Monthly budgeting when spouse is paid 4-weekly

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Sweet Pea

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I'm having some issues budgeting for the month due to my husband's pay schedule. I am paid monthly on the last working day of each month. He is paid every 4 weeks (this started in January). The majority of our bills, loans, mortgage etc are paid monthly.

I have a list of incomings and outgoings for the month and like to work out at the start of each month how much I can budget for things like kids' activities, savings for holiday etc when everything else is paid out. However his pay schedule is throwing me off! It was ok in January when we were paid around about the same time at the start of the month. I treated his 4 weeks' salary as a monthly one and added it to my monthly pay so I knew we had x amount to last us the month.

However, now we're in late March, he got paid yesterday (the 20th) and I don't get paid until the 29th. We work off a joint account and pay for everything out of it. There is no 'my money/your money', it's all the one pot.

He'll be paid next on the 17th April.

April Pay:
Husband: 20th March to 17th April
Me: 1st April to 30th April

My head is absolutely wrecked trying to work it out.

I just want to be able to say at the start of April 'we have x amount incomings this month and x amount outgoings'. Which leaves us with x amount to have a night out or x amount to pay for an unexpected event like a new car tyre or something. But because our pay schedules are different, I'm struggling to do it. i need to factor his pay from 20th March to 31st March into my pay for April and use that as the monthly figure and then recommence this when he's paid again on the 17th April?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks in advance
 
Do you have capacity for a "float" of money for items for socialising, one offs etc? If so then as long as your float remains topped up then timing of salaries should not matter?

In times of v tight cashflow I have done a week by week budget to ensure we had sufficient cash funds for DDs etc and you would be replicating the same expenses in your budget so instead of 12 it would have 52 columns?
 
Thanks for your reply. No we don't have capacity for a float. I wouldn't know how much to have in it anyway as I can't work out how much we have spare due to the different payment dates if that makes sense?
 
first off as an overall just do an annual budget (assuming your pay is fixed), take total income and total expenses for the year and work that out.

Once you have an annual budget for all expenditures you can start to match that up with the actual income flows. At least you should be able to work out whats in each bucket as an overall.
 
The issue isn't the amounts. I know how to add up all my expenditure for the month and incomings. It's the timings. In an ideal world, I want to start off the month with us both being paid on the 1st. Say 5K. I list all my outgoings and it comes to €4,800 for example. I can now say to myself 'I cannot spend any more than €200 this month on stuff I haven't budgeted for'.

But because my husband's salary is paid at different dates in the month and at four-weekly intervals, do I budget from when he is paid on the 20th of March as 'Week 1 of the month' or what?
 
elcato said:
Does your husband get paid different amounts each 4 weeks ? If not, why not just add both salaries each month as incoming, then at Christmas you will have the bonus of one extra pay packet from his pay.
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Thanks - he gets the same amount every 4 weeks. So if I add his 4 weeks to my 1 month and take that as our monthly income then. So his salary then needs to last me from 20th March to end of April technically. That's not happening unfortunately and we're living pay packet to pay packet...
 
In your position I would do a 52 week budget then. You should estimate your bills and figure out what dates they fall due and plot income and expenses week by week. Then you can bundle up particular periods to assess when you have extra.

Or have two budgets - monthly income for monthly expenses like mortgage, childcare, bills etc and then 4 weekly income for weekly expenses like groceries, fuel for cars etc and potential fun money/sinking fund for annual expenses. Not all expenses are monthly.
 
I can’t see what the problem is or maybe I have a different perspective.

You have fixed amounts of money coming in at fixed times; you have fixed and variable amounts of money going out - the old cash-flow conundrum.

One suggestion is to smooth out the peaks and valleys, for example:
  1. Motor tax - pay quarterly rather than annually. It costs a tiny amount extra to do this but is well worth the extra few Euro
  2. Motor insurance - pay a deposit and nine equal payments to break up the lump sum. If you arrange this with your bank as the broker, in my experience you’ll get good premiums and there will be zero finance charges. No extra cost to you.
  3. If you have to buy expensive electrical items, white goods, TVs, etc, use a vendor, VERY for example, who allow as much as 12 months interest free credit. You decide the timing and amounts of the payments, subject to the vendor verifying your creditworthiness
  4. Use budgeting plans with your energy suppliers. They’ll accept fixed payments at fixed intervals to pay your annual energy cost, shooting out the peaks in winter versus the summer valleys.
This is a short list of ideas to help balance the budget month on month. Any questions, post back here.
 
I am paid fortnightly and try to arrange most of my bills and direct debits for either the 1st or 15th of the month where possible so that I'd never be too far from pay day. I'm sure there is probably a better way to budget when paid bi-weekly, but I haven't really figured it out yet.
 
As above, direct debit dates can be changed and you can schedule many to be on a certain date.

Similarly a mortgage date can be changed to any date up to the 28th of a month.

I'd avoid places like VERY as suggested by another. They are VERY expensive generally and if you get sucked into their interest payments they are a VERY high 40%.

Do look at all the regular bills and check for savings. Mobile and TV are 2 areas that I have seen large excess spending - 48.ie is 12.99 a month, Netflix and free to air tv gives huge choice.
 
