budgeting when paid weekly and bills are monthly

olb81

hi,

trying to work out a way of organising my income and out goings when i get paid weekly and everything else goes out monthly, except daily spend/food.

i think i could solve the problem mainly by opening a new bank account for my wages to drop into , before then sending a controlled amount to another account where the bills go from.

i wouldnt need a spending card for this account, so i wondered can i get a bank account without all the post and cards you get with a nationwide account?

i dont mind using a different provider, its just for my wages to go in and me be incontrol of them before sending money out elsewhere for bills and spending.

thanks

eskbanker

I'm not aware of any current accounts that don't have debit cards issued routinely, but obviously that doesn't force you to use them, and having one can be advantageous for resilience. Likewise there will generally be some post as a form of initial address validation, but it's generally straightforward to go paperless thereafter…

olb81

its either that or set up a new account just for spending and send a specific amount each week for spending and leave the rest for the bills etc ??

MEM62

You don't need to make it complicated. If your wages already go into a bank account and you know what your monthly outgoings are, you can work out and adjust you weekly 'disposable' spending accordingly. It is simple maths but leave yourself a bit of a buffer.

Neil_Jones

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6676179/budgeting-when-paid-weekly-and-bills-are-monthly

Why overcomplicate it?

If you get paid (for argument's sake) £100 a week, that's £5200 a year. Divide by 12, that's £433.33 a month.

If your total bills were then (again for argument's sake) £350 a month, just ensure you leave £350 a month around bill payment time. Put all the payment dates on the 26th for example or thereabouts, and then just ensure you have £350 in your account on the 26th. In this particular example the remaining £83.33 is your spending money,

Obviously do the numbers for you, I just picked £100 to make the maths simple.

maman

If you can get ahead of yourself and build up the equivalent of a month's wages in your account and leave it there as a sort of float then you won't need to worry.

Rob5342

Monzo is ideal for this as they let you put money aside into pots, and then you can have direct debits set up to come out of those pots.

grandadgolfer

OP keep it simple why try and complicate it as others have said work out monthly bills and what’s left you can spend, but try and have a buffer

blue.peter

I'd suggest a completely different approach: using a money management app. AceMoney is the one that I use and recommend. Money Manager EX is free, and worth a look. One of these, if you take a little time to set up a schedule of all your regular payments - both in and out - will give you a running prediction of your financial position. That'll tell you when and how much you can drop into your savings account or, conversely, have to dip into savings.

Jami74

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6676179/budgeting-when-paid-weekly-and-bills-are-monthly

Instead of a whole new bank account, how about a simple savings account with your current bank? When you get paid weekly immediately move the money into the savings account, then on a set day of the month move your monthly spending back into the current account to cover outgoings.

This is what I did when I was on weekly pay and I liked it so much I continued when I went back to monthly pay. On pay day I move my whole wages away and then on the first of the month I pay myself what is needed to cover all bills and spending for the month. I use a credit card for all spending so that I have one bill each month rather than loads of little spends and I know what my credit card bill is when I move the money into the current account on the first so there is no guessing what I might spend.

pochisoldi

I've had two bank accounts "Main" and "Budget" for years.

Initially "Main" was a normal current account, and "Budget" was an offset savings account which allowed direct debits and standing orders but no cheque book. (YBS - that kind of account has been gone for years).

When I was paid monthly, a fixed amount went from Main>Budget on pay day, roughly 1/12th of annualised bills (I had monthly, quarterly, 6 monthly and annual bills).

Changed job, changed pay days, still monthly, just changed the date of the direct debit.

Ended up in a job where I got paid every 4 weeks - I changed the date and frequency of the direct debit.

I also used to have the whole balance direct debit for the credit card go out of the budget account - pay the amount due into the budget account on pay day. I managed to get my life into a situation where the balance of my main account was an accurate reflection of what money was actually mine to do what I liked with.

I've got a similar arrangement now (offset mortgage with two current accounts+savings offset).

The only thing to watch out for with the "main+budget" model is that you'll find that the balance of the budgetting account needs to be seemingly artificially high to ensure that you can cover all bills whenever they are due. (For example when the car tax, insurance, half yearly water bill plus all the monthly stuff comes out within a week of each other). For this reason, if you are living "hand to mouth", running a main+budget arrangement becomes difficult, possibly impossible to manage, so keep it simple and follow the "separate savings account" route suggested by @Jami74 with all your direct debits and bills coming out of your current account.

For the record, in a few years time when the mortgage is paid off, and the offset facility disappears, I'll probably switch to a single current account with paltry credit interest, and park "money for non-monthly bills" in a savings account.

PochiSoldi