5 weeks between pay days

canidothis

Looking to the future the month of June will be my first 5 week month since my LBM. Ive been cruising along quite nicely with 4 weeks but just wondered how do you all adjust your money for the 5th week? I guess its only fuel and food that will increase but potentially thats another £50 to find, any tips to budget for the 5th week would be great:D

Trajal

Can't help you with fuel, but can't be too tough to stretch your food from weeks 1-4 to make a couple of extra meals per week for the freezer aside for week 5 ? Cut down on portion size a bit if you have to and you'll seen have enough for week 5.

nearlyrich

I don't think in weeks to be honest, however I am not living from paycheck to paycheck these days, maybe a little late for June but a small amount of emergency savings for this kind of thing would be a good idea, can you arrange your budget that way?

canidothis

good idea to do batch cooing, think I'll have a go at that and Nearlyrich it may be a bit soon to sort out Junes budget but def could put try and put a small amount away each month for those 5 weekers - thanks for the ideas

CH27

Buy a little bit extra food this month to ease the extra days in June.

rising_from_the_ashes

Could you put say £30 aside from this month's pay?

bottleofred

Batch cooking is an excellent idea, as well as taking advantage of bogofs etc. Recipes can be found on the old style boards or anywhere else on the internet and you should portion foods and then freeze them to use them later.

canidothis

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

Could you put say £30 aside from this month's pay?

my budget is so so tight i will try my hardest to save some money but Ive only just had my LBM so its early days at budgeting and can only allow £180 for food and toiletries for 3 of us - finding more money is a bit of a struggle - but I may try the batch cooking idea or just have 7 nights of scrambled egg on toast:rotfl:

rising_from_the_ashes

Have you got a slow cooker?

I got a load of stewing steak on a "whoopsie" at the supermarket, put it all in with a load of veg etc & got 8 portions out of it - worked out at less than 40p/meal.

Something like this would be ideal as you could "use" 1/2 for one meal & freeze the other 1/2 to do all of you another time.

Another good one is sausages (they always seemed to be whoopsied at our local store and I can usually get a pack of 12 for less than £1). Again, stick in slow cooker/oven with a load of veg etc & a lovely tasty cheap meal.

For the 4 week months, what about sticking £5 in a jar (or similar) to build up to cover the 5 week months - I know it won't help for June but you'd be able to save a bit up before the next one.

t4mof

I work out my budget on weekly dates so every month I split into:

24th-31st (24th being payday, and on a 30 day month, it's a bonus)
1st-8th
9th-15th
16th-23rd

That way I do my shopping/petrol 4 times a month (on 24th, 1st, 9th, 16th) regardless of 4 or 5 weeks to payday.

Have to say I'm not a fan of 5 weeks though - I find getting through 5 weekends a struggle. And this month has been harder coz 24th of April was Easter Sunday so I was paid on 21st April and now need to get through to 24th May!

canidothis

mmm not sure that will work for me - I get paid on the last thursday of each month, so its either 28 or 35 days between pay days - Im def gonna go over to the os board and see if I can stretch my food budget cos thats the only outgoing that can be variable and I can play around with.