I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No B.S. Just a 6-Week Program That Works.

by Ramit Sethi

If you’re paid twice a month: Replicate the above system on the first and the fifteenth—with half the money each time. The key is to make sure you pay your bills on time, which is why it’s important to move your bills’ due dates to the first of the month. Now—to oversimplify it for explanation’s sake—you’ll pay your bills with your first paycheck of the month, and you’ll fund your savings and investing accounts with your second paycheck of the month. I’ve also got two other options for you to use this system if you’re paid twice a month: ■ Another way to work your system is to do half the payments with one paycheck (retirement, fixed costs) and half the payments with the second paycheck (savings, guilt-free spending), but that can get clunky. ■ Save a “buffer” of money, which you can use to simulate getting paid once a month. You’re essentially using a pool of money to pay your bills and contribute to your savings and checking account, then getting “paid back” by your paycheck each month. For example, if your take-home pay is $4,000/month (or $2,000 bimonthly), you could keep $6,000 in your checking account and follow my automation system as outlined in this chapter. Why $6,000? Because each month, your automation system will begin transferring money for bills and savings and checking, and you want to build in a little extra in case something goes wrong (such as your paycheck arriving late). If you can afford to do this, this is a great way to simplify your system and simu...