“If I could collect 15,000 euros at once in January, it would be ideal”

“Do you charge in 14 or 12 payments?” This is the question that is repeated in all offices and work centers in the country. An eternal doubt that divides salaried workers into two camps and that, however, labor lawyer Andrés Millán has decisively stopped. “It is always better to get paid in 12 payments,” he recently stated in a video.

In fact, the expert has gone further: “Because you can’t collect your salary in 15 payments; otherwise, I would do it like this. ‘It is always better to collect it in 14 payments than in 12.’ That’s what a colleague of mine told me yesterday. Does it make any sense? Absolutely nonefrom the point of view of managing your money,” the lawyer said at the beginning of his LinkedIn video.

To begin with, the lawyer clarifies that “Whether you collect in 12 payments or in 14, the annual calculation by law has to be exactly the same. If you win 20,000 euros, they have to pay you those 20,000 euros, either in 12 or 14 payments. Imagine that you earn 24,000 euros a year. Well, if they are in 12 payments, each month you charge 2,000 euros. January, 2,000 euros; February, 2,000 euros… And so on until December.”

On the contrary, “if it were in 14 payments, instead of 2,000 euros you would earn 1,700 in January, 1,700 in February and, when June arrived, you would earn the usual 1,700 euros plus another 1,700, an extra payment. And the same at Christmas. Truly, all you are doing is leaving more money in the company to collect later,” he reflects.

So yes, the expert reveals his opinion on the matter: “If I could collect my entire salary in one payment, if in January they could give me 15,000 euros and I have the minimum financial knowledge and how to manage my capital, it would be ideal.”

The reason? “Because this way I can put it in assets that give me a return,” he explained. “And the worst of all is that Most people in Spain prefer to collect in 14 payments. This shows how little financial knowledge they have,” he added.

For the expert, it is clear that this common practice is a mistake: “no one invests the money, no one knows how to manage it, and then they simply prefer the surprise of a month to collect what seems to be more. “Money is worth more today than in 6 months,” the lawyer made clear.