A newsletter about money, athletes, and the financial life nobody prepares you for.
Before we get into this week's topic.
Last week was about the gap between the number in a contract and the number safely available to spend. This week is about a related problem that shows up even after that gap has been correctly measured: most budgeting advice quietly assumes a steady paycheck arriving on the same date every month. For an athlete, that assumption is often wrong from the start — preseason and offseason months look nothing alike, endorsement money can land as one lump sum instead of twelve equal ones, and a season interrupted by injury or a roster cut can turn a predictable year into an unpredictable one without warning.
A budget built for a steady paycheck doesn't bend to fit that. It breaks.
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Why the average month can be misleading
The instinct, when income varies, is to average it out — add up the last year, divide by twelve, and budget against that number. The average is useful for understanding the year as a whole, but it becomes dangerous when it is treated as income guaranteed to arrive every month. A few very good months can pull the average upward, while saying nothing about when the money will arrive or how many months may produce little or no income.
A more resilient baseline starts with two numbers, not one: the essential amount needed each month and a conservative view of the income likely to be received across the full year. The lowest-income months are then used to stress-test the plan, not automatically to determine the salary. If several months produce no income, the answer is not a salary of zero. It is a sufficiently conservative monthly amount supported by money retained from the stronger months.
Paying yourself a salary out of your own irregular income
Once that baseline salary is set, the mechanism that makes it usable day to day is one this newsletter has already described in pieces: every payment, whatever its size and whenever it arrives, lands first in a single holding account rather than the account actually spent from. From there, a fixed amount — the baseline figure, not the amount that happened to arrive that month — gets paid out on a regular schedule, like a salary, into the account used for everyday spending. In a strong month, the difference between what came in and what got paid out stays behind as a buffer. In a lean month, or a month where nothing arrives at all, that buffer is what pays the salary instead.
This is really the three-account guardrail from a few issues ago, applied specifically to the problem of income that doesn't arrive on a schedule. The holding account plays the same role the incoming-transfer step always played. The buffer plays the role reserves always played. The only thing that changes is that the "salary" figure has to be deliberately conservative, because there's no employer smoothing the paychecks out on your behalf.
There is one condition: the fixed salary only works once the holding account contains enough money to carry it through the known low-income periods. Until that buffer exists, paying the full target amount every month can create the appearance of stability without the reserves needed to support it. That is particularly important for young athletes who have not yet accumulated a full season of income.
What gets paid first when the amount available isn't fixed
Irregular income also means that money received in a good month has to be allocated in a deliberate order rather than treated as free money the moment it clears. First come the obligations attached to that payment — taxes, agent or advisor fees, and any other amount that was never safely spendable in the first place. Next comes the amount needed to fund the baseline salary, including known essential bills. Then the buffer is built or replenished so that future low-income months can receive the same salary. Only after those priorities are covered is there room for additional saving, faster debt repayment, or genuine discretionary spending.
None of this is about denying the good months. It's about making sure a good month pays for the lean ones that are coming, rather than assuming they won't.
One action this week
Look back over the last six to twelve months of actual income, not projected or hoped-for income, and mark when each payment really arrived. Then calculate the essential amount required each month and identify the months in which income fell below it — including any months when nothing arrived at all.
Those three numbers — actual annual income, essential monthly spending, and the length of the low-income gaps — give you the basis for setting a sustainable salary and deciding how much the holding account needs before that salary can run consistently. If the buffer does not exist yet, building it is the first step. The fixed salary comes after, not before.
This isn't financial advice for your specific income, tax situation, or country — for that, an advisor or accountant who can see your actual numbers is the right conversation. But building a budget around what actually arrives and when — rather than what a contract or monthly average suggests should arrive — is worth doing before the next lean month, not during it.
Final Whistle Finance is written by a former professional basketball player and ACCA-qualified finance professional with Big Four audit experience. This newsletter is for educational purposes and does not constitute regulated financial or legal advice.
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Next issue: How much financial runway does an athlete actually need — and why an offseason fund is not the same as an emergency fund.