A few notes of interest regarding the 1 August 2011 military payday. First, there is no reason to believe that the 1 August pay will be affected by the federal debt ceiling situation. Leave and Earnings Statements (LES) are up and things should be good to go. I'm guessing that they will figure out a solution to the current impasse before the 15 August payday, so hopefully military families will remain in the clear. I'm not going on any shopping sprees, though...
Then there is the issue of the Monday payday. I got a lot of negative feedback about my 15 July 2011 Pay Predictions post. Comments and emails told me that this was just dumb, and a waste of time, and didn't I have anything better to write about? I considered not doing a similar post this payday, and then the questions started rolling in. When I really think about it, I know that it makes no sense to let a few nay-sayers keep me from a post that has the potential to help readers. I'm here to help in any way I can, and if explaining the pay deposit policies helps people, then I should write about it. If you don't want to hear my explanations, you might want to stop reading right here.
So, here's how it goes: Military active duty pay day is 1 August 2011. That falls on a Monday. If you don't have a good reason to expect your pay early, you should expect it on Monday. Some military banks, including USAA, release direct deposited active duty military pay one business day early as a courtesy to their customers. For this pay period, one business day earlier will be Friday, 29 July. This doesn't necessarily mean that the money will be there at 12:01 a.m., or even when you wake up in the morning. It means sometime on that day.
If you have an Active Duty checking account with Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU), it is a little harder to know when your pay will actually post. As a benefit to their customers, NFCU offers early direct deposit of active duty pay to members who have an Active Duty checking account. However, the definition of early is unclear. It was originally advertised as being the same day that the funds were released to NFCU, but that seems to have changed. The more usual pattern, for the last eight paydays, is that the money is posted two business days prior to pay day, to be available the next day. (The next day is usually the day before payday, except for when two business days before payday falls on a Friday, in which case the money is available on Saturday. Confused yet?)
If you do not have any reason to believe that your pay would be posted early, you should see it sometime on Monday, 1 August 2011.
Hope that helps someone!
