My husband is paid on a weekly basis and his overtime varies. He always gets at least 40 hrs. a week. I have a budget that says what our bills are, how much he brings home (minimum). I do the bills every Friday and it seems like we have less wiggle room when we do it that way. Our budget looks good on paper month to month, but not so great every week in the checkbook. How do you budget (weekly, biweekly, monthly) and does it stress you out one way or the other? Would I be better off looking at our spending month to month or week to week?

I have a workbook I got from a financial place a while back that I forgot I had. I found it the other day and there is a worksheet in there about setting up a budget.

For the monthly budget YOu put in projected amounts, first is income, then the rest of household expenses, car expenses, and Misc espenses. And they are all listed out Like:

Rent____
Groceries___
Oil___
Electric____
Cable____

Car____
Gas____
Insurance____

Misc espenses are as follows:

Resturants______
Take Out______
Clothes_____
Shoes______
Make Up______

And so on.

You put in your projected amounts in those spots and then subtract that your projected monthly income. Be conserveative on all counts.
Hold on to your receopts and at the end of the month, add everything up and see how close you came.

For a weekly budget, I made a spread sheet, and I write everything that I spent and on what. Then I add it up at the end of the week. What an eye opener, when last week I showed dh we added up everything, included bills, cash withdraweles, eating out, ect and it came to almost $400. CRAZY!

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~Missy~Mommy
Meghan7.Samantha6,Cameron4

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My dh gets paid biweekly. I never take in account my dh overtime or side job $ when planning our budget (it varies so much!). I do the month in advance thing and allot for so much towards bills and so on. When looking at the checkbook it always looks horrible for us too! We don't have a very good system yet- we are working on it though!

I read a good suggestion the other day, something I'm working on right now actually. Get a regular notebook and write everything down. How much you get paid, your projected bills that are due at that time and then enter in all of your reciepts as you go. It doesn't have to be fancy, just a small notebook that you can fit in your purse. I've noticed with budgets that I'll write down what I want to spend and we always go over. This way you are entering and subtracting as you go, so you know exactly where the $$ is going. The person who told me about it said that she put pictures of her savings goals in the notebook too, something that would stop her when she would stop for coffee or a fast food lunch and make her think twice about where she really wanted the $$ to go.

We do ourmonthly becuase that is how both of us get paid.

I would think weekly would be hard becuase most bills are only monthly. Could you set it up monthly based on the minimum he would get? OR could you divide the bills out so that they are divided amongst the different weeks (this would depend on their due dates).

If you had a really good Overtime week - would you have enough to save until the beginning of the month and get on a monthly schedule. THen you could you just pay your bank account each week, but only do the bills and pay out for your budgeted items on a monthly basis???

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Amy B.

to be honest, after bills, we have about $200 left a month for groc. and gas for work. Somehow, we get by (just started wic last month). So we kind of depend on his overtime, but that is not a constant thing, so I need to break that habit. We get his profit sharing check in a week or so and it has been rumored to be over 1,500 so I am hoping to pay small bills (life ins., house ins., collections) for a year to cut down our monthly expenses. Keeping my fingers crossed.

It seems if I try to write everything down on a budget I always think I'm barely going to have enough to cover the bills. It always ends up better than that. I know what the bills are and that they need to be paid first before any extras. Budgets on paper depress me. I kind of have one in my mind that I stick to pretty well.

I also noticed that writing the budget down on paper does not help me. I have tried it over and over and it always bites me in rear in the end. No matter how much you alot for your budget something always comes up, at least for us. Whether it be new tires, medical bills, etc. I kind of have it in the back of my head what we need ahead of time.

Like for the rent or big item expenses we use dh's parttime job and write out a cashiers check for part of it. That way when rent comes at the beginning of the month I will not be scrounging around for the money. And I know that i will not spend it because I cannot cash it. I hate having to do it that way but it seems to be working pretty well.

I know that the day will come when we don't have to worry but for now this is working.

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~~Sonja~~

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We are still working on it. Hopefully we'll find a way that works for us. Seems like everyone does it a little differently.

my fiance recently changed jobs, and had a pay cut, so it has been tough... we are also planning a wedding, and have about 3000 bucks left to come up with by april 1 LOL we will see, but here is our normal budgeting for one month

rent: 600
food: 240
gas: 400
insurance: 100
bank fees etc: 60
bus:30
spending (entertainment, eating out, pocket money. this is 50 bucks each):100
phone/internet: 80

all other money that we make goes directly into the wedding fund... sometimes i go over the food allotment, but not often

hope this helps

oh, btw... i make 9.25 an hour, and he makes 9, i work 30 hours a week minimum, but usually 40, and he works 25 hours a week minimum, but usually 40, so as a family we clear on average about 2000 a month... not alot, especially since that is canadian dollars.

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