For all the good it does, GDU’s six months of furlough days have finally come to an end. They effectively docked us a day of pay for each pay period; so we’re finally going to see that amount back in our paychecks.
Cleverly, they timed this so that two of the paychecks this month, the so-called “extra” paycheck month, are shorted a day’s pay. So we’re shorted on the pretend “extra” paycheck.
For me, this de facto pay cut has amounted to $130 per payday—that is, $260 a month. Because I soon adjusted to the cut-back budget, it really hasn’t made much difference for me. So, now that we have this money “back”—temporarily, in my case, since in five months I’ll have no paycheck at all—I’m going to transfer that $260 of “found money” (well…”refound” money) directly to savings. That’ll be useful: it’ll put another $1,300 into my retirement “cushion.” More than that: we get two paychecks in August, and the newly plumped up check that landed in my account yesterday is dated July 31: $1,430.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always put $200 a month in savings. When I paid off the Renovation Loan, I had the credit union add the amount of the loan payments to the monthly automatic transfer into savings. All told, the current automatic transfer is $404 a month. Add another $260, and we end up with $664/month of routine cash flow going straight to savings. Hm. That’ll be $3,320 by December 31.
Money happens, eh?