Help changing to monthly pay

lizsmum

hi all In the next few months I will be changing from weekly pay to monthly pay I would like to know if anyone has any experience of this when doing food shopping as I am really worried about this At first we will be receiving an intrum payment two weeks after our last weekly pay so I dont know how I will manage any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

PipneyJane

Lizsmum, you're bringing back memories. I remember going from fortnightly pay to monthly and the first couple of months were awful. I'd get to the end of the second week and have nothing left. Good for you, planning how to cope in advance.

The main bit of advice I can give you is to try to squirrel away a few Pounds before it happens. You say your biggest worry is grocery money, so try saving a fifth of your grocery budget every week between now and d-day. That first month-until-payday will seem like it lasts forever, so the more cash you have set aside, the easier.

Do you have a store cupboard? Do a stocktake of what you have in stock and meal plan about those items. What sort of meals do you and your family like? Can you stock up on the basic ingredients for those? (Pasta, rice, flour, tinned tomatoes, tinned fish, pulses.)

Also, once you are paid, it's hard to resist the temptation to go on a spending spree and spend all that salary all at once. It seems like such a lot of money, when you're use to being paid half or a quarter of it at a time. I'd recommend you try giving yourself a weekly allowance and sticking to that for a while. Ignore your bank balance and use a notepad/back of an envelope/spreadsheet to keep a decreasing running total of what you're spending. By decreasing, I mean start with, say, £100 and deduct every spend from that. When you get to zero, you've run out of your allowance and can't get any more until next "payday" (whichever day you choose to pay your allowance to yourself).

Another thought is to put yourself/the housekeeping on a cash diet. At the start of each month, my DH and I both go to the bank and take out our shares of the housekeeping (half each). It goes into a cash purse and that is the only money we take with us when we go to the supermarket. I also wander around the shop with a tiny calculator, adding things up as I go. Concentrates the mind, somewhat, since I don't have the money to overspend.

cutestkids

Hi
I would start a stockpile now of things that you use, just a couple of extra tins or packets a week will build up also when cooking at the moment make double and freeze if you can so that you have meals ready.

With a little bit of planning over the next few months it should be doable, buy in an extra box of teabags, coffee, sugar one week, then the following week you could get a couple of extra boxes of cereal, then extra tins, pasta, rice etc. then say a few cartons of longlife milk and juice and do this up until the time comes that your pay changes, even with just say two months this will add up so that you have all your basics in and then you just need to buy fresh fruit veg etc.

If you buy a few extra things every week you wont notice it really.