weekly or monthly bills?

loobyloo1980

We have a combination of weekly and monthly income, so tend to pay majority of things weekly on standing order. However, there are also others that go monthly direct debit. Some weeks we are struggling and others we have a surplus, depending on whether there are DD's that fall on top of our set weekly outgoings.

Do you think we should pay everything monthly (there are some things that can't be paid weekly on DD) and just spread the DD dates around so they don;t all fall in one week? OUr biggest outgoing is rent, which is a monthly payment. For the week before and the week after we always struggle. But, with a lot of other things coming out weekly, we can't afford on a weekly basis to put away almost £100 for the rent!! I get a £300 payment of child maintenance towards the end of each month but this seems to get swallowed up by the rent and I fear we are not putting the money we have coming in to best organised use. Does this make sense?

flea72

personally i find it easier to have all direct debits coming out my bank on the same day, as that way, i know that everything is paid, and whatever is left in the account after that date, is money that is available for general spending

im not sure what you mean about putting away £100 a week for the rent, if you want to work payments on a monthly basis, then you have to work savings around a monthly basis too - so its not putting away £100 a week for rent, its making sure over the course of the month, you have put away the £400 needed to pay the months rent - so of you have the £300 maintenance coming in at the end of the month, you could use that to pay the rent, and then work your saving around the £100 extra you need over the other weeks - does that make sense?

if some weeks you have a surplus, why dont you keep that surplus to use in the short weeks? - i cant really understand why, if you know you have extra cash one week, and then dont have enough the next week, why you dont think to carry money over - its like you are spending by your weekly income, rather than you monthly outgoings?

perhaps doing a income/outgoings planner might help

fazer6

Is the main problem for you struggling during some months because you've gone over your budget? Do the budget thing that martin has on this site and set yourself a limit to how much you are allowed to spend on each thing. If you keep to this you shouldn't have to struggle during any week because each amount has been budgeted for. Take out your monthly shopping money in cash and keep it in a purse, once it's gone it's gone so no chance of over spending.

Open separate bank acounts for bills and direct debits and when your money comes in each month transfer the money to your direct debit account. That way you can't touch it for anything else. Have accounts for house, car, food...

The key is an accurate budget and then stick to it by splitting your money.

ceegee

I get paid 4 weekly and my bills are all monthly or quarterly. I total up all my bills for the year and divide by 52 to get the weekly amount. I put 4 times the weekly amount aside every payday to cover bills and find that this works fine for me.

loobyloo1980

What I mean by a surplus, is some weeks there are more outgoings than others because of DD's. Depending on what week the CSA money and Child Benefit comes depends on the weekly income. But our outgoings are spread so widely that the dates and stuff fall differently each month and depending on where in the week they fall depends on which pay week we have to budget them for.

For example CTC Wednesdays & pay Thursdays. If stuff falls on mon or tues - has to come from previous week's pay, which can make things tight if in the previous week there were come monthly DD's as well.

It's hard to explain what I mean really, but it makes sense to me!!! I do budget but in practice it doesn't always work. Some weeks we need extra bits from shopping that we don't need other weeks etc. I just wondered whether we would be better paying everything monthly thats all.

The thing with the CSA money - we currently do use it towards the rent payment. However, we have never tried putting away £100 through the rest of the month towards it.

Debt_Free_Chick

I total up all my bills for the year and divide by 52 to get the weekly amount.

This is the way to do it - there is no other way as 52 isn't divisible by 12

good advice ceegee

loobyloo1980

fazer6 wrote:

Is the main problem for you struggling during some months because you've gone over your budget? Do the budget thing that martin has on this site and set yourself a limit to how much you are allowed to spend on each thing. If you keep to this you shouldn't have to struggle during any week because each amount has been budgeted for. Take out your monthly shopping money in cash and keep it in a purse, once it's gone it's gone so no chance of over spending.

Open separate bank acounts for bills and direct debits and when your money comes in each month transfer the money to your direct debit account. That way you can't touch it for anything else. Have accounts for house, car, food...

The key is an accurate budget and then stick to it by splitting your money.

No, the problem is not month to month but week to week, for the reasons I tried to explain on previous post. It's just because of the combination of monthly and weekly income and monthly and weekly outgoings. It gets bit jumbled. I do budget week to week as this is how we get paid.

We tried to open another bank account and were turned down. We wanted to do the bill account and spending account thing, but unsuccessfully!!!

Do you think we would benefit by doing a monthly budget and paying everything monthly rather than weekly?

Debt_Free_Chick

Loobyloo

Take your weekly pay, multiply it by 52 and divide it by 12. This is on average how much you have, monthly.

Then take all your monthly bills, multiply by 12 and divide by 52. This is how much of your pay you need to put aside each week to put towards that months bills. Now do your budget monthly and see how it looks.

If your food budget is £100 a month, that's £23.07 per week. Note, it's NOT £25 a week as that assumes there are 4 weeks in a month. With 12 months in the year, you are only budgeting for 48 weeks food and you need food for 52 weeks .. unless you go on a fast for two weeks ;-)

So, always go from weekly to annual then to monthly, for income you recieve weekly. And then from monthly, to annual then weekly to get it all to balance out.

HTH

Spendless

I'm trying to follow this

Do you mean if you have a DD for the 15th of the month it depends on where the 15th of the month falls as to where the money comes from? ie if the 15th is a Monday then it comes out of last weeks money, if the 15th is on a Thursday it comes out the current weeks money?

Would it help matters to put everything on a DD/SO at the end of the month, so each week you put so much away towards the bills coming out at the end of the month?

loobyloo1980

Spendless wrote:

I'm trying to follow this

Do you mean if you have a DD for the 15th of the month it depends on where the 15th of the month falls as to where the money comes from? ie if the 15th is a Monday then it comes out of last weeks money, if the 15th is on a Thursday it comes out the current weeks money?

Would it help matters to put everything on a DD/SO at the end of the month, so each week you put so much away towards the bills coming out at the end of the month?

YES YES YES that is exactly what i am trying to get across. I shall give that some serious consideration. Phew, you understood what i was rambling on about.;-)

loobyloo1980

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

Loobyloo

Take your weekly pay, multiply it by 52 and divide it by 12. This is on average how much you have, monthly.

Then take all your monthly bills, multiply by 12 and divide by 52. This is how much of your pay you need to put aside each week to put towards that months bills. Now do your budget monthly and see how it looks.

If your food budget is £100 a month, that's £23.07 per week. Note, it's NOT £25 a week as that assumes there are 4 weeks in a month. With 12 months in the year, you are only budgeting for 48 weeks food and you need food for 52 weeks .. unless you go on a fast for two weeks ;-)

So, always go from weekly to annual then to monthly, for income you recieve weekly. And then from monthly, to annual then weekly to get it all to balance out.

HTH

Yes I know about doing weekly to monthly etc, and to some extent I do this - but it doesn't help predict which day of the month the DDs come out on or which pay week it will fall on. See my post above in reply to spendless - that is exactly my predicement and I think I will try and follow the 'set it all for end of month' plan and see how it works out for budget :-)