If all your bills come out at the end of the month then one pay period will be harder to budget. One of the most helpful tips I can give you is trying to spread out your bill due dates as much as possible. Then it’s time to start over with the new pay period. Using “leftover” money from our monthly budgets is what helped us pay off over $26,500 of debt in 21 months! Start Over I would recommend using that money toward debt repayment or a savings goal. If the number is a positive number, then you’ve earned more than you’ve made. If that number is 0 – congratulations you’ve done zero based budgeting correctly! If that number is negative, then you’ve spent more than you’ve earned and you should probably revisit your budgeting.
A biweekly budget is a lot less time consuming to add up compared to monthly budgeting! After adding up what we’ve spent I subtract it from what we’ve earned. Near the end of the day before our next pay period I add up the spending to compare it to the budget we made 2 weeks prior. If we’ve overspent already then we know to reign it in. If you don’t need all of your income for variable spending, I would use it for debt repayment or savings goals! ½ Way Through Pay PeriodĪbout 1 week in I add up our spending on variable expenses like groceries, eating out and entertainment to see how much we’ve spent so far and how much we have left before the end of the pay period.
I add this amount up and then subtract it from our income, leaving me with the amount to divide up between our variable spending For ease of budgeting I have set up my mortgage, all our retirement contributions and sinking fund contributions set up to automatically happen on payday. The next step is to write in the fixed payments for the next two weeks. On payday (every second Friday for us) I sit down and add up the amount that we were just paid. This helps you figure out what bills will fall during the 2 week period that you are trying to budget for. I found it helpful to list all your bills and when they usually come out of your account or when they are due.
Budget planner biweekly pay how to#
Get Your Budget Binder On Etsy! How To Make A Bi-Weekly Budget Before You Start I’ve been using these worksheets for the past 3 months and they’ve been so useful to me! You can also buy just the biweekly budgeting sheets. I’ve added bi-weekly budgeting worksheets to my Budget Binder! This will give you the option to budget monthly or biweekly depending on your income. One other way to deal with inconsistent income is to save some money on months where you make more than you need, and then in times where your income is lower, you could use this money to “top up” your income. This makes it easier to deal with the swings in income. With bi-weekly budgeting you only budget with the money that you have actually been paid. This obviously put a huge dent in my income, which made it harder to budget. My income is consistently in the same range, but for example, in July I took ⅓ of the month off (7/21 work days in the month) for traveling.
As someone who has been self employed for almost 10 years, I can tell you that no two months have ever been the same. Budgeting With Irregular Incomeīudgeting with variable income can be very difficult. I still use zero-based budgeting, I just apply it to 2 weeks instead of the whole month. With bi-weekly budgeting you only budget money you actually already have, instead of trying to anticipate what will come.Įvery 2 weeks on payday I add up what we got paid and use that money to budget our expenses for the next 2 weeks. It makes it really easy to go over budget if I have a low income month. I won’t know until the end of the month what my pay is, which makes it frustrating to budget. Read how we paid off over $21,500 in debt!īeing self employed, I have some challenges with budgeting like: But we had a problem with overspending sometimes… It made paying off our debt way easier and faster, and sitting down monthly allowed me and my husband insight into our spending. I love this method because it gives every dollar you earn a “job”. If you’ve been following along through our debt repayment journey, you’ll know that we’ve been following the zero-based budgeting method for the last 2 years.
Self employed or struggling to budget with irregular income? A bi-weekly budget may be the answer! Budget with the money you’ve already made and check your money more often.
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