Help with budgeting

jules68

Wondered if someone could help me please.

I am having trouble working out my budget as I get paid weekly(varies from week to week) and I get my tax credits weekly but my direct debits are monthly.

My question is what is the best way to work it out, i.e how much to put away each week so to speak

Many Thanks

poorandindenial

Hi Jules

Different people do it differently, some people work on 4 week months, others make everything equate to monthly/weekly payments

To go from weekly to monthly multiply by 52 and divide by 12
To go from monthly to weekly multiply by 12 and divide by 52

Basically just work on whatever basis works best for you, from the sound of it converting everything to Weekly might make the most sense and then having a seperate account where cash for direct debits goes into and sits ready for the bills to roll in.

If I recall Martin's budget tool allows you to put in weekly, monthly or yearly figures and then converts them all so you can see the situation for all time periods.

Numpty_Monkey

I did a little speadsheet thingy (and no i am not good at excel)
and its probably wrong

sort of works out weekly, 4 weekly, monthly, quarterly annuall amounts

i'll send it to if you want to try it and maybe you can find the flaws :A

tyllwyd

Another thing that might help is investing in a money management type software program like Microsoft Money - I use Personal Accounts, and once you've set up the direct debits, you can enter the details from your statements (I do it everyday to keep it manageable) and then it will predict ahead so you can see when you will go overdrawn and by how much.

OberonSH

I use The Fran Plan - named ater my good friend who invented it. Its basically a spreadsheet with the bills down the side, and weeks across the top. I put it when the bills go out, and then under them have a row that shows when money comes in - purs comes in weekly, moneht and 4 weekly!

Once that's done I can 'move' bills about so everthing's covered. Then I make notes to ensure money gets left in the direct debit account to cover everything. Sounds complex, but it's not really. Helps me see what weeks are likely to be flush, and what weeks are going to be lean so I can plan.

jules68

I have got quicken which is sort of easy for a tecknophobe like me,I am fairly good with money but need to do better as I have a lot of money i need to save up