One Paycheck

Almost three years ago, I quit my job working in publishing (which was like working for a nonprofit organization, only without any benevolent goal). I am now a stay-at-home suburban mom—a dependent listed on my husband’s W-2 form. This does not mean that I am now able to sit on my laurels, eat bonbons, and watch soap operas all day long. I am a wife and mother of two children—so I am also a housekeeper, cook, nurse, teacher, dietician, referee, police detective, warden, social event planner, and triple-threat entertainer.

While I didn’t make a huge amount of money working in publishing, I did feel as if I was making a modest contribution when it came to household economics. My income paid for the groceries, the Con Edison bills, and our full-time nanny. But it paid for little else. So my husband confronted me; either change careers (i.e., leave the publishing world) or quit working altogether. Since working in publishing never really gave me the money to wear expensive clothing (and, therefore, grow up) and I really didn’t want to learn about another business, I quit.

My husband works for a bank and makes a decent living. But his income needs to cover a lot of ground—from our jumbo mortgage payments, to monthly incidentals like birthday gifts or a much-needed new pair of shoes. So it’s my job to make sure one paycheck will pay for everything.

First of all, we have a lot of our monthly bills paid directly from our checking account: telephone, cable for our television and computer, gas, electricity, credit cards, mortgage—many of these are set costs. We average what the yearly cost will be for the ones that fluctuate, then make sure we set aside money from every paycheck to pay for all of them. All banks offer scheduled direct payment services, and most are free. 

Then there are the school and real estate taxes—which are also automatically paid—by people who are more responsible than me: our financial planners. We give them the money for these taxes in one lump sum early in the year and ask them to schedule the payments, which are twice a year. I always forget when the taxes are due, so it’s nice to put the onus on someone else—especially if that person is making money from our money. Our planners invest the money that we give them, rather than letting it sit in a checking account that only makes less than one percent interest. We did have our financial planners set up a separate checking account from which to make our scheduled tax payments, but our other accounts that have higher return rates generate the money that goes into this account.