Ways You Can Take Home More Money From Your Paycheck When You Are In A Bind

Picture this, you’ve worked your behind off for the last two weeks, coming in early, staying late, skipping lunch. You can’t wait to get paid next week, with all the extra hours and overtime you’ve been putting in, your paycheck is going to look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Fast forward to payday. You get up early, it is a beautiful morning. The birds are singing, IT IS PAYDAY BABY! You grab your phone, log in to your bank account, and you almost pass out. Wait! Are you looking at the right paycheck? Something's not right, all that hard work and your paycheck is only $50.00 more than it usually is. What the heck happened?

Sometimes working more does not necessarily mean making more, you bust your butt day in and day out, don’t you think you deserve to keep as much of your paycheck as you possibly can sometimes?

Does this sound all too familiar to you on payday? Here’s how you can insure that when that big paycheck comes in, it stays big.

I’ll say this. There is no magic button that is going to miraculously deposit more money into your bank account, than what you’ve earned from your employer. However, there are ways that you can keep a little bit more of the money that you’ve worked tirelessly for, week after week. Let’s talk about them.

Some of my suggestions need planning and some you can implement right away. The key is, you can always make changes to how much of your take-home pay you take home every payroll, here’s how.

Adjust Your W4 Exemptions

You can always adjust your exemptions at any time. The more exemptions or dependents you claim, the fewer taxes come out of your paycheck. Increase the number of dependents you are claiming so that fewer taxes come out of your paycheck.

A word of caution though. Changing your exemptions should not be a long-term strategy because if at the end of the year you didn’t have enough taxes come out of your paycheck, you might wind up owing the IRS. So, I strongly suggest you only muck around with your exemptions as a temporary solution.

Another tax choice would be to go completely EXEMPT from your Federal and State Taxes. This means that NO Federal or State Taxes will come out of your paycheck. Keep in mind that you cannot claim Exempt on Social Security, Medicare, and local taxes; those taxes are mandatory and must come out of every paycheck.

To make changes to your tax deductions, your payroll department will require that you fill out a new W4 form, just remember what to fill out a new W 4 when you want to change them back to the way they were before.

Decrease Your 401K Contribution

Did you forget about that 401K huh? Most people do. Once the 401K deductions start coming out of your check you become accustomed to the net amount of your paycheck and kind of just get used to not seeing that money. But now you need a little money. So, here’s what I suggest you do. Decrease the amount of money that you have going into your 401K. Don’t worry, you can change it back once things start to look up for you in the financial department. But for now, do a decrease.

Of course, you can borrow money from your 401K if you have a hardship. But that’s not going to help with money problems because that money must be paid back. So that’s not really solving your problem, it’s just creating another.

Next, we’ll look at all those deductions you think you need, but that are really costing you a ton of money.

Cancel Company Perks

At most places of employment, they offer company perks such as fitness memberships, transit benefits for those who commute, or reduced parking for drivers. They also offer employees the choice of paying for these perks from their paycheck. If you have any of these perks, cancel them until you get back up on your feet.

We all get ourselves into a bind sometimes. Often you can get a loan from friends, or family members, and sometimes you can’t; hopefully, these options will enable you to pay off that bill or take care of that emergency when you need to without putting yourself in a bind, or worrying about paying someone back.

Give it a try and let me know how it works out for you.