Pay period

The four common schedules are weekly, 52 paychecks a year; biweekly, every 14 days, 26 a year; semi-monthly, on two set dates such as the 15th and the last day, 24 a year; and monthly, 12 a year. Semi-monthly and monthly follow the calendar, so each month holds the same number of paychecks. Weekly and biweekly follow a count of days, and the count drifts through the calendar.

Two biweekly paychecks span 28 days, and the shortest month is 28 days. A month holds three paychecks when the first lands early enough for a third to fit 28 days later: on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd of a 31-day month, the 1st or 2nd of a 30-day month, or the 1st of a 29-day one. Which two months those are depends on the pay date and the year, so they move from year to year.

The third paycheck is not additional pay. The 26 biweekly paychecks add up to the same annual pay however they fall across the months; the third paycheck is that pay landing unevenly across the calendar.

A household is paid $1,800 every other Friday. A month with two paydays brings in $3,600, and a month with three brings in $5,400. On a schedule of 26 paychecks a year, ten months hold two and two hold three.

Against the ten two-paycheck months, each of the two three-paycheck months brings in $1,800 more, or $3,600 across the year.

Paycheck, every 14 days

$1,800

A two-paycheck month

$3,600

A three-paycheck month

$5,400

Above a two-paycheck month

$1,800

Three-paycheck months a year

× 2

Above two-paycheck pay, across the year

$3,600

A monthly budget is set against the calendar month, and the bills that fill it mostly land once a month. Pay on a semi-monthly or monthly schedule arrives in the same rhythm. Pay on a biweekly schedule arrives in a rhythm of 14 days, so the month's income is $3,600 in ten months and $5,400 in two, while the bills stay the same.

Which months hold three paydays is set by the calendar, so it can be read ahead of time from the pay date, before the month arrives.

Taiga Finance's Recurring page lists paychecks as commitments alongside bills and subscriptions, in bands by cadence: “Weekly”, “Biweekly”, “Semi-monthly”, “Monthly”, then the longer intervals and “Irregular” last. A paycheck row shows the merchant, its “Income” category, the next expected date and the estimated amount with a leading +. The band's header counts its rows and states their monthly figure, so a Biweekly band of one $1,800 paycheck reads as $3,900 a month, the amount times 26 over 12, while the deposits in any one month come to $3,600 or $5,400.

The Plan is monthly. It steps a month at a time, and each income line carries one expected amount for the month; the Plan's take-home is the sum of those amounts across the paycheck lines. An income line's meter reads the deposits that landed against that expected amount. There is no pay-period view of the Plan.