Changing from Monthly Pay to 4 Weekly. Please Help!

thebear100

Hi
Any help would be much appreciated.
My work have switched from paying me 12 fixed monthly payments to a 4 week payment, which means I will receive 13 payments in a year. My finances are so delicately balanced at the moment I am really worried. Does anyone have any experience with this and could offer any advice. I am particularly worried about my DD for mortgage etc and getting charged if there is not any money to cover the payment.
As I said any help would be gratefully received.
Kind regards
Bear.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

It's great because if like most people you pay things on a set day every month you have one pay month a year free.When we switched over we just explained the situation to our creditors and then had the direct debit date adjusted.In the case of your mortgage they will probably want the extra days that interest has accrued during the change over paid seperate,at least thats what they did with us but after the initial payment everything went smoothly.You'll need to sort it out with your bank too about the changes in date.

Debt_Free_Chick

It shouldn't really make any difference, but you should convert anything in your budget which is not a fixed payment, to a four-weekly amount too e.g. food. It might help to convert your entire budget to four-weekly so you can see how much needs to be allocated to each expense, when you get paid.

If your budget is correct and you're spending less than you earn, then the change shouldn't make any difference, but the timing of payment of some bills might cause a problem in the short term. The main thing though is to to stick to your budget.

Remember that you'll be paid more frequently, but a lower amount.

daveboy

Another lesson is not getting yourself on the brink of going under, if a subtle change like this causes you a problem.

For that part I hope house prices continue to fall too :rotfl:

getmore4less

With a 4 week cycle you slowly get paid earlier in the month but a 8% smaller(100*12/13=92.3),

So all the monthly bills just get paid as normal and the other spends get adjusted for the shorter period most month are 4weeks +2/3 days so you buy less food use less fuel. Easiest to put these onto a 1/4week cycle and plan accordingly. The problem is allthough you can adjust down you normal spends the monthly ones can't so you need to watch cash flow carefully.

AS long as you have a ballanced budget for the year then it will become a cash flow problem and you will need to adjust when the spends happen if you have no buffer funds.

A good thing to try is try to budget a month on 4 weeks pay this will give at the end of the year a full pay cycle buffer for the following years. if that is not so easy then try all monthy bills on 12 payments that will give 1 set of bills left over from the 13th pay, budget the rest on a 4 week cycle.

thebear100

Thanks this is all very helpful I will get onto my bank and rework my budget.
Cheers bear

loracan1

I went from being paid weekly to 4-weekly early last year - my employers gave the option of an interest-free loan equal to a 4-week wage, payable over 3 or 4 years to cover the adjustments which helped. Meant I could have a float for mortgage payments, which otherwise would've been tough to make. My direct debits were scattered over the month anyway due to weekly pay and that's made it easier to adjust to 4-weekly.

I really thought it'd be difficult but keeping an eye on my budget, over time has meant I've been able to appreciate the 'extra' payment.

lambey

We've gone from being paid monthly to 4 weekly and I'm really struggling to keep tabs on our budget. There never seems to be a point in the month where I can say, yep we've got this spare we can save it/spend it! It's driving me bonkers!! :mad:
I've considered using some 'buffer' funds in a seperate account which could be paid into our account on a monthly basis and then transferring that back when salary comes in, but that all just seems too complicated to work properly.
????? Help please?