System for every 2w paychecks?

[Charmie981]

(I've taken a long hiatus from this forum because it's been a really hard 6 months. I'm finally feeling in control of money again instead of vice versa, so I'm gonna jump back in with what may be a really silly question)

DH has always, ALWAYS been paid on the first and the fifteenth of the month. I simply divided our expenses into the "first" and the "15th." When I did paper bills, I had a system of two containers and anything before the fifteenth went in one and after went in another. I'd try to keep things as even as possible (ie mortgage on the first meant the car, car insurance and utilites had to be on the 15th or later).

Now we are finally getting caught up after two full months on the job after a three month layoff which resulted in six weeks of absolutely no income whatsoever. At his new job, he gets paid every two weeks. The pay is about the same, sometimes a little better depending on his hours, so that's not a problem. What is a problem is how the heck to figure out when to pay what!

I had been keeping a calendar with every bill written on the day it's due and trying to pay everything that falls into the pay period with the paycheck before it (that's not very clear...sorry), but that means that things aren't always balanced evenly and some paydays will leave not much left for anything but bills while others leave a heap of money left after paying the bills. And it changes every payday, so it's making me crazy. Now I'm thinking maybe it would be better to just divide our bills into two cycles and pay one cycle, then the other cycle. I could start this now and not incur any late fees and eventually because of the fact that he gets three paychecks some months, we'd end up ahead on everything. Ideally, we will be out of debt except for a car and mortgage by the end of the summer, but there's still those two bills, electric, phone, satellite, lessons, private school tuition, health insurance, dental insurance, and car insurance that will need to be paid even when we're out of debt.

How do you or would you handle this?

[TwinMomPlus]

DH gets paid every 2 weeks (not on the 1st and 15th), too. One good thing is some months you get an extra check!

I do the same thing that you used to do, though. I have a pay on the 1st envelope and a pay on the 15th envelope and I pay everything through my online billpay. Yes some weeks there is more leftover than others but it has never bothered me. I just leave the extra money there. I'm not a good checkbook balancer, though.

Not that I bounce checks but that I just never balance the checkbook because I never seem to have time. I never buy anything and I always have an idea of what is in the account, so it isn't an issue, lol.

But anyway, that is how I do it and I never thought of a better way. Hopefully someone has some good ideas.

Congrats on the new job for DH!

[Tradd]

It's never worked for me to budget an entire month at a time! I just go by paycheck! I was so happy when I began working in my current office more than three years ago as we get paid every other Friday. I *hated* the 15th and 30th paydays in the previous job.

Make a list of ALL your monthly bills and the due dates.

Then sit down with a calendar and some paper (or you could do a simple spreadsheet). Write columns across with dates of paychecks, amount of base pay, and the bills/amounts to be paid out of that specific check. If you do it ahead several months, it gives you an idea of what's coming when and helps you predict those two extra checks a year!

Mine would look like this for this past Friday's paycheck (mind you, I'm single no kids, with a paid off car and only about $2K of cc debt):

4/9
$XXXX direct deposit amount
minus
81 car/renters insurance
150 church tithe
82 AT&T Wireless (iPhone)
56 AT&T landline/DSL
20 house gas
25 electric
150 Visa card
These are the bills I pay online. Gas, groceries, blow money, amount into savings, etc., are not strict budgeted amounts with me. But just write down however much you need to allocate to those categories.

I'll repeat this later this month
4/24
$XXXX direct deposit amount
minus
$800 rent
$150 church tithe

If your rent or mortgage payment is more than can be paid out of one check, just split it between the two, either in half or whatever works for your budget.

I've found this is the easiest way to budget.

[elsie]

I have more of a weekly system in which I pay bills for the week, once a week. I keep all the bills in one spot and pull out the ones that need to be paid for that week.

As far as making things even, well, that just does not happen for me.

[limette]

We went from every two weeks to the 15th and the 30th and for us it's been no different.

The same bills get paid around the same time. Some of the mid month money gets carried over to pay the end of the month bills.

[eirual]

It helps if you can be really good for a while and try to get a month ahead. Planning the month and knowing what TOTALS you need when can help keep the extra heaps leftover some weeks around knowing that you'll need the money for x,y, or z in a few weeks.

