Paid weekly but monthly bills

wigglers

Hi I am paid weekly but because I work 4 on 4 off and the pay week starts Sunday cut off sat, I essentially get paid 3 lots of 3 day weeks followed by 3 lots of 4 day weeks. Obviously the 4 day weeks are more, but does anyone know or can suggest the easiest way to arrange the bills to go out and what money to put aside best to cover it every week? Thanks for your help 🙂

FlorayG

I asked the same recently. The best option I got ( and I do now) is every week put away enough for 1/4 of your bills into a different account, and have all your DD paid out of that account. So every 4 weeks you have enough to pay 1 month's bills. Come Christmas or a special occasion, you have a little savings bank also there because you pay in 52 times and pay out 12 times ( 48 weeks)

Nasqueron

How do you pay for stuff? Just as a thought, if you paid everything on CC it would be a monthly bill on a fixed day that you would know a month in advance and could ensure the money was in the account the day it's taken. All your other bills are presumably fixed days. 

I'm afraid I don't really understand your question though - why wouldn't you leave the money in your account knowing your monthly fixed bills and put aside anything after they have gone into savings? You could use a bank like Kroo or Starling or Nationwide (for 1 year at least) that have interest on the money in your current account.

The best way to put it aside is to add up your bills and have that money in your account and don't spend it?

Northern_Wanderer

The best way is to have a separate "bill account" and you make sure that you fund that with the required amount of money to cover all your bills for the month. So, by getting paid weekly, set up a standing order each week to your "bill account". If it's in a separate account, you can't spend it and you also don't have to worry about anything as it is all automatic.

blue.peter

Do you have a money management program or app? I use and recommend AceMoney (about £40), but others are available - e.g., MoneyManager EX (free).

With proper use of the Schedule function, it's a simple matter to look ahead and see where you'll be financially in the future. Obviously, ad hoc expenses mean that the further ahead you look, the less reliable it'll be, but I find that my modus operandi means that it's pretty good for the next month or so.

What I do:

1. Put all spending (or as much as possible) on my credit cards;

2. Have credit cards paid off in full by DD;

3. Once a month, look ahead to the next month, hold back a bit of cash for ad hoc expenses that I can't put on my credit cards, and either (a) put the surplus into savings or (b) arrange for a bit of money to come out of savings to fund any expected current account deficit.

I have a bit of a mismatch, in that I currently have two pensions that are both paid monthly, but on different days. They'll soon be joined by my state pension, which'll be four-weekly. Almost all of my bills are monthly. I'm sure a system like mine would help you to navigate the setup that you describe. Having said that, it'll be rather laborious to incorporate your rather odd income into the schedule. (AceMoney can't cope with a six-week cycle, so I'd have to set up a new three-week cycle every three weeks if I was in your shoes. That's rather more work than I have to do for my own income.)

wigglers

Northern_Wanderer said:

The best way is to have a separate "bill account" and you make sure that you fund that with the required amount of money to cover all your bills for the month. So, by getting paid weekly, set up a standing order each week to your "bill account". If it's in a separate account, you can't spend it and you also don't have to worry about anything as it is all automatic.

Yeah that's what i plan but i mean how do i know how much the actual bills will be over an actual year or month if ui get paid weekly but it's not just set amount weekly some are more some are less 

wigglers

The other thing I should mention is that my fiance contributes probably 700-800 when she gets paid at the end of the month from her job at a school, just trying to work out the best way to manage it 

MattMattMattUK

wigglers said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

The best way is to have a separate "bill account" and you make sure that you fund that with the required amount of money to cover all your bills for the month. So, by getting paid weekly, set up a standing order each week to your "bill account". If it's in a separate account, you can't spend it and you also don't have to worry about anything as it is all automatic.

Yeah that's what i plan but i mean how do i know how much the actual bills will be over an actual year or month if ui get paid weekly but it's not just set amount weekly some are more some are less 

How much your bills will be over a month is how much they will be over a month, they are independent of your income. So if your mortgage is £500, your electricity bill is £100, your water is £50 etc, then you need to make sure that amount is in your account by the end of the month, to cover the next. 

Have you got a proper budget, do you know what your actual monthly outgoings are?

blue.peter

wigglers said:

The other thing I should mention is that my fiance contributes probably 700-800 when she gets paid at the end of the month from her job at a school, just trying to work out the best way to manage it 

The key to managing the situation is still planning ahead - keeping track of what will be coming in to the relevant account and what will be going out over the next few weeks.

Incorporating your fiancée's contribution as well as your own should be pretty straightforward. How you do it is, of course, up to you. I still recommend AceMoney or similar as a suitable tool, but you can use whatever you prefer. A spreadsheet maybe. Or pen and paper (which is what I used in the days before home computers), though the disadvantage of this method is that it's not too easy to reorder non-chronological entries.

subjecttocontract

I think what I would do is have just 1 bank account that paid out all the regular monthly bills. I'd add up the total of the bills and pay that amount into the account first. Then divide by 4 and pay that amount into the account each week. That way you will always have a credit balance that will be able to pay any of the bills.

General_Grant

wigglers said:

Northern_Wanderer said:

The best way is to have a separate "bill account" and you make sure that you fund that with the required amount of money to cover all your bills for the month. So, by getting paid weekly, set up a standing order each week to your "bill account". If it's in a separate account, you can't spend it and you also don't have to worry about anything as it is all automatic.

Yeah that's what i plan but i mean how do i know how much the actual bills will be over an actual year or month if ui get paid weekly but it's not just set amount weekly some are more some are less 

What is the least amount you would receive in your pay?
Would that multiplied by 4 plus your fiance's monthly contribution cover your minimum monthly outgoings?

Personally I wouldn't want to pay £40 for a budgetary software package but clearly some people do.  Sitting down say once a month with a piece of paper and a pen or a spreadsheet would be enough to plan.  I know that takes a bit of time but so does keeping track with a budgetary package to make sure you are still on course.