Budgeting/spreedsheet question

Rebob

Hi there! :wave:

Could someone help me with something???? I am putting together a proper budget. Problem is that some of my income and bills are made on a four week cycle while the others are on a calendar month. How do you do the amounts??? :think:

The thing is that they do not go out/come in on a set day of the month.

Thanks in advance!!! :beer:

Pink.

Hi Rebob,

You may get more replies to your thread on the Budgeting and current accounts board, so I hope that you don't mind if I move your thread over there.

Pink


Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [email="andrea@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/email].

Rebob

No problem. Thanks

Just not sure sometimes where to post. I thought if in the wrong place some guide would give me a nudge in the right direction!

Pink.

Have you had a look at Martin's budget planner on the main site? I found it really helpful.

Pink

Rafter

To do it in detail you would need a proper budgeting tool like money or quicken, but the budget planner should get you part way there.

Used to work for a company that paid me every 4 weeks and that did make it difficult to budget some months or know where you are - so know how you feel!

R.

Rebob

Pink-winged wrote:

Have you had a look at Martin's budget planner on the main site? I found it really helpful.

Pink

Tried before and it would not work for me. My pc is a little antiquated and refuses to do anything except online posting and using the lotus smartsuit I already have in. (even this is a problem sometimes). Each time I try to down load something it sends the lot wappy.

Thanks though for the suggestion

tomstickland

How does being payed every 4 weeks work? Do you receive 13 payments per year?

Excel can do virtually anything with a bit of work, so I'm sure I could think of a way of doing it if I understood the problem fully.

Otherwise, scale the payments up to a month.
ie: if you're paid £x every 4 weeks, you recieve 13/12ths of this per month on average.

Fondue_2

To work out what a 4-weekly payment is monthly, you need to divide it by 4, to get a weekly amount, then multiply by 52, to get an annual amount, then divide by 12 to get a calendar monthly figure.

If you make all of your payments monthly, then you should have some left over at the end of the month to go towards the next 4-weekly payment, or work out how much of your 4-weekly payment you have left. This is probably the best option if most of your income is monthly.

Alternatively, if you get paid 4-weekly, you are probably better converting monthly payments to 4-weekly. To do this, you essentially reverse the above. So take the monthly amount, multiply by 12 to get the annual amount, divide by 52 to get the weekly amount, then multiply by 4 for the 4-weekly sum.

So if you had a monthly direct debit for £100, you would pay £92.31 out of your 4-week pay.

That should work, but you need to make sure that you have some kind of buffer if payments aren't coming out on consistent dates.

HTH

Rebob

Fondue - This is something like what I was thinking of 13 / 12ths.

Just wondered if I was on the right track so wanted to ask the experts.

Fondue_2

LOL - you're right, 13/12 works out the same! I'm afraid my mind works in longhand! Anyway you're on the right track and thanks for the thanks.

Xbigman

Its best to look at your budget yearly. If you are paid four weekly and some bills are monthly (like me) you need to put on the spreadsheet 13 subtotals for your planned expenditure for the year with the full payment every month except for the one month of the year when you pay nothing.

Next put into those thirteen subsections any yearly expences. House ins, car costs, birthdays, xmas. You should know roughly how much all that costs and when it is. Now keep a running total in each subsection.

You now have your planned expenditure for the whole year. You will notice there is a high point and a low point. As long as the low point is above zero you are ok.
If you have an account paying decent interest you will be in credit 12/13's of the year and earn interest. If not open an online saver and transfer the spare cash in and out as needed each month.

Copy this basic sheet for use as a template next year. Now as you go through the year type in the actual amounts spent. Your budget for car ins was 300 but you got it for 288.50, so change that 300 to the actual payment and your balance will increase by the saving.

This is what I do. It took a while to get everything how I want it but I can look back over the last five years and see exactly what I have spent.
Regards



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