How can I organise my budget/finances when money comes in in dribs and drabs?

theoretica

If you would find it easier to keep track you could get all your irregular/4 weekly payments into a different bank account and then set up a standing order to transfer them to your main bank account on a set day of the month. If you can budget for the month on one lot of the 4-weekly payments the months with 5 weeks let you build up savings.

Of course neither of these suggestions will help with the spending less/earning more problem of actually getting out of the overdraft.

sulkisu

You can have tax credits and child benefit paid weekly instead of four weekly/monthly. The long term solution, as others have said (and I know it's easier said than done) is to try to build up a small cushion. If earning more money is not an option, there is a good chance that you can reduce your expenditure. I strongly recommend the oldstyle saving threads, and posting up an SOA on the DFW board is a good place to start.

vintagegirl

hey there, im in the same position as you re budgeting and its taken me a long time to learn but i think im finally there.
I get paid last working day of the month, then get weekly tax credits on a tueday and chb on a monday.

what i do is, have all my bills come out on the 1st, eg rent, council tax, car insurance, tv licence and mobile.

thats that lot paid then to budget i have small weekly standing orders going into savings accounts on my inter net banking.
these are for
haircuts
clothes
presents
road tax
mot
pocket money
bus fare
petrol
groceries
spending money

i dont know if thats an idea for you but it seems to be working for me