4 weekly vs monthly salary - help!

Chrissy1981

My OH gets paid every 4 weeks and I get paid monthly, it gives me a headache too!

The best system I've found is that both our salaries get paid into the bill account. Then I have a spreadsheet listing the bills in order of date (with the date next to it) that they come out of the account. Sometimes (like this month) the car loan won't come out til he's been paid again, so I deduct that off my monthly bill amount. The excess gets divided into 2 and one half goes into my personal account for spends, and the other half goes into his spending account. Hope that makes sense!

Humphrey10

Just keep some spare money in your current account. You'll lose some interest by keeping it there rather than in a savings account etc, but not much.
I get paid 4 weekly, I'd rather lose some interest than have to faff around with spreadsheets all the time.

chocdonuty

I get paid 4 weekly and I do this-
Almost all of my direct debits go out on the 1st of the month
I total this amount up, It is the same every month.
Every time I get paid I take out this amount from it and put aside for bills.

If my wages are higher than this amount then the rest is mine to spend how I wish, otherwise on a bad month I'll work out how much more I need and take it from child benefit ect to top up.

Thinking of four weekly wages as monthly also means you get a whole months free wage once a year

meritaten

the problem which most people havent grasped is that you DONT get paid on the same date each month!

you get paid every 28 days and most months have more than that!
The way I coped with it was to arrange to have direct debits etc paid at least a week AFTER the pay went in! every couple of years you will need to review the pay date - due to the 'extra' days in the month it can happen it becomes dangerously close to the 'payday'! but it can often happen that you get a bit more month for your money! especially around christmas time IYSWIM with all the Bank holidays.
It is a pain in the rear - and you do need to mark on the calendar exactly when payday is - but in one way you dont have to make four weeks money stretch to five if being paid per calendar month!

jakirk

My wife and I have, between us, 6 pensions going into our account, 3 monthly all on different dates, one weekly and one 4 weekly and one yearly.

And 7 direct debits on different days as well.

And our bank account statement runs from the 16th to the 15th of the month.

Try juggling that about.

jrawle

meritaten wrote: »

the problem which most people havent grasped is that you DONT get paid on the same date each month!

you get paid every 28 days and most months have more than that!
The way I coped with it was to arrange to have direct debits etc paid at least a week AFTER the pay went in! every couple of years you will need to review the pay date - due to the 'extra' days in the month it can happen it becomes dangerously close to the 'payday'! but it can often happen that you get a bit more month for your money! especially around christmas time IYSWIM with all the Bank holidays.

But surely, by the time the bill payment date becomes "dangerously close to the 'payday'" you will have received an extra 4-weekly payment, so will have as much money in the account before pay day as you normally would just after payment. Having a salary paid every four weeks means you get paid more times per year, not less.

The only way I can see being paid every four weeks is a problem is if you are either so undisciplined that you spend all the money in your account; or if you are moving the money to a savings account in order to maximise interest. If it's the latter, simply wait until just after the bill payments have gone out, then transfer money to a savings account. There will always be another four-weekly payment before the next month's direct debits go out.

daska

jrawle wrote: »

But surely, by the time the bill payment date becomes "dangerously close to the 'payday'" you will have received an extra 4-weekly payment, so will have as much money in the account before pay day as you normally would just after payment. Having a salary paid every four weeks means you get paid more times per year, not less.

The only way I can see being paid every four weeks is a problem is if you are either so undisciplined that you spend all the money in your account; or if you are moving the money to a savings account in order to maximise interest. If it's the latter, simply wait until just after the bill payments have gone out, then transfer money to a savings account. There will always be another four-weekly payment before the next month's direct debits go out.

Possibly this is a scenario where only those who have lived it appreciate the pitfalls LOL. You have to be right on top of what bills are due out when, it really isn't a case of needing to be undisciplined to make a right pigs ear of it!

daska

My solution at the moment is to tell the utilities etc to go stuff themselves if they insist on monthly payments. I set up 4 weekly standing orders for those who don't give me a discount - I am in effect paying in advance of their bill so I see no need for them to get snotty - doesn't stop them complaining but they usually calm down when I tell them I'll find a more accommodating supplier and write to the MD to inform him that his staff have refused my custom (hasn't failed yet LOL)

dizzzy

I get paid 4 weekly and dh gets paid monthly. It doesn't matter when my wages go into our account I make sure I don't use any of it until the 28th of each month (the same payday as dh) and then as someone else has already said I end up with one extra wage packet each year.

I then save that up and use it for Christmas presents.

jrawle

daska wrote: »

Possibly this is a scenario where only those who have lived it appreciate the pitfalls LOL. You have to be right on top of what bills are due out when, it really isn't a case of needing to be undisciplined to make a right pigs ear of it!

While it's true I haven't "lived it", what you state is mathematically untrue. Suppose you have an account that receives £100 pay every four weeks, and pays bills of £100 on the 1st of every month. The balance sheet could look like this (sorry the formatting isn't brilliant; tables are one of the things this forum just doesn't do):

Date Pay Bills Balance
01-Jan 100 100 000
29-Jan 100 000 100
01-Feb 000 100 000
26-Feb 100 000 100
01-Mar 000 100 000
25-Mar 100 000 100
01-Apr 000 100 000
22-Apr 100 000 100
01-May 000 100 000
20-May 100 000 100
01-Jun 000 100 000
17-Jun 100 000 100
01-Jul 000 100 000
15-Jul 100 000 100
01-Aug 000 100 000
12-Aug 100 000 100
01-Sep 000 100 000
09-Sep 100 000 100
01-Oct 000 100 000
07-Oct 100 000 100
01-Nov 000 100 000
04-Nov 100 000 100
01-Dec 000 100 000
02-Dec 100 000 100
30-Dec 100 000 200
01-Jan 000 100 100
27-Jan 100 000 200
02-Feb 000 100 100

This assumes the first payment is on the same day, which is really the worst case scenario. You could start at any point in the table.

In fact, anyone paid like this is actually at an advantage over monthly-paid people, becasue often employers pay late if there's a weekend or bank holiday. With a 4-weekly salary, you gain a few extra days each month whch will cancel out any late payment due to non-working days (unless it's February, of course).

The only way this payment schedule fails is if the four-weekly payment isn't enough to cover your monthly bills, but in that case you are in trouble anyway.