Do you have a weekly or monthly budget? People get paid so many different ways and I was wondering if you get paid once a month do you have better luck at sticking with a budget by breaking it down to a weekly budget vs. a monthly one? Do you keep track on paper or do you do the envelopes for each bill?
__________________ cat lover We Welcome Strays
When I was young we used to go "skinny dipping"; now we just "chunky dunk"
My budget for the past several years is more of a list of fixed expenses plus what we spend on gas & groceries. Not a lot that I can do about it as our expenses are as low as they can go with the exception of cable our entertainment & internet which I need for work.
I do average the yearly or semi-yearly bills into months to have the money to pay them if it isn't used to pay for an unexpected car repair, etc. I do average into the budget a set amount for car & house expenses so there is some money to pay the bills as they happen.
I pay the bills right before they are due and keep the utilities, gasoline & grocery bills as low as possible by line drying clothes, using rain water for the garden, driving the car instead of the van when possible, keeping the heat/ac off as much as possible, etc.
We both get paid every 2 weeks. I make a list of our bills for the month in a notebook. I pay as many bills as I can on line and in person. The rest I mail. Our electricity bill is the only one that really changes every month. Dh and I both put a set amount of money aside monthly. I have a set amount taking right from my paycheck to a savings. Dh moves money 1 time month to a saves from his pay. His savings is used for the quarterly bills and anything that comes up unexpected(like car repairs). My saves we use for christmas, birthday, etc.
I use a spiral bound notebook, one page per month and done in pencil. My dh gets paid every two weeks so I list both paydays on the sheet and the bills that will be paid from it. Once in awhile things get moved around a little since there are two extra paydays per year doing it this way so the due dates on certain things make it move to another payday. I keep the past months sheets in the book so I can refer back to them for quarterly or annual bills such as car tags, house insurance and property taxes. My dh tends to get more OT in the summer so I have some things scheduled then that don't occur monthly. Like Charlotte said our electric bill is the only one that fluctuates much and I keep a list of the past bills and how much they were each month so I can estimate an amount before the bill comes. We also have a monthly automatic deduction for savings and also for the retirement/stocks acount. We are lucky that my dh works for a company that matches 50% of the retirement up to 10% so wew take advantage of that.
Jacki
We get paid monthly, dh ‘s goes into the checking account, mine in the savings account.. I put a set amount to cover taxes and semi or yearly bills into a savings account set up for that purpose. I estimate things like gas and electric. I take out a set amount each week from my account for groceries, gas and going out.
__________________ Before you Act: Listen
Before you react: Think
Before you spend: Earn
Before you criticize: Wait
Before you pray: Forgive
Before you quit: Try
My DH is paid biweekly (twice a month), there for I set out a budget based on his pay checks, and when I do have one it goes directly into savings. The budget is based on when certain bills are due plus five days grace for mailing (that is any bill that can't be paid electronically) - sometimes this requires a bill to be paid a week in advance. Then comes non-must haves, these are items that someone could probably live with out, but why should they have to (FF for the morning after getting a 3 A.M. technical supply item unavailable call, chick flick, etc), and lastly extra / left over funds... the stuff you can use to take a road trip on or use for a minor emergency if one arises w/o looting the savings account or a credit card with.
__________________ LIFE means...
Living
In
Faithful
Endeavors
I get paid monthly as I'm retired. I get two different retirement checks,each goes into a different bank. One account is what I call my "bill money" and the other my "running money". I noticed with the "running money" from which I pay my daily expenses, food, clothing, car expenses, I had money left each month. So, now I have them take so much out and put it into a savings account on which I get a small amount of interest.
I also keep track of my grocery purchases, how much I purchased, how much I paid, and how much I saved using coupons. At the end of the month, I total these purchases and am pleased with my totals. I print these out for my Coupon Club which meets weekly, inspires them to do the same. This is kept on the Word Pad. After 2 computer crashes and losing the information, I now send myself an e-mail a few times a week with the grocery purchases. I use Yahoo Mail and I can save the e-mail forever! Then, at the end of the month, I condense it into one e-mail and print it out.
Also, I keep a Price Book on the computer telling the lowest price I purchased something for, where I purchased it and what date I purchased it.
I have a Monthly Bills file on my Word Pad, telling the bills in alphabetical order, the amount, the due date, the balance.
My entire finances calendar is online. I have the due dates, mailing addresses, web site addresses, approximate amount due (worst case senario), etc... on my Google finances calendar. I have another Excel file with a list of all my bills, approximate totals for a month. I then know the total finances so I can match my total income. Since we get paid every 2 weeks, I can decide which bills I can pay when. One half of the month, my total bills are very low compared to the other half. So, I pay some bills extremely early or save the money to pay them later, when I get the amounts. Some companies do not provide the amounts, like our gas company, until a few days before they are due, so I have to allot an amount of money for these when they are due. If the bill does not charge a convenience fee to pay online, then I pay online asap. If the company charges a fee to pay online, then I write a check and mail it in because a stamp is cheaper. Once I pay the bill, I document it as (PAID) in the heading of the bill in my online calendar so I can see at a glance that it was paid, and in the body of the calendar, I document how much I paid, the date I paid it, and, if I used a check, I document the check number.
cat lover 
When I was young we used to go "skinny dipping"; now we just "chunky dunk" 
:pumpki nsg 
