Budgeting as a couple with a monthly/weekly wage

zackyv6661

Hi all!

My boyfriend and I have been living together for a year now, and the budget I have in place has worked ok so far - in so far that we can clearly see what money is coming off each week and what we have left over each week. I get paid monthly, whereas my boyfriend is paid weekly.

The problem I am finding is that my boyfriend is a spender - no matter how much I try and talk to him about it!! And we seem to be left short all the time, with me not getting any money left for myself.

We have a joint bank account where our wages go into, and all of our bills come off, but we do still have our own separate bank accounts.

I want to re-consider our budget so that we both contribute an even % towards the bills, and will have our own cash left over to spend each month, but I am really struggling with how to make it work with my boyfriend being paid weekly? Can anyone give me any advice please or suggestions?

I have already worked out that we both need to pay 45% of our monthly wage to the household bills, and calculated how much this is. But I can't figure out how to start this off - should we put a couple of weeks/months spare cash away to use for setting up this new budget?

Sorry if this makes absolutely no sense at all, I do find it quite confusing myself!

grumbler

Budgeting is not about balancing on the edge of overdraft.
IMO, it's more convenient to get the wages paid to your personal accounts and transfer the budgeted amounts to the joint account.
Your BF knows the amount he has to contribute monthly. Make him to save this amount and transfer to the joint account at the start of the month.

And don't forget that there possibly are some yearly expenses that you both have to save money for.

HappyMJ

To start with you could split all bills 50/50 then figure out what that would cost monthly...i.e your contribution to the joint account and weekly i.e his weekly contribution to the joint account. Stop using the joint account for cash withdrawals and shopping. Just pay the 100% known fixed household bills and the rent with it and nothing else. With your own personal money you pay for a weekly shop then he pays for weekly shop.

It would be nice of course to share everything but if one person is not on board then you have to do something else.

To prevent the account going overdrawn you'll have to contribute enough in advance to cover a full month's worth of bills as early as possible.

Personally, I'd close the joint account and pay the bills out of my own account and square up at the end of the month. Do you really want to be financially associated with someone who might get into arrears and ruin your credit rating?

PasturesNew

If you're so "good" with money - and he's so "bad", then the easiest option would be for you both to pay into the bills account weekly. Bit of extra faff for you, but that way it's level pegging so easy to sort out or come to blows on as you can see exactly whether/not the weekly money in was matching.

Dobbibill

Hi Zacky,

I know how you feel as my OH is terrible. I do exactly the same with a 50/50 split and it works.

Admittedly your biggest challenge is getting this started but the sooner you do, the sooner you will have funds left from your own pay.

I would try to start this sooner rather than later as each month that goes on, you will have nothing left for yourself.
Getting it up and running to start with will be tricky. As your OH is paid weekly, their contribution can start immediately. Ideally you would need a buffer to start this or a months worth of bills money already sitting there so you are ahead rather than playing catch up.

Check the dates of all your monthly bills.
Are they staggered throughout the month?
Are any of them via Standing Order that you could alter to a different date to ensure they are staggered?

Once you figure this out, you will have a starting point.

Once it is up and running it should work fine.

Then as said previously, keep that account for bills only. Nothing else at all.

tiger_eyes

I assume most of your bills (eg rent) are paid monthly, making it more complicated for your partner with his weekly pay schedule. Has he considered saving his income up until the end of the month so he can "pay" himself a regular monthly salary? I do this every month - it makes it simple to meet normal monthly bills with irregular income. His monthly income would be variable, as some calendar months have four weeks and some have five, but since he only has to pay 45% of his income into the bills account anyway, it shouldn't be a problem. Just a thought.