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I will feel rich, I will feel happy, and I will feel obligated to spend some money. Or will I? I actually get a paycheck every 2 weeks, and other than feeling richer on paper, there really isn’t much different on this day.

First thing in the morning, I visited Wells Fargo’s website to make sure the direct deposit went through. Then, I logged into my credit card website to see how much I owe in the next payment. Once I subtracted the difference, I deposited most of my paycheck into the online savings account to be allocated to my investments.

What I do is quick, boring but effective because I’m able to save so much money this way. By moving my income after set expenses into my savings/investments, I won’t feel like I have a ton of money to slurge. I know this is all psychological but it works.

In a way, this is the manual and enhanced version of “automatic savings” and “pay yourself first”. I do this process manually because I am not able to make this automatic, as I don’t really know the exact amount since my income fluctuates. Also, my alternate incomes are always irregular and setting scheduled transfers wouldn’t work in my situation. It is an enhanced version because I am not only moving a set amount each month but a vast majority of the excess income into savings first. Since I do not really consider my saving and investment accounts as a source of money I can currently use, I end up increasing those accounts rather quickly as I VERY rarely withdraw from those accounts.

This is my way of being frugal on my pay day. How do you spend yours?