budget effectively when I'm paid fortnightly

stevieg_83

as the title says, I get paid fortnightly and having problems budgeting effectively.

any ideas on how to work around this?

CLAPTON

many people treat two lots of foutnightly wages as a month and base their spending on that.
Then when the extra amount come in they can either/or treat themselve or save something.

stevieg_83

not really a suitable though because budgeting like that doesn't leave us with any extra - it looks quite bleak.

jakemuk

Well what i use to do,

Was pay all my bills with my end of month wages, Ie rent,

And then me credit cards and finance stuff mid month,

Before that i use to have a savings account and use to put a set ammount into it

I found the first one to work better cus once its paid i cant spend it :eek: , I use to be a !!!!!! with bills but know im on the rite track

Fire_Fox

stevieg_83 wrote: »

not really a suitable though because budgeting like that doesn't leave us with any extra - it looks quite bleak.

At one point I got paid weekly, rent from my OH monthly and student grant three times a year! The problem isn't how often you are paid, but income balancing out with outgoings and/or you failing to keep a track of what has and has not been paid at any given moment.

I now have a spreadsheet on which I keep track of my predicted income on a monthly and yearly basis, my actual income month by month, my predicted and actual monthly outgoings. From the spreadsheet I can easily see what has been paid, what is still to be paid and what I should have left at the end of the month. I based my spreadsheet on the Statement of Affairs calculator (link on Debt-free Wannabe board sticky). :T

getmore4less

stevieg_83 wrote: »

not really a suitable though because budgeting like that doesn't leave us with any extra - it looks quite bleak.

How and when you are paid is cash flow issue.

A budget is income v spends.

Start by preparing a budget for a full year(most peoples spends are covered by a year if you have longer term ones you need to facor those in)

Ballance the budget based on annual take home and annual spends and then work on the cash flow, when the money needs to go out.

The easiest way to do this is to work on 13x4 week periods and treat the 13th as savings using each 4weeks to cover the calender months.

The mistake most people make is to think there are 5 week months they are in reality all 30/31 days so nearlly all the same.( you just streatch 28 days pay to cover an extra 2-3)

There are 5 weekend months and that reflects some people spend patterns so catches out the monthly paid this should not be a problem forthe weekly paid

If you "do" weekends then weekly based pay can work as long as you keep enough back for the monthly/quarter/annual bills thats where the yearly plan pays off you get to plan the cash flow for when you bills are due.

Now is a good time to start a budget since this is the no council tax for 2 month and a short month(Feb) build up that buffer for the non weekly bills.