Monthly budgeting when spouse is paid 4-weekly

[Sweet Pea]

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

That sounds fantastic Sybil. I’d love to have a look at the template if you wouldn’t mind sending it?

 

[Mrs Vimes]

I have partially filled out some lines, all figures made up but insert your own to see what it looks like. Minus figures are red so you can see if you put in an expense for a particular week which will cause a problem you'll have to rejig the numbers. I put in estimates for CC bills (everything goes on cc and paid off every month) and then when the bill is available correct figures go in.
Put the bank balance in at row 23 and then add the debits and credits which haven't gone through yet (eg mortgage will be taken on Friday, this is Monday, mortgage goes in that line) to check that you are tracking it all.
Let me know if you have any questions, I've been doing it in my sleep for years so it's hard to explain.

 

[shweeney]

Might be worth considering something like YNAB https://www.ynab.com/