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mathepac said:
I can’t see what the problem is or maybe I have a different perspective.

You have fixed amounts of money coming in at fixed times; you have fixed and variable amounts of money going out - the old cash-flow conundrum.

One suggestion is to smooth out the peaks and valleys, for example:
  1. Motor tax - pay quarterly rather than annually. It costs a tiny amount extra to do this but is well worth the extra few Euro
  2. Motor insurance - pay a deposit and nine equal payments to break up the lump sum. If you arrange this with your bank as the broker, in my experience you’ll get good premiums and there will be zero finance charges. No extra cost to you.
  3. If you have to buy expensive electrical items, white goods, TVs, etc, use a vendor, VERY for example, who allow as much as 12 months interest free credit. You decide the timing and amounts of the payments, subject to the vendor verifying your creditworthiness
  4. Use budgeting plans with your energy suppliers. They’ll accept fixed payments at fixed intervals to pay your annual energy cost, shooting out the peaks in winter versus the summer valleys.
This is a short list of ideas to help balance the budget month on month. Any questions, post back here.
Click to expand...
Thanks, yes it’s fixed amounts but for my husband’s salary,‘it’s a different date every month. The four weeks sometimes falls at the start of the month, sometimes mid month and sometimes at the end of the month. I have a budget account with the credit union. Every expense for the year is added up and divided by 12 so all bills are spread evenly through the year. I’m so used to being paid by the month that it’s throwing me off when he’s every 4 weeks. I want to have a monthly pot of money, add up all expenses and know I can spend or save whatever is left over. His next pay date is 18th April. I suppose I just add that to the ‘May’ pot along with my salary paid in the 1st May? Then take all expenses up to 18th April out of that pot and so on…
 
While most people tend to be paid weekly many more are fortnightly or monthly. Very rarely is it every 4 weeks.

Often this results is people confusing 4 weeks with monthly.
But it's 13 times vs 12. While they are closely aligned at the start of they slowly move apart as the year progresses.

So if you want to say spread it evenly.
Total your annual expenses.
Divide by 2, half from you and half from your husband.
Then divide your tally by 12 and your husband's by 13.
This will give you the amount you must each contribute when you get paid.
 
You are paid 12 times per year, your husband 13 times including two payments in November.

A simple way to treat this is to consider you have a total monthly income of one salary from each of you.

For budgeting, ignore the 13th salary from your husband, treat that as an end-of-year bonus or as a saving.
 
BlackandBlue said:
While most people tend to be paid weekly many more are fortnightly or monthly. Very rarely is it every 4 weeks.

Often this results is people confusing 4 weeks with monthly.
But it's 13 times vs 12. While they are closely aligned at the start of they slowly move apart as the year progresses.

So if you want to say spread it evenly.
Total your annual expenses.
Divide by 2, half from you and half from your husband.
Then divide your tally by 12 and your husband's by 13.
This will give you the amount you must each contribute when you get paid.
Click to expand...
Thanks that’s exactly the reply I’m looking for! Nobody else has picked up that with 4 weekly payments, you end up being paid at different stages of the month so no point changing direct debits around as my husbands salary could hit the account early, mid or late month as the year progressed.
We only have one bank account and it’s just joint. My money is his and vice versa. So I don’t need to work out how much each of us contributes. We both work full time and our salaries are shared equally. I’m just having trouble with the timings. I’m thinking of transferring his salary to a Revolut account when he’s paid and then transferring it back on the 1st of the month so both our salaries go into the joint account at the same time. That way I can say we’ve x amount at the start of the month and have x amount left after paying bills etc.
 
peemac said:
As above, direct debit dates can be changed and you can schedule many to be on a certain date.

Similarly a mortgage date can be changed to any date up to the 28th of a month.

I'd avoid places like VERY as suggested by another. They are VERY expensive generally and if you get sucked into their interest payments they are a VERY high 40%.

Do look at all the regular bills and check for savings. Mobile and TV are 2 areas that I have seen large excess spending - 48.ie is 12.99 a month, Netflix and free to air tv gives huge choice.
Click to expand...
Thanks. No point changing direct debits as my husband is paid every 4 weeks meaning it’s a different stage of the month as the year goes on. In January it started off being the start of the month, in March it was the 20th…that’s the issue I’m facing.
 
Hi Sweet Pea,

I think what you need to do is set up a cashflow spreadsheet in excel (I use LibreOffice - it's free).

Mine has the week across the top, then first row is balance in account, second row is your pay, third row his pay, then total income, next you put the outgoings - rent/mortgage, insurance, elec, car, cc bills, groceries, kids' activities, whatever is appropriate to your situation, then total expenditure.

Then add opening balance to total income, subtract total expenditure, gives closing balance. Next week's opening balance = this week's closing balance. You can fill it forward for as many weeks as you wish.

You can then see what will be the balance any week. What I do is put in estimates - estimated elec bill, visa bill, etc and then when the actual figure is known I put that it, then I can see whether I'm tight or have a bit spare in any given month.

I can send you a template if you like, just respond here or pm me. I've had mine running (new one each year) since about 1997, through good times and bad :)

Sybil
 
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