How do you cope with 5 week months ?

debbycatz

How do you cope with 5 week months. I get paid on the 28th of each month and I was organising myself quite nicely with money. I shop at Tesco every week and spend my budget of £50 a week for shopping (runs and hides from the 'Old Stylers' ). I pay for this with my credit card, then immediately pay the £200 off when I get paid. However, this month I will end up paying £250 'cos I will be shopping for 5 weeks before I get paid

How do others work it out. I struggle with figures and I'm easily confused so be gentle with me

I have asked this before but couldn't find the thread to resurrect it so started a new one. Sorry

Any replies would be very welcome.

tru

(runs and hides from the 'Old Stylers' )

I found you LOL :rotfl:


You have to think of how much per month, not per week.

£50 per week = £2600 per year.

£2600 / 12 = £216.67

You have £216.67 to spend on shopping each month

rog2

Makes no difference to the self-employed.

livinginhope

I personally LOVE 5 week months after years of being paid monthly,I budget my money over 4 weeks,but now he is paid weekly we get a spare weeks money :j
Sorry that wasn't what you wanted to hear was it ,but just saying it can be good for some.
On the other hand we did struggle on the extra week on monthly pay,but we used to eat of the cupboards and buy just a little extra leading up to the rogue week.

CLAPTON

the basic way that you deal with fluctuating income or spending is by having some savings...so in 4 week months you save a little bit and in 5 week months you spend that little bit of savings....exactly the same way that you save up for xmas expenses or car tax or holidays or quarterly utility bills.

Broken_hearted

makes no difference to us either as we get money each week.

chocaholic110

Think we have best of both worlds. I get paid monthy and OH gets paid weekly, so don't really notice whether it's four weeks or five.

Having said that at in December we get paid the week before Christmas, and while that is nice getting paid early, it is a long time until January 31st!

debbycatz

troo wrote:

I found you LOL :rotfl:


You have to think of how much per month, not per week.

£50 per week = £2600 per year.

£2600 / 12 = £216.67

You have £216.67 to spend on shopping each month

Darn !.......you and your super fast running shoes, which you have probably cleaned with home made stardrops ! I knew I wouldn't be able to get away fast enough :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Seriously tho' . I know your calculations are correct in theory, but as I have only been doing this budget for about 2 months, all I know is that if I try to pay £250 out of a food budget of £200, I will be overdrawn :eek:
I appreciate that I should have worked it all out differently from beginning

newmoneysaver_2

As you seem to know you are spending too much on food so why not use this extra week as a store cupboard challange? if you are overspeanding there must be extra in your freezer etc... use this week to use these things up just buy a few fresh things!

debbycatz

CLAPTON wrote:

the basic way that you deal with fluctuating income or spending is by having some savings...so in 4 week months you save a little bit and in 5 week months you spend that little bit of savings....exactly the same way that you save up for xmas expenses or car tax or holidays or quarterly utility bills.

Thanks Clapton. I appreciate what your saying but when one has only recently 'seen the light' so to speak and started doing a budget, one wouldn't have enough in the pot to cover an expense so early into the new budget if you see what I mean.

I'm sure others newbie money savers must have a similar problem. For example, say you have done a carefully calculated budget taking into account all your bills and you know what you should put away each month, starting from August. September comes around and you have been putting away £30 each month for your gas bill, so you have a total of £60. And then.......you gas bill drops through the door and it's £120 :eek: Then you suddenly have to find the 'extra' to pay it which probably means taking from Peter to pay Paul and your budget is all a mess again :mad:

I know that budgets DO WORK ....but I think they surely need to be in place for a year at least before we can truly say we have enough 'saved' towards all our bills and expenses etc and maybe this is where I have gone wrong. Perhaps I should have done a budget for bills etc for the short term and then started a more long term budget

Do you see what I mean?....or am I talking rubbish and just being very dumb

tru

To save yourself this month, only buy the absolute essentials for the next shop. Live off whatever's in your cupboard/freezer, only buy the fresh stuff - milk, fruit and veg. It's only for a week or two.

Sorry, I can't think of anything else at the mo :undecided