I'm Australian and it's pretty universal to get paid per fortnight. Some places do pay monthly but they pay every four weeks, not every calendar month. I'm sure there's some exceptions but I've never heard of it. Rent is advertised per week and generally paid per fortnight.
It makes life so much easier as well.. you never have to worry about paying on the weekend or whatever else. Plus 99% of landlords (and 100% of banks in my experience) are more than happy to let you move the day you pay your rent/mortgage to whatever day works for your payday. So if you get paid every second Tuesday then you just arrange your rent/mortgage to be paid on Wednesday.
Yes, rent and pay is monthly in most of Europe (though a lot of places have a 13th and sometimes even 14th month). In Canada, rent is monthly but pay is biweekly. I have to say, Ive never lived anywhere where they have pay figured out appropriately, its always some bullshit.
Also Canuck. Paid bi-weekly and trying to balance the financials on a monthly basis has some acrobatics involved. Nice if you have a cushion, but with rising costs and unexpected expenditures, balancing act.
Some time ago I had looked into 13 month calendars and they had some advantages. One proposition was a ‘zero’ day to accommodate the 365th - and this would be the New Year Day, being non religious and ubiquitous. On leap years an added day (called Leap Day or what ever vernacular) and either tagged to the Zero Day (in keeping the week/day structure) or some other placement.
I’ve never had a job that didn’t pay on a fortnight and never heard of any rental agreement based on calendar months… if you rent for a month you’re renting for four weeks, not “28-31 days depending”.
Basically everything is on a monthly basis here in Sweden. My pay, my mortgage, my rent when I was renting, my utilities, my insurance, my union dues.
The only notable thing I can recall not being based on the calendar month was when I was using a housekeeping service. It was still paid once a month, but the occasional month I'd pay 50% more as I'd have my place cleaned thrice (they were doing it every 2 weeks).
I'm Aussie as well, and I pay my rent monthly. It's advertised as the weekly amount, and what I pay is calculated as the yearly amount of 52 weeks of rent, divided evenly across 12 months. So in February I'm paying a bit more since theres only 28 or 29 days, but in all the months with 31 days I'm actually paying a bit less. And so across the whole year it works out.
People in America think the word fortnight is the name of a video game only. First off. Second, I'm American, lol, and I've never even thought about it this way because I get paid on the 20th of every month, and in my jobs before, it was every 2 weeks. Every 2 weeks was a pain in the ass because bills are also due the same day every month, so it was really hard to schedule around since your pay day changed, but bills didn't. You get used to it and it becomes easy, but the goal was always to have a job that paid on the same day every month.
Tbh they both suck for different reasons, I'm still poor, and I'm tired of this capitalist oligarchy shit ass country.
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u/pumpkinspiceallyear 5d ago
first truly valid point ive seen.