead budgeting

The first thing I do when I get up in the morning on a payday is I transfer my money to my month ahead fund.

Now I'm almost a month ahead of all of my bills, which means I paid this month's bills with last month's money.

Once I've transferred my set amount of money to the month ahead fund, which is the same amount for every payday, then I sit down and pay my tithing and any other bills that I might have that are not auto-drafted bills.

3. Shelter, food, and transportation

Before I even get started for my day, I get gas. I don't really need gas right now because I had to go to a neighboring town yesterday and get gas, but I'm going to go ahead and top off my tank.

And usually, that means that I should be able to get to the next payday without filling up my tank or maybe filling up just one more time, depending on what I have going on. All done. 

Budgeting can be a chore in my life and not necessarily something that I look forward to.

So after I get gas, I will treat myself to a cup of coffee or breakfast out while I look over how much money I need to get out of the bank in cash.

I check if any adjustments need to be made for things that may have popped up since I wrote my budget. 

One of the best-kept secrets for great coffee on a budget is to find a local church that has a coffee bar.

Usually, those coffee shops and churches are a ministry of theirs, so the coffee is as good as any Starbucks or local coffee shop that you can find, and it's usually a great price. My church's coffee shop is just $2 for a fancy cup of coffee. 

Next in my payday routine is to run to the bank and grab some cash.

Okay, so now that I have my denominations all settled, and I’ve checked my budget, I'm headed to the nearest ATM that lets me have smaller denominations, and I am grabbing some money out of the bank. 

Now, I could go to the branch, but I don't have a local bank here. My bank is not where I currently live, so I have to go to an ATM, or I've got to open an account.

Now, I am a sucker for avoiding the teller line, if at all possible. So I have found a couple of local banks in the area that have ATMs that distribute their money in ones, fives, and tens. 

Now, I use a bank that refunds all ATM fees. So the $3 fee that they charge for me to use the ATM is no problem for me because I get that money back. But if you don't get refunded your ATM fees, you may have to wait in the teller line. 

When you're thinking of building your own payday routine, think of your essentials like shelter, food, and transportation. Those are the three that are on my list. We've already done shelter and transportation. So now is food. 

I put in my grocery order on payday. If I am on top of things, I have already done my grocery list, and all I have to do is click into my Walmart app and push send on my grocery order and pick up my groceries within a couple of hours.

I found that ordering my groceries keeps my impulse spending way lower. And this, as a busy mom of four, is just one chore that I'm willing to pay somebody else to do. 

4. Using the cash system

Okay, last on my payday routine list is stuffing that cash into envelopes. I am really trying to do better and stop spending out of my bank account.

And the one way that I know I can do that is by getting my cash into the envelopes as soon as I get it in my possession.

I do so much better on a cash budget because I always tend to forget to pay back those purchases that I may have made a little bit early. 

Before the money came out, I was a faithful cash budgeter up until 2021 or 2022. I horribly fell off the wagon after that. I did okay, but my spending was really not where I wanted it to be.

So, this year, I'm adding stuffing my cash envelopes on payday to my payday routine. 

Payday routines

All right, everybody! I hope this gave you some ideas on how to create a payday routine of your own.

Routines are things that help us move forward and create those habits that are going to help us grow in our finances and in adulting, in general.

If you have a payday routine that works for you and your family, I would love to learn from you, so please put it in the comments below because I love to get new ideas.