Can I assume you've got a budget? Take out what you need to live on for the week (and only what you need) and leave the extras in the acct or somewhere they'll be safe so that they're there when you need them.

Don't forget you can always call companies and ask to change your billing date if that would make any difference for you? If you can move them all to the end of the month and save your pay and do it in a heap that may work as long as you've already done the math and can be sure you'll have what you need at the end of it and that it doesn't flutter away in the mean time.

A change in pay schedule can really rock the boat. Think creatively and you'll find something that works for you (...eventually!)

[BetsyS]

Once I realized that I could work the every 2 weeks pay schedule into 2 "extra" checks a year, it was like a lightbulb went off. It's been great.

For us, I divide the bills into 2 piles--paycheck 1 and paycheck 2. Off the top of every check, I take giving, gas, food, then half the mortgage. The other bills vary according to the check.

For us, "check 1" is usually 4 weeks apart, but can be 6 weeks. With the way our bills fall, it's fine, though. The 4 weeks apart slowly gets closer together, then the 6 weeks come, which stretches it back out to once a month. But, nothing is ever late with this system, if that worries you. My coming checks are 5/14, 6/11, and 7/9.

The dates of "check 2" are 5/28, 6/25, and 7/23.

Our extra check is 4/30. Before the extra check, the dates of that cycle were 3/5 and 4/2 (with the next 5/14). So, there is a 6 week lag there (only happens once a year), but we have the extra, and those bills aren't due until the 15th anyway.

With the extra checks, we take out giving, gas, and food, then use the remainder for vacation (summer check) and Christmas (wnter check). It works well for us.

[sunflower.mama]

We do bills monthly (paid biweekly too). So the two checks I get (dh gets!) in April go to pay May 1 bills. I add the amount of bills due May 1 up, and the balance left over is what I can spend during April. I guess you have to be on top of bills to do this, but it works out great for us. Then, as pps have pointed out, you get 2 extra pay periods per year. The one in Oct/Nov is christmas spending (you have to budget some extra food/gas into cover the two weeks before the next monthly cycle when you do this) and the one in May goes to debt (not fun). Does that make sense? It is much easier than trying to divide it up by paycheck, since I don't have to worry exactly when the April checks come in, I just have to be sure that I have $____ in the checking account on the first of every month.

[nola79]

I think getting paid every 2 weeks is pretty much the same as the 1st and the 15th. You just use the first paycheck of the month as your "1st", and pay bills accordinly. Then, you use your second paycheck as your "15th". A few months you may get an extra check.

[annethcz]

Originally Posted by nola79

I think getting paid every 2 weeks is pretty much the same as the 1st and the 15th. You just use the first paycheck of the month as your "1st", and pay bills accordinly. Then, you use your second paycheck as your "15th". A few months you may get an extra check.

This is pretty much what I do.

[Smithie]

YMMV, but I had no peace with the household account balance until I bought Quicken software and tracked expenses for a year and just saw how it went up and down from month to month. The budget feature let's you plug in your expenses and income for the whole year and then shows you which months you come up short, and which months have a surplus.

For us, keeping a cushion in the checking account so we can envision everything on a monthly scale is what works. I loathe thinking about payday. It totally stresses me. But thinking "OK, we have X dollars left for March, I will/won't buy this item this month" makes me kind of proud of myself. Again, YMMV. And I do protect that cushion like a rabid wolverine, lest I find myself timing bills again. If it diminishes bc of an unexpected expense, we're doing the pantry challenge until it's back to the preordained level.

[Drummer's Wife]

Dh also gets paid every two weeks. It was driving me nuts to keep track of when bills were due and pay them out of the closest paycheck, so now we use one paycheck to pay for everything that we have to pay (rent, electicity, gas, internet, insurance, etc.) and the othe paycheck pays for food, fun, savings, whatever else.

I mean, I still go to the grocery store a couple times a week, but for planning and budgeting purposes I make sure all of the bills are paid with the one check, even if they aren't due for two more weeks - b/c then I know they are taken care of and not forgotten. I do online bill pay (usually from my phone), so it's just a few clicks on payday and then I'm done.


ETA: it works out to two extra paychecks a month for us - July and December. This money is not needed for bills/food - so it's used for our vacation in July, and Christmas in December.