Your bank balance is a liar. It includes the mortgage that comes out on the 1st, the car payment on the 5th and the money that's meant for groceries. Free to spend is the number underneath all that.
One number, worked out from your plan
At the top of The Plan, you'll see something like:
Free to spend until Fri, Nov 14: $312
That's what the paycheck you're living on right now leaves after two things:
- The bills it covers. Every bill due between this payday and the next one.
- Its share of the spending pockets. Groceries, gas, eating out, whatever pockets you've set aside for day-to-day spending.
What's left is genuinely free until the next paycheck lands. Not "free if nothing else happens." Free after the plan has had its say. If the bills and pockets ask for more than the paycheck brings, the card says Short instead, and by how much. Better to hear that on payday than on the 12th.
It's a planning number, worked out from what you've told Payday Plan. It's only as good as the plan behind it, which is why the rest of the app keeps nudging you to replace estimates with real amounts.
Built on By paycheck
Free to spend comes from the same plan as the By paycheck view on the Month page, so the two always agree.
The rule is simple. A bill belongs to the most recent payday on or before its due day, because that's the money that will be there when it's due. Bills due before the month's first payday are covered by what was already in the account. Paychecks that land on the same day count as one.
So if you're paid on the 1st and the 15th, the mortgage on the 3rd comes out of the 1st's paycheck and the phone bill on the 20th comes out of the 15th's. You can see each group on the Month page: what came in, what its bills take, and what's left.
Paychecks, however they come
Add each paycheck with its amount per deposit and how often it arrives:
- Weekly
- Every two weeks
- Twice a month
- Monthly
I get paid $3,000 every other Friday. My partner gets $1,850 on the 1st and 15th.
Every-other-week pay is counted honestly: 26 deposits a year is about 2.17 a month. Payday Plan doesn't pretend you get exactly two. The two "extra" paychecks a year show up as slack rather than as a hole in the plan.
Autopilot: where each paycheck goes
If your bank splits deposits into pockets automatically (Crew calls this Autopilot), you can mirror those rules on each paycheck. For example, $1,200 of every deposit to the mortgage pocket, $300 to groceries, and the rest to bills.
The Pockets page then shows each paycheck and its split, and what each pocket receives in a month against what it plans to need.
The coverage check
The Pockets page also answers the question that keeps budgets honest: do the paychecks cover the plan?
- Comes in / mo: every paycheck, as a monthly figure.
- Rules send / mo: what your Autopilot rules send to pockets.
- Plan needs / mo: what the pockets plan to need.
- Plan covered, or Rules short by and the amount no rule funds yet.
Underneath, a line tells you how much comes in that no rule sends anywhere, so you know what's still free to assign. To change a paycheck's split, click Edit split on its card (Split it if it hasn't been split yet).
It checks goals too, so you'll know if a savings pocket isn't getting enough each month to reach its goal on time.
Try it: If Free to spend looks too low, open Month → By paycheck. You'll see exactly which bills are leaning on this paycheck, and whether one could move to the next.