Pocket Runway Guides
Everything we have written about budgeting from one paycheck to the next: how to work out what is safe to spend, which check should carry which bill, and how the arithmetic changes when your income does not arrive on a monthly schedule.
All of it is free to read, no account required. Start wherever your question is.
Start here
- How much can I spend before payday? — The formula behind a safe-to-spend number, why your checking balance is not it, and a worked pay period from balance to daily allowance.
- Daily spending allowance calculator — Enter your balance, payday, and committed money; get today's number. Runs in your browser, nothing sent anywhere.
Bills, rent, and timing
- Which paycheck should cover rent? — Assign rent to the last check before the due date, and what to do on the schedules where that check cannot carry it alone.
- Budgeting when payday falls after rent — The two-day gap that repeats every month: how to close it permanently, and how to handle the shortfall in the meantime.
- What to do with a three-paycheck month — Twice a year a biweekly schedule pays you three times in one month. How to find yours and decide before it lands.
Budgeting on your pay schedule
- Biweekly and semi-monthly pay — Twenty-six paychecks do not divide into twelve months, and the two schedules people treat as the same thing are not.
- Hourly and shift work pay — Overtime one week, a cut shift the next, and a budget that follows the check you actually got.
- Irregular income — Why averaging your income does not fix a variable-income budget, and what to do instead.
- Gig, 1099, and freelance income — No steady check and nobody withholding your taxes. Reserving for both as you get paid.
- Commission-based income — Planning against confirmed payouts when a check can be triple last month's or a third of it.
Choosing a tool
- Best budgeting app for biweekly pay — What biweekly pay demands from software, and a ten-minute checklist for evaluating any app against it.
- Pocket Runway vs. YNAB — Zero-based category budgeting against one daily number, and which question each one answers.
- Pocket Runway vs. Ritual Runway — Two paycheck-first apps compared on verifiable ground: plans, pricing, platforms, and features.
- Pocket Runway vs. spreadsheet budgeting — Where a DIY spreadsheet holds up, and where it goes stale.
About the app
- About Pocket Runway — Why it exists and what pay-period budgeting is.
- Support and FAQ — Plans, the daily allowance, Runway Reset, importing transactions, privacy, and account help.
These guides are general educational information about cash-flow budgeting, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Dollar figures in them are illustrative examples.
Rather have the app do the arithmetic? Start free with Pocket Runway → It plans one pay period at a time, reserving only what is due before your next check.