Balancing income with monthly and 4 weekly pay.

Rob5342

TheAble said:

It all seems terribly complicated and I can't see what the separate food and bills accounts are trying to achieve. Why not just have one joint account, all income goes in there and expenses come out of it? And surplus at month end goes to savings.

It's to make bugeting easier - you know the bills are covered whatever date they come out on and you only have to worry about making the food account last the month. The problem Naturelover22 is having is that their husbands paydate changes - sometimes he might get paid on the 30th and the mortage gets taken the next day, other months he might get paid on the 2nd and the money has to last a whole month to cover the mortage on the 1st the the next month. 

Naturelover22

RosaBernicia said:

Hi Naturelover

Have you looked into any of the money management software options?  I also struggle with numbers and have found the software really helpful for seeing what can be covered with money already in and what needs to be juggled for later, without having to do maths or create a spreadsheet - it shows the picture for your budget categories, rather than only by account. 

Thanks, thats a good idea. I haven't yet, just me with the bank statement, a calculator, some lists and getting in a right muddle most of the time!
I have heard good things, just a bit cautious about giving websites access to my data. It could be worth a look for ongoing tracking though.

Naturelover22

Rob5342 said:

TheAble said:

It all seems terribly complicated and I can't see what the separate food and bills accounts are trying to achieve. Why not just have one joint account, all income goes in there and expenses come out of it? And surplus at month end goes to savings.

It's to make bugeting easier - you know the bills are covered whatever date they come out on and you only have to worry about making the food account last the month.

Yes, this is it. When we had 1 account, important payments would bounce as one of us had done a big food shop the day before or something.
We personally choose to keep our saleries separate and pay our personal costs ourselves, cars, gym, socialising, clothes and stuff.

kimwp

Rob5342 said:

TheAble said:

It all seems terribly complicated and I can't see what the separate food and bills accounts are trying to achieve. Why not just have one joint account, all income goes in there and expenses come out of it? And surplus at month end goes to savings.

It's to make bugeting easier - you know the bills are covered whatever date they come out on and you only have to worry about making the food account last the month. The problem Naturelover22 is having is that their husbands paydate changes - sometimes he might get paid on the 30th and the mortage gets taken the next day, other months he might get paid on the 2nd and the money has to last a whole month to cover the mortage on the 1st the the next month. 

It makes a lot of sense - the monthly bills align with the monthly pay and the weekly outgoings such as food align with the four-weekly income. For annual bills/costs, the pots can be built up by contributions from every payday, split however is agreed.

Rob5342

Another variation on what's been suggested might be to have him pay his whole share into your savings, and have regular payments come out of the savings to one or both of your bills/food accounts once a month. If you need to use the savings you will just need to check if there will be enough left on the first, and again once a year or so when it rolls round you will have a bonus month saved.

MrFrugalFever

I used to be paid 4 weekly and it was a bit of a pain to be honest. I am now paid monthly on 29th of the month (or earlier if this falls on a weekend or bank holiday), which I actually prefer.

There will be a month in the year where he actually gets paid ‘twice’....within a calendar month. It might be worth working out when that month occurs and then start your new budgeting/money management plan from then.

It sounds like once you have your spending/outgoings under control you may not have the issue you’re currently having.

I operate out of 2 accounts. The account I get paid in to is my bills account and I can calculate to the penny how much needs to be in there each month (all bills are cleared by 9th of each month latest) and the remaining then gets transferred to a ‘spends’ account and savings account.

Whichever way you look at it, there are 2 salaries being paid in each month with 1 month having 3 so in theory you shouldn’t have an issue covering all bills unless your spending isn’t under control.

RosaBernicia

Naturelover22 said:

RosaBernicia said:

Hi Naturelover

Have you looked into any of the money management software options?  I also struggle with numbers and have found the software really helpful for seeing what can be covered with money already in and what needs to be juggled for later, without having to do maths or create a spreadsheet - it shows the picture for your budget categories, rather than only by account. 

Thanks, thats a good idea. I haven't yet, just me with the bank statement, a calculator, some lists and getting in a right muddle most of the time!
I have heard good things, just a bit cautious about giving websites access to my data. It could be worth a look for ongoing tracking though.

You don't have to sign up for automatic transaction import or use the real names of the accounts if you don't want to, you can keep it as manual tracking (at least with YNAB and I would expect the same of the others).  So the websites don't necessarily get account data, though they will get some overal picture of your spending patterns. 

I've found I love the auto import, it saves a lot of time and double checking plus the occasional forgotten transaction.  But the main reason I've stuck with the software is because it does the maths on 'do I have enough in this category this month' and that frees up brain space for the solutions - shuffling money between categories, changing plans, or finding more money!