YNAB 4 weekly?

DWhite

I've been using YNAB for the last few weeks. I really want to keep using it. Trouble is I'm 4 weekly paid and YNAB works on a monthly basis so it doesn't work well for me as I have just been paid this week, half way through the month. Is there a way I can make it work on a 4 weekly basis? I'm sure it's simple but I'm not well and it's hard to think at the moment

gingercordial

You can make it work though it takes a bit of thinking.

The "official" way to do it is that you use what money you have to fund what bills you have coming up before next pay day, and leave the ones that'll come after next pay day.

Let's assume on day 1 you have no savings. You have income of £1,000 per 4 weeks and you have the following bills in the month:

2nd - rent: £700
26th - council tax: £150
30th - car payment £100
Throughout - groceries: £180

It is the 1st and you just got paid. You know you will get paid again on 29th and so actually you don't need to fund the car payment out of this pay packet. Also your groceries are for throughout the month, not all at the start.

So on day 1 you fund the following categories:

Rent - £700 to fund the payment that goes out on 2nd
CT - £150 to fund the payment that goes on on 26th
Groceries - £150 ie what you have left, which will need to see you through to next pay day

On 29th you get paid £1,000 again. Now we need to allocate this:

- £130 goes to "finishing off" this calendar month
Groceries for this month £30 to top you up for the rest of the month
Car payment for 30th £100

- £870 for next calendar month for anything before next pay day
Rent £700
Groceries £170

You'll get paid again before your next CT and car payment, so those will be done out of the next payment along with the missing £10 for groceries. So on and so on.

Hope that makes sense. I get paid monthly but my partner gets paid 4-weekly so my YNAB feels really complicated!

ETA: this gets easier as you build up savings because then of course you can use those to fund bill categories for beyond next pay day, but for the sake of this example I have assumed you start from zero. Just always think of it as what money do you have in your bank account right now, and what does that have to cover before you get paid again.

DWhite

Thank you for the reply, that looks more complicated than I hoped though I'm sure when my brain is less fizzled from the illness I can get my head around it enough hopefully!

getmore4less

The trick with budgeting is to decouple when the money comes in from when it goes out your plan ads up to longer term total ideally at least a year ahead.

Then all you do is a cash flow and it makes no difference if the money coming in is weekly monthly quarterly... you just have to make sure you don't go negative.

getmore4less

alternative if not ready to budget properly

unless really up against a cash flow crisis the easiest way to deal with 4 week pay and a tool that likes monthly is to the 4 week income as a month and forget about the fact it comes in a bit earlier each month it is there to pay next months spends.

end of the yer you have an extra amount to start the next year ahead of the game or just save/pay down